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Four Industry Luminaries Inducted into Risk Management Hall of Fame at RIMS 2012

Last year at the RIMS 2011 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Vancouver, RIMS and Chartis launched the Risk Management Hall of Fame. John Pinner, Eldrich Carr, Douglas Barlow, Donald Barrett  and Cheri Hawkins were the first five inductees. Today, they were joined by four others who have spent their lives and careers advancing the discipline: Marc Darby, David Haight, Edith Lichota and Ronald Strine.

“With nearly 150 combined years in the risk management profession, this year’s group of inductees have achieved professional excellence while demonstrating a genuine commitment to advancing the discipline,” said RIMS Executive Director Mary Roth. “It is with great honor that we recognize the careers of these four individuals and welcome them into this elite group.”

Peter Eastwood, president and CEO of Chartis for the Americas, agreed. “This year’s inductees have not only served their companies, but have helped shape the risk management discipline,” he said, “and we are proud to congratulate them on this achievement.”

Below are some highlights from each of their careers.

Marc Darby

Marc Darby’s career at Bombardier spanned almost 30 years before he retired in 1998 as director of risk management and insurance. He increased the profile of the risk manager at the company and helped form a multi-discipline risk management team as Bombardier evolved from a manufacturer of recreational vehicles to a world-leader in the aerospace and rail transit industry. Marc was the president of RIMS from 1983-84, president of Quebec Risk and Insurance Management Association (QRIMA) from 1975-76, winner of the RIMS Harry and Dorothy Goodell Award in 1997 and named to the Business Insurance Risk Management Honor Roll in 1992. He remains an active member of RIMS and QRIMA.

David R. Haight

Before retiring in 1998, David R. Haight has spent more than 35 years as a risk professional at companies including Gould Inc., Ceco Corporation and CF Industries, Inc. He helped form the Northeastern Illinois Chapter of RIMS in 1978 and later served as president. He also served a term as president of the Minnesota Chapter. He was an active RIMS member from 1964-98 and now holds an honorary membership with the organization.

Edith F. Lichota (1929 – 1994)

Edith Lichota began her risk management career in the mid-1960s with a small company in western Ohio, Work Wear, tackling product liability litigation issues. In the 1970s, as assistant treasurer of Carborundum Corp. she fought against the New York State Insurance Department Regulations that would have limited corporations’ risk financing options. In the early 1980s, Ms. Lichota became vice president of government affairs with INA, during which time she supported development of the then-new captive law in Vermont. In 1987, she became the first woman ever named “Risk Manager of the Year” by Business Insurance, one year after having been named “Woman of the Year” by the Association of Professional Insurance Women. Before she passed away in 1994, she also won the highest awards handed out by RIMS, the RIMS Richard W. Bland Memorial Award, and the RIMS Harry and Dorothy Goodell Award.

Ronald E. Strine

Ronald Strine retired from Aetna Life & Casualty in 1992 after 26 years of service, 14 as senior casualty underwriter for Fortune 500 companies and 12 as the director of corporate risk management. In 1979, afte promoted to the position of manager of insurance, safety and security, Ron immediately changed the department’s name to “Corporate Risk Management” and was subsequently promoted to the position of director, a responsibility that included overseeing insurance, safety and security for over 45,000 employees and 100 affiliated companies around the world.

In 1988, Ron was appointed by then Secretary of State George Shultz to the newly created Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) where he was the only risk manager among the council of senior security directors. After earning his CPCU designation in 1970, Ron began a 25-year relationship with The Insurance Institute of America (now The Institutes) as a grader for CPCU and IIA examinations. He also taught RM 54 for many years at the University of Connecticut and later developed the University of Hartford Graduate School curriculum for their course in risk management. He retired in 2005, having served 44 years in the industry.

RIMS 2012 Opening Reception Recap

If you were lucky enough to be at the opening reception for the RIMS 2012 Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia, then you probably channeled your inner child for a good portion of the night.

The reception, held at the Please Touch Museum, offered guests access to not only delicious food, drink and networking opportunities, but also to the entire museum, which features nostalgic play spaces that brought back countless childhood memories. The 2012 conference is officially underway — let the fun begin!

Check back for daily updates from the RIMS 2012 Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Billy Beane and Baseball’s Big Spenders

For me, the surest sign that spring has arrived is the beginning of the baseball season. And although the season officially kicked off with a series of games between the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners last week in Japan, it really began in earnest last night when the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals beat the new-look Miami Marlins on Opening Night.

In the spirit of the new baseball season, I recently had the chance to speak to Billy Beane, the general manager of the aforementioned Oakland A’s and the subject of the book and movie Moneyball, for the latest issue of Risk Management. Beane will also be delivering a keynote address at the upcoming RIMS 2012 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Philadelphia. In our interview, Beane discussed how he uses data to run a competitive baseball team and addressed some of the risk management and insurance concerns that a general manager of a baseball team has to face.

One comment I found particularly interesting was the following:

About 10 years ago, we’d insure player contracts. What’s interesting is that, for years, say you signed a player to a five- or six-year contract, you could get that entire contract insured. And I remember one time [our insurer] came to us and said they’re no longer going to insure contracts for longer than three years. After three years, they need to be underwritten again. And my assistant and I said, “that’s an insurance company telling us that it’s not a good idea for us to sign players beyond three years.”… So that was basically them telling us these aren’t good bets.

What makes this comment so interesting is that it doesn’t seem like this philosophy is shared around the league. For instance, this past offseason the Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim signed first baseman Albert Pujols to a 10-year, $240 million contract while the Detroit Tigers gave first baseman Prince Fielder $214 million over 9 years. Not to be outdone for the privilege of paying players $20 million a year, just last week the Cincinnati Reds gave their star first baseman Joey Votto a 10-year, $225 million contract extension, while the San Francisco Giants extended pitcher Matt Cain’s contract by 5 years for $112.5 million.

Regardless of the value of these contracts, they all go against Beane’s (and his insurer’s) no-more-than-three-years rule and it’s hard to see how these players will deliver full value on their deals. Granted they are some of the best players in the game right now but injury and age could take their toll on performance at any time. Pujols, in particular, may be one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but he is 32. Not many players, no matter how good, are still productive (or even able to play) in their 40s. These signings seem to illustrate the difference between baseball’s big markets haves and it’s small market have-nots like the Oakland A’s. The richer clubs are simply able to take on risks that Beane cannot.

Or maybe there’s a more insidious method to their madness, as Jonah Keri writes on ESPN’s Grantland:

Sweating potential value, opportunity cost, and other related principles might be focusing on the wrong details. The recent $2 billion Dodgers sale points to a baseball landscape that has changed dramatically. Current and prospective owners see an industry that grew revenue through a tough recession and now stands poised to rake in far more money, with media deals rising, the economy improving, and the game in the midst of its longest period of uninterrupted labor peace since the advent of free agency.

According to Keri, these owners are making what they think are smart choices given the current market. But these choices may be based on the assumption that that the value of their clubs can only go up into the rarefied billion-dollar air.  So what’s a few hundred million here and there? A baseball team is basically a license to print money. Obviously, nothing can ever go wrong with that strategy. Right, housing market?

April Issue of Risk Management Now Online

The April issue of Risk Management is now online here. Along with this month’s columns and features, it also includes a special RIMS 2012 Conference & Exhibition Preview.

Included are features covering:

This issue’s columns cover:

If you enjoy what you seen online, you can subscribe to the print edition to enjoy even more content.

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