There is a list of hard money lenders here on BP, or if you start attending some of the REIAs here in the DC area you will meet some.

And you get the benefit of having over 100 past ones to catch up on.Locate and attend 3 different local REIA club meetings great place to meet people gather resources and info.

Your explanation of events is long and a bit difficult to read (you may want to shorten to encourage more responses), but I would try to go over this person's head/chain of command and complain that they did not explain that the $100 was non refunadable. 

Have you attended either of those? 

I also attended UNH - late 80's - early 90's.

And you get the benefit of having over 100 past ones to catch up on.Locate and attend 3 different local REIA club meetings great place to meet people gather resources and info.

I would love to attend any meet-ups in the area and learn what I can.

Start attending a local REIA or two to also learn as much as you can.  

Also if your managing broker is any good, they will be someone to give you ideas, set goals, bounce ideas off of, and save your butt in the event you find yourself in a bad spot. 

There are many useful groups in St Louis; feel free to PM me or look through their past events on Meetup.