Fast Focus
	Benefits guy shows he can sell at p-c heavy Brown & Brown.
	Paschke was often brought to first close the benefits deal before the p-c guys made their move.
	He excels in recruiting and mergers and acquisitions.

Operating on the Margins

Mike Paschke benefits from cultivating the ethos of benefits in a p-c world.

By  Leslie Werstein Hann

[Page 5 of 6]

In his new position as regional executive vice president, Paschke continues to be active in mergers and acquisitions and recruiting, and he oversees offices in Northern California, Washington state and Arizona.

Breeding Ground

One of the things that gets Paschke worked up these days is recruiting. While Phoenix always had a reputation as a breeding ground for the West, Paschke helped to formalize the recruiting and training process, making his office a star among Brown & Brown offices nationwide.

“We’re one of the few independent agencies, not just at Brown & Brown, but in all of the country, that has real training programs for producers who are not in the insurance business,” Paschke says of the Phoenix office.

One of the beneficiaries was Tim Casey, who was at his wits’ end after four years in the advertising business when he met Paschke through a recruiter in 2002. Casey, 37, started as a producer in the Phoenix office, and then worked in Denver, Albuquerque and Tucson before running the Orange County, Calif., office, which has 45 employees and about $8 million in revenue. When he was first starting out, Casey says, Paschke put together a team, including people from marketing and production, to teach him what he needed to know and to support him as he grew in the job. And Paschke’s own door was always open.

“He always had time for me, and he always gave good advice.” It was Paschke, Casey says, who put his name in the hat to run the Orange office.

It’s all part of Paschke’s plan. “Our commitment for Brown & Brown has been that we will build you leaders, we will build you producers. We will groom them and then ship them out to go run operations or produce in other offices.”

And Paschke would not be surprised if his advancement is just the beginning of a trend in which a growing number of leaders at insurance brokerages come from the employee benefits side of the business.

“Whether they’re in the benefits business or whether they’re in the property-casualty business,” Paschke says, “a leader is a leader.”

Hann is managing editor. Leslie.Hann@LeadersEdgeMagazine.com

The Good Life

Michael A. Paschke