Rusty Reid, CEO and President Higginbotham
Rusty Reid
Rusty Reid, CEO and President of well known Higginbotham. A Fort Worth landmark business celebrates its 75th birthday with Fortitude. Rusty took over in 1986 as its 12th employee and has built the Insurance Agency into the largest in Texas. He knew what he was destined to do from an early age and thus has built a reputation as one of Fort Worth’s great business leaders. How did it happen? What makes him go? What makes him successful? Where are the skeletons? Watch and find out. Happy Birthday HIGG!
Episode Transcription:
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roxo media house
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welcome back to fortitude folks today’s a special one I am sitting in the presence of a guy I’ve known for a long
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time a man named Rusty Reed welcome to the show Rusty thanks JW fortitude is brought to you by the folks at cap tax
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Bank thank you Mike Thomas we know you’re watching out there every day religiously so thank you for your time
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and Your sponsorship but uh Rusty uh he’s here today for a lot of reasons particularly one big one Higginbotham
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his company that he’s been running for so long is turning turning 75 years old happy birthday Hig thank you there we go
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but before we get into the juicy stuff let’s talk about you a little bit if you don’t mind sure your childhood uh where
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were you born so I was born in uh actually born in Baylor Hospital in Dallas Texas okay don’t tell you now I
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know we’re in fact I won’t tell anybody be careful about that fair enough tell us a little bit about your childhood if you if you don’t mind what you can uh
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what you can tell us yeah so sure happy too so uh born in Dallas I had a little
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brother have a little brother uh Brian that I grew up with who’s of my sidekick
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like many people unfortunately my folks ended up getting divorced at a pretty
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young age I think it was like nine but I grew up living over in an area called
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Medallion shopping center and so back in the old days where I went to the same
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Elementary School Dandy Rogers for seven years and then they kind of shipped us
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over to what was at the time called Ben Franklin Junior High same building turned in to the Freshman
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Hillcrest Center so I went there and then Hillcrest High School so uh anyhow
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long story short kind of spent all my informative years and uh Dallas and was
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actually headed to the University of Texas which as much as I loved the Longhorns I’m glad I had a little
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diversion kind of a sad story but a good it nevertheless I’m not the only fall in this category so get accepted go to UT
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and unfortunately my dad passes away my folks were divorced but that passes away
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so my grandparents encouraged me to stay close to home so I thought well I’ll
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just go to SMU and they quickly explained to me that that wasn’t in the budget now the JW the comical part about
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it this is I paid for my own way to go through school so I still I guess when you’re young you don’t kind of connect
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those dots but I had a bunch of great friends of mine going to North Texas and
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so I kind of followed that uh train to UNT or at that time North Texas State
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University which by the way headed to Vegas I don’t know if you noticed a play in a little nit semi-final yes I did um
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but I went to North Texas and really kind of set the trajectory of my life
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which actually ultimately brought me to Higginbotham so I I’ve met my wife there
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Molly who we’ve been married for quite some time since 1985 right uh wait let
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me check my notes see that yeah work actually one of my colleagues today
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was of tourney brother a guy named ed Coker when he was moving on for
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graduation to go work for a company called American General down in Houston uh he worked for an agency there in
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Denton called Raymond king of Menace and because I was still paying for my schooling he encouraged me to take that
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job and I was like absolutely and so really a great great mentor of mine was a gentleman
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named Carol King and he was one of the principals and so I got to work there kind of the junior half a junior year
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and all my senior year and then a upon graduation he was very generous with his time and
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and made a point to line me up with really three different job opportunities which I landed on at American General
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and that’s what led me uh to Houston sure so I worked down there upon graduation and then I was at a in our
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industry they have uh kind of industry conferences based on the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas and so I was
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working the conference trying to get independent agents and Brokers to sell our product and the the president of
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American General at that time a guy named J.D white came to me and said uh you know I’d love to have you uh come
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back to the Metroplex because I know that’s where your home was and don’t have a spot for you in Dallas but I have
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a spot for you in Fort Worth and I said of course naturally yes sir I’m happy happy to take that on and he said if you
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mess it up you’re going to Baton Rouge so it kind of became my motivation to certainly do well and so I came to Fort
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Worth and and my job to build out this market and the the gentleman that I became very
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fond of was a fellow named Bill Stroud who was the nephew of Paul Higginbotham the founder of Higginbotham and he
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encouraged me to join the business and I did that December of 86 and it’s like
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say the rest is history so and before we get a little further so you said you helped pay for school by or you pay for
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school by your own efforts was this selling insurance for the original or what were you doing now great great question so upon my Dad’s passing uh he
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he had a number of rental properties and so my little brother and I it’s a joke would go we’d help help him work on
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rental properties almost as the maintenance guys the paint guy whatever it may be and if we did really well we
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got to have a free lunch if we did good the second half of the day we got to have a free dinner but but upon his
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passing my other grandfather was in the advertising business and he he knew that I knew how to to paint pretty well and
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so we created Reed Brothers Painting really and so we we patched out flyers
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up and down Montgomery or Mike Montgomery Mockingbird there in Highland Park and landed a number of jobs so
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putting my way through school I I had the opportunity to paint homes I had the
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opportunity to work for National Health Studios up in Denton who by the way was
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run by now the now Stacy McDavid so she was my boss and we always giggled about
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that when we see one another and uh and then I also worked at Raymond King and
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Menace so I ultimately by the time I got close to graduation I was only working that’s fantastic thank God it’s
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fantastic yeah and so in 86 back to your where you left off E6 you joined Higginbotham with Mr Stroud as you
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mentioned as the 12th employee that’s what I have yeah that’s right yeah so obviously it’s a small company at that
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point uh only a few years short few years later in three years in fact you
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were 27 years old and you were named CEO president of of Higginbotham correct that’s correct please for those that
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know you and you know a lot of folks in this town and everybody says really nice things about you I assume you know that
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you’re a really nice wonderful guy but how does one become a CEO at such an early age of a of such a young company
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what what led what steps led to that if you that I wish bill was around uh he
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had a lot of faith and confidence in me obviously um so it it’s probably important to note
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that the training that I received when I was at American General uh was really very thorough and and I remember one of
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my other colleagues at uh Higginbotham used to say because I’d always go to him
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and go why me I’m so young and he’d say Rusty you know when you talk about experience you have guys that have 30
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years experience but it’s just one year over and over and over again said you’ve yeah you’re neuter newer to the industry
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but your experience is rather robust and it’s it’s full and so when I was
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actually brought into Higginbotham Bill had two underwriting programs one with a
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company called Crum enforcer and the one with the one called uh uh Providence
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Washington and so my job was really to oversee that program so we at that time were again and I’ll also important to
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note we were a tiny company but but my job was to actually oversee the business insurance side of the agency which you
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know was probably represented about 65 percent of that and
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um he very quickly I mean and it’s kind of my leadership style as well I mean he
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he very quickly let me just kind of grab the Baton and I ran that and then I kind
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of learned the early lesson I had a one of the sales guys I kind of had a little
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uh a spat with there’s the nice way to put it and I went in his office almost
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to be a little bit of a tattletale and he very quickly reminded me that when I had numbers by my name I I even like I
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was producing not just overhead I could come in and have a much louder voice and
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so I because of really my training that I had had um I really then kind of launched I
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thought you know what I can run this side of the business but I’m going to actually go sell and really probably my
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fondest Day is when I passed this guy because he was the largest sales guy at the time and so I think really the
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accumulation of my product knowledge uh you know the fact that I I had really
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already run the largest part of our organization and then on top of that I
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was leading the firm in sales I think it kind of became a decision that and it
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was his call because he owned 100 of the company but um he he was also and I’ll digress a
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second I mean you know in life it’s always great to have great mentors and when I reflect back on my life and I’m
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not that old you know as you were there I mean they say 60 the new 40. so I’m only 40. but when I reflect back on my
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life I’ve had some very very wonderful mentors from from Terrell King Remy King
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and menace to JD white at American General and then bill so you know I had a lot of great mentorship to help me
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once I was past that baton to run the firm uh it was very very helpful and you
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know I never bought a company either and so that’s the other thing that we did in 89 kind of in conjunction with me being
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anointed as the president and CEO that I had the The Good Fortune of signing my
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name on the dotted line which I still laugh about this today because I think I was Molly and I rent an apartment at
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Highland Park Apartments and we were releasing a Volvo so it wasn’t like I had any assets to pledge right but as
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Bill Adams who was our Banker first city at the time said well no if this thing fails I’m going to own you for life so I
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guess it gave me plenty of motivation to get after but you know we bought the company
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through a vehicle called an eShop Employee Stock ownership plan and trust and and it was great for Bill and and
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what he deserved it was great for us as the buyers but more broadly culturally
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and it’s really kind of who we are today as well it allowed me to you know I’m just a very loyal person you know this
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because our personal relationship and I really believe you danced with the ones who brung it and I was sitting there
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thinking about you know we we explored all kinds of ways to buy higginbot them you know at the time Bill was on the
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border Bank of Commerce and we went down and met with them to see maybe that I just would he’d co-sign a note when that
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note was paid off I’d owned the company and and that that didn’t sound like a
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good solution to me for a couple reasons number one if I was the 12th employee excluding Bill there was 10 others that
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had been there before me and it just didn’t it just didn’t feel right you know they were there getting that firm
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from you know Bill when he took over to where it was when I I walked in and so I
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didn’t like that truth be told and of course the ESOP meant everybody was going to own the company so that was a
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great solution and then the other thing that that that I saw in in my you know
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short time a couple years with American General was that if you didn’t have ownership in the agency oftentimes if
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you know the guy in the corner owned it and you’re their top sales guy you just pack your bags up and you’d start your
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own company and become a competing uh firm right and so I thought if we’re gonna a retain the people we’ve got but
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more importantly attract people and then have people stay with us we need to we need to give them ownership I think
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that’s one of the things that I love about the company is that this employee owned I think you talked about uh if I
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could digress one second please your cells your shells style uh it’s very clear you’re very good at selling things
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and that’s one of your secrets to your success what make what makes you would you say a good salesman in this world so
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I think that’s a great question and I always advise my young people
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um because I’m now 40 I’m I’m probably one of the younger but uh I here’s just
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the fact of any industry I think you can have great people skills and you’ll do okay you can be very technical and
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you’ll be okay I learned quite early on you need to bring those together in the middle and so I’ve always prided myself
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on really being a student of the industry being very technically proficient but also to mirror with that
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you know people skills right and and it’s that’s not hard right you’re you’ve
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being a male I’m always want to be a gentleman I want to be very respectful uh I want to certainly if I say I’m
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going to do something by God I’m going to fall through and do it I think what what people know about me is that I if I
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if I commit I’m all in I’m not just gonna you know go half Hazard at it and
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I’m naturally very competitive unlike you you and my son Charlie and even Jake and I mean I was I was athletic but I
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wasn’t certainly going to play at the next level with sports football and and uh also was a pole vaulter believe it or
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not so I I kind of got to do those two sports and love both of them um my problem is I digressed a second I
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when in practice at Hillcrest I happened to go up against a guy that was six six a guy named Ricky Bolden that went on to
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be part of the Pony Express and a very successful career with the Cleveland Browns and then one of our competing uh
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teams we played against always was Thomas Jefferson and they had a little guy named Michael Carter who went on a
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course to have not only be a wildly successful football player at SMU and I
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think went on to the Chicago Bears but he also was a world-class shot putter in the Olympics I actually I actually spent
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a lot of time with him because SMU was so close to Hillcrest they were generous enough to let a lot of the ISD Kids Go
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go there and work out so I work when I pulled off and I actually went there to practice because we didn’t have that
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facility and of course it amazes me this day thinking about Michael Carter literally as a high schooler was out
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shot putting all the guys at SMU absolutely so but yeah um so the another thing that’s what’s
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lovely about Higg is that it’s and this is one things I’ve heard and I’ve read several times but it’s a single Source
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uh service model is which I think you’ve told me this yourself but you you want and I think that means just so we’re get
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this uh right everything that you would ever need for an insurance needs should come through one person in one place is
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that kind of what does yeah Jada perfect yeah and I’ll tell you I mean I I I I’m
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the one here on the mic today but you know it it takes a village to build what we’ve built and and it’s certainly early
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days you know which are still very much part of who we are today you know we early on as I began to get more in the
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client-facing side of the business I had people coming to me going don’t you have somebody that does benefits and and
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candidly I did not at the time I had a wonderful person a guy named uh uh John
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Park who was with time insurance and he he kept pounding me listen I can help you you know broaden your business and
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do employee benefits and so um I I took his took him up on his offer
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and we landed a couple of wonderful accounts and I very quickly picked up the phone and called my pledge brother
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and dear friend Jim Hubbard who at the time was working for New York Life and said Jim I think the demand is really
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here I said I think we’re sitting on a gold mine we’re predominantly a property Cassidy firm uh and and people are
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really wanting us to kind of manage other parts of their business at that time we did their business insurance and
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then their personal think Auto home that kind of thing and so we added that line of business uh and then shortly after
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him joining me in April of 89 and we buy the business in June of 89 Along Comes
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Michael Parks who was actually one of my first social friends and Michael was working for Connecticut mutual and so
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what we they they kind of started originally we called our life and health department which became a nice bolt-on
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and we very quickly found that clients really did they we kind of thought about
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it and back to my kind of technical side you know you can’t be a jack of all trade to master none and industry
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because you’re you’re managing people’s assets their health care potentially their estate planning Etc and so that
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really kind of broadened our efforts and both of them were life insurance guys
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but then they even came and said hey we need to have life insurance experts and then they found themselves working on
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retirement plans and like we need to get retirement plan experts in here
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predominantly for 401k but you know other retirement vehicles and then you
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know it broadened it it’s like you know a lot of these clients need HR Support right most mid-market companies which we
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kind of Define you know 10 employees to really 2 000 you know oftentimes you
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play a very active role in kind of be an extension of their bench right and so we added HR and then then we had clients
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coming to us going hey we need help with lost control to make sure we have safe work environments and so we we very
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quickly began to broaden our scope and provide a lot of ancillary services like
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loss prevention and brought attorneys on staff to to help do not only risk
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mitigation but if you help do contract review and claims adjusters and wellness
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people and and so really I would tell you what’s been a fun thing to watch
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from from my seat it’s just we we’re just we do a great job of listening really what clients need and then just
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saying because we’re privately held you know we’re like okay what can we do to best surround the client and hence
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became the single Source model right we put the client in the middle build professional disciplines around that
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client so we could they know they could come to us but we could be their single source as it related to their insurance
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financial services and HR needs if you will and that’s that’s kind of been our
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model you know really from the get-go we’ve just kind of expanded those Services absolutely business offerings
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that’s wonderful for comparison so when you started in 86 of this 12th employee till now how many employees does
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Higginbotham claim well that’s always a good question because it’s always a moving Target
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um but in a positive way I might add um I think we’re close I think the reported number we like to use now is
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2500 uh believe it or not that that does Change Daily because back in 07 we kind
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of deployed what I call a dual growth strategy so we’ve always grown very much organically we had a lot of people that
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wanted to buy us to build out Texas and you know we as I like to say we may be
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done but we’re not stupid we’re like well I built it out for you guys we’ll build it out for ourselves so we we kind
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of developed a partner strategy and legal form to make Acquisitions to bring on to our team but then kind of
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higmatize them get them doing business the way we do in business and and so our
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organic growth adds a lot of employees but so does our partnership strategy so
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I went you know when I started we were kind of one office 12 employees right here in one city Fort Worth Texas and
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today we have I think about 87 offices spread over 15 states and I and and I’m
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going to just I’ll use 2500 uh somebody might correct me if I’m too high or too low but that’s probably a good ballpark
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do you ever think back to the 86 89 days and and look at look look at it now and
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what is what does that make you feel like if you if you ever have those thoughts oh we we think about it all the
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time and and and I say we because many of us when when I came to to Higg and
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really our home for Higginbotham from 86 to really 97 when we moved our our
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current location part of the business did and then the balance of the team moved later but we it was Bailey Street
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so we were right there on the corner of uh Bristol and Bailey and so we always
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when we all talk you know at the water or at the water cooler it’s always like ah back to the Bailey days so yeah we we
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and and I will tell you that’s the the thing sometimes I think some of our smaller competitors like to throw stones
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at us and and and but know we we are a we’re still we were named very wonderful
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Accolade uh we were we’ve been named best place to work a lot not only in
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terms of local markets but the state of Texas and even on a national scope and
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one of my colleagues in the interview at the time we’ve grown since this interview is that it wasn’t that long
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ago but his comment was and I think this holds true to culturally what we try to
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preserve he said even though and at this interview we had a thousand employees so we’ve doubled plus that but he said he
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he was number 30 coming into Higginbotham he said even though we have a thousand employees I still feel like
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we’re a 30 person company and what that means to me is we’ve got at 2500
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employees and because of our size we have all the resources to work very much
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on a global basis uh leveraging our single Source model but we still can be
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very local and that’s really what we are every one of our offices are in communities where we can we can be high
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touch and I think in the world that we’re in you know not that we’re not digital and we don’t have some
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incredible technologies that we leverage with our client base and our employees but being local I think I think in our
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industry you either have to subscribe to the theory that you’re you know you’re you’re kind of an order taker or you
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really subscribe through your people business and I I take it a step further we’re people business and we’re really
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all about relationships and so we’ve tried to build our footprint in parts of the country where relationships really
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do matter yes and obviously starting in Texas with you know Texas Roots it’s it’s it’s kind of what permeates as we
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expand outside of the footprint so much so that you’ve built uh this company with with your employees to the largest
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Independent Insurance Agency in the state of Texas and 20th in the country Still Still the numbers yes yeah and we
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uh is your goal is your goal to keep going I mean I would tell you you know
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our goal isn’t to to be the biggest um we really focused on more being the
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best um and and and I think because we focused on being the best we’ve actually gotten quite large I mean most people
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don’t realize this but if you look at the independent agency system there’s approximately 35
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000 independent agents and brokers in the country and and and many of them that are larger than us have a full
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National footprint where we’re only in the lower part of the U.S so um if you know if they let me cheat and
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say well if I was at all across the country I’d actually be bigger than you guys but it’s really not about that it’s I always say everything in our lens ties
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back to our mission vision and values you know our our mission says we want to exceed expectations of our
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constituencies which are our employees our trading partners are are uh
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certainly our clients in our communities our our mission our vision statement says we just want to be best for all
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them and then our value statement says we want to be family to our employees would be complete advocates for our
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clients partners with our carriers and then generous to our communities and so you know nowhere in that obviously says
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we want to be the biggest it’s just been well you know it’s funny we looked up in 07 we were the largest firm in north
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Texas I don’t know when we became the largest in Texas and you know one day if we become the largest in the country
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great but I’m the things that matter to me and I know my partners is more about you know
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having great retention of our clients great retention of our employees you
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know really being fulfilling our mission to be generous to our communities um and and being you know in our
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industry you know the reason why our insurance company some people refer to them as vendors or just the carriers but
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we really want to be partners and kind of back to that southern hospitality we’ve learned through the years if you
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treat them well it’s what my grandmother taught me right Rusty you treat people with kindness you’re going to get a lot
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more in return than if you you know strong-armed them and I can’t tell you JW how many times we on behalf of our
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clients have been able to take what’s a really tough situation and because we’ve got great relationships with our client
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with our insurance companies get things done that nobody else gets done I mean literally and
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um that’s you know so so that has helped us grow a lot which helped us keep some
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incredible employees helped us keep some incredible clients help us land some
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amazing new clients but you know it’s I say it’s a three-legged stool it’s kind
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of us it’s the insurance company you know team and it’s always our our client
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and it what the magic is how do you keep all that working well and in harmony so
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anyhow we’re celebrating the 75th uh birthday of Higginbotham you’ve been at
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the helm for more than half of that uh from then until now can you talk about
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any of the major struggles that you’ve overcome throughout that time I mean everybody running a business in this
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world takes a lot of a lot of work a lot of efforts and a lot of failures in some regards uh certainly you’ve seen your
26:41
share of of struggles and hurdles you’ve overcome is anything you could share with us you know it’s funny I used to
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say and it’s almost true I’m hoping I’ve when 2030 rolls around I’ll be able to
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pass the Baton to some somebody else because if I just follow my history with Higginbotham on every even decade so
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think 1990 think 2000 I think 2010 I
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think 2020 my oh my there’s no rule book to explain
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how you get through this and I’ll go through them quickly so in night you know we buy the business in 89 in 1990
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we look up and we are losing our riches I mean we we and and it’s like what you
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see often a company that had no debt all of a sudden has debt um people you know we were pretty
27:29
comfortable as an organization because we’re a successful business but now we have debt and now you know you kind of
27:36
had to carry your weight right and so we we had to we we had to make some really hard decisions to to right-size our our
27:44
expenses and and unfortunately we did and we lost nobody we for us it wasn’t a
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function of let’s go put a bullet in a lot of people that’s never been my leadership style
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um I’ve always been a fan of let’s grow the Top Line everything if grow the top line and build it as it comes versus
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building it and hope it comes has always been my strategy and so 90 was a we were
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small and Tiny But a very challenging year and what was even more comicals I went to Bill Stroud and and I go oh my
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gosh we’re going to have to do boom boom boom and he’s like well it’s your business now you figured out so you know
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at a young age you had to grow up quickly roll the clock forward you know in 2000 we saw the.com boom but we also
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saw a horrific.com bust and we we had a
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web business that we were involved in and a lot of really tough times in and
28:37
around that but you know thanks to the team and I think some of the competitive
28:42
spirit that I’ve just you know either I was born with or have had to because of
28:47
my my you know informative years had to to to capture I was able to kind of lead
28:53
the charge through that uh you know 2010 I mean you know the financial crisis hit
28:59
in 08 and really things kind of went away you know the market hit an all-time low March of 09 and really two thousand
29:07
10 it was a booger bear and of course I left out the you know I remember like it
29:12
was yesterday we were in our our building we’re in today when 9 11 hit and you know I was on the on the phone
29:18
with Michael parks’s wife and and she’s like oh my gosh what do we do and I said I don’t know but you need to go pick
29:25
your kids up and you know take shelter and I remember bringing everybody in the atrium and saying having one of our he’s
29:32
deceased now God Rest his soul but Morgan Woodruff you know say a prayer and try to calm everybody’s nerves
29:39
because you know they were bombing you know things that were you know related to the military and right next to us we
29:46
had a government office and so you know the the the just not panicking and just
29:53
trying to be calm but not knowing well last time this happened here’s what you do uh so certainly 10 was an interesting
30:00
time because of the hope and it rebounded from the financial crisis and then of course whoever
30:07
knew the word covid-19 right and so uh what an interesting day that was you
30:13
know we we were I remember this thing all sudden became very real and and
30:18
again I did what I always did I don’t think I always have all the right answers and so I quickly formed what we
30:25
called the covid-19 task force and said how do we you know we we don’t have a rule book here boys and girls so we’re
30:31
gonna have to figure this thing out so long story short I’m sure there’s been a zillion others that are anywhere in
30:37
between but you know what what I think I learned in 90 was you don’t give up what
30:43
I learned in 10 is you don’t give up or in 2000 you don’t give up same thing in 10 and same thing in 20. and and I tried
30:51
to you know now that I’m older uh again only 40 but um Now That I’m Older I’ve
30:56
tried to really impression laughing yeah yeah try to impress upon our team mates
31:01
that you know guys it this too shall pass I mean it’s just nothing’s ever
31:06
guaranteed in life this too shall pass if you every day just try to do the
31:12
right thing you you’re it’s going to be okay it’s going to be okay and so uh you
31:17
know I kind of a comical sidebar oh Bill Stroud one of his favorite sayings
31:22
always was he’s like Rusty God takes care God takes care of children and
31:28
idiots aren’t you glad we’re idiots and so you know I can’t help but when these
31:33
tough times occur and then we find our way out out of them I just hear him in
31:38
my ear making that little comment so you mentioned you mentioned Bill Stroud several times uh I know there’s a few
31:45
more but could you tell are there any you have heroes in your life or I know you had bills that mentor and some of these people throughout their insurance
31:51
upbringing and even now but anybody other than an insurance man or a businessman that was ever your hero Yeah
31:57
well yeah of course I didn’t get to spend as many years as I wish I could have but my dad clearly a Great Hero I
32:04
was blessed beyond words to have incredible grandparents and and and it
32:11
was it was kind of funny I I tease and ingest with my family all the time because upon my grandfather Reed’s
32:17
passing and upon my grandmother uh or grandfather Jurgens which was my mother’s um uh Dad’s passing they both
32:24
told their respective wives don’t worry Russ will handle everything so I I guess
32:30
they they they for some reason thought I make things okay so they were they were
32:35
great people then of course you know Molly’s dad is is you know get emotional
32:40
but great guy yeah for sure absolutely and I know this man I have to agree with you for sure so big big dad you know
32:46
it’s it’s uh it’s it’s you just feel blessed in life and not everybody gets this opportunity but you know met him in
32:54
1981 and of course you know he played football at Auburn as did while his brother played football at north Texas
33:00
under Hayden fry in my first meeting with them you know I’m just young preppy guy coming in from North Texas and I’m
33:06
calling on his daughter and calling on Charlie little Charlie’s sister and
33:11
first time I I met him I basically was welcomed with grunts like hmm you know
33:17
and uh I knew I knew I’d captured uh the respect of him when I was leaving so
33:23
when when I got my first job at American General in Houston I had Molly with me and my mother and we were going to drive
33:29
down to Houston and as as we were pulling out of the driveway I hear this
33:35
hey Russ and he’s you know he’s a big man we call him big dad for a reason you know him so you know what I’m talking about and now roll down the wind and he
33:41
reaches in the car and kisses me on the cheek that was it not leading over to Molly
33:47
and I go well I guess she likes me now so he’s a great he’s been a great dad not just father-in-law as is his wife
33:54
to me and and more importantly you know you always know the impact people
33:59
have on you because my kids they he’s the integral part of their lives is I am
34:05
an integral part of their lives so you know his grandchildren and really anybody he touches he’s a very special
34:11
man I’ve been very blessed to have him in my life um thank you for sharing that’s fantastic
34:16
um a little bit different subject but you’ve grown so much over the years uh and I own I know you’ve been off at
34:22
people called and asked wanting to buy your business hey you should join up we should merge all the things that
34:27
happened during course of business’s life how do you how do you stay independent all these years how do you
34:32
not go after the Allure of the of the big public prize perhaps or I assume big companies have asked to buy you over the
34:39
years what is it about you and the company that makes you want to stay private is well I do think you know the
34:46
the thing that’s been so great for us and I think this is a great for our employees and it’s great for our our
34:52
clients and great for our carriers and our communities is you know we answer to
34:57
our shareholders yes but our shareholders are us right and and we we’ve been very fortunate we’ve had a
35:05
wildly successful run much greater than any of us ever ever ever ever envisioned
35:11
um and we’ve we’ve set up our you know we run a tight ship
35:17
um you know we we’ve always run a very conservative operation and it’s allowed us to be
35:24
profitable and and that profitability has allowed us to make distributions to our shareholders and so oftentimes you
35:32
know you have to sell your business because you’re not able to get liquidity and and and many people they build a
35:39
business and it’s time to ring the bell and get that liquidity um and in our case we we’ve kind of
35:44
solved for that literally you know seven forward uh and and then the other thing
35:50
I would tell you is you know you have to sell your business when you don’t really build back fill of leadership and we’ve
35:55
got I mean the you know much like Bill Stroud did with me I kind of took a
36:01
chapter out of his book and and and I’ve done the same I mean many of the young folks in our organizations have
36:07
tremendous responsibilities and they’ve done incredible jobs so you know my and
36:13
I say this all the time my hope is um that Higginbotham truly is a legacy
36:18
asset that you know 75 years from now it won’t be you and it won’t be me but it might be your successor and be my
36:25
successor hosting this interview because we we’ve you know not to steal somebody else’s tagline but we’ve built
36:31
Higginbotham to last and and we and we’ve recognized the importance of all
36:36
the constituencies in our business what that really means and entails and I’ll tell you it’s harder to do it that way
36:43
than just get to certain Point ring the bell and say we all won but I think I
36:49
think you know thus far our journey is you know we’re I always tell people it’s a marathon not a Sprint and I kind of
36:56
personally feel we hadn’t even passed the 5K marker so I think we got a great future ahead of us since and I feel
37:03
blessed to be at the helm and I feel blessed having great Partners helping me steer the ship You’ve Won multiple
37:10
Awards over the years you know your company itself you know you’re an insurance Business America Hall of Fame uh one of the most admired CEOs by
37:16
Dallas Business Journal for Chamber of Commerce has given you an excellent excellence in leadership award one of
37:22
the most Innovative agents in America you know and one particular one National Multiple Sclerosis Society funding Hall
37:28
of Fame that one caught my attention the other things I think we all can agree that they’re warranted and you’ve done a
37:34
wonderful job you give back to the community like none other uh what what is the Multiple Sclerosis Society and
37:40
why is that in your in your life so a great question so early on and you know
37:46
we we now have the corsagen bathroom Community fine but early early on one of my it’s still the date a dear dear
37:52
friend and a great client was a guy named David Miner and he had time had minors uh lawn care right and and so
37:59
great great friend uh talk about a mentor I mean he he was he he definitely
38:05
made me uh respect the fact that she better bring the best uh solution to the table for a client and he reminded that
38:12
not only annually but frequently but David was also a great individual in the
38:17
sense that here had been a community given to him and his family the opportunity to build a great business
38:24
and it rewarded him rightfully so very very well and so he
38:30
was on the board of multiple sclerosis he was actually the board chair and I shared with him I really wanted to get
38:36
more involved at a philanthropic level just I I just I kind of was wired like that you can’t just build a business
38:43
hence taking from the community you need to get back and he said Rusty this is a great opportunity so I got involved with
38:51
Ms got on the board they host the first event I kind of got involved in was what they called the jiggling gelatin slide
38:58
and I had the Good Fortune of a friend of mine Dave Craddock known as Kidd Kraddick the radio he was he had his
39:04
radio show that was booming so he was my MC for the event and then for anybody
39:10
out there that’s a Barney fan uh one of our dear dear friends uh owned a
39:16
Levine’s Department Store and so Damon King’s Daughter Lauren King was on the
39:21
Barney show and so she agreed to be our celebrity guest to you know basically
39:27
slide down in this vat of gel of into of out of jello and so we raised a lot of
39:32
money for Ms well then the next thing they came to me said what else you think you would like to do and so we we kind
39:39
of constructed what we called the MS rodeo and concert and so a gentleman in
39:45
town on a guy named Gary McKinney who’s passed away now but his own McKinney Toyota had multiple sclerosis and he
39:53
said I think I can get the the north Texas Toyota dealers to not only contribute a truck to auction off but I
40:00
think we can we want to we’ll make a big blast out of this we’ll come in as a large large sponsor and so we basically
40:08
put on thanks to Phillips shoots who uh was helped do the PRCA Rodeo and then
40:15
thanks to my dear friend Gary osher we hired Lori Morgan who at that time was on fire and by the way she was dating
40:21
Troy Aikman who’s of course a Super Bowl you know winner and it just was that
40:26
perfect storm so we we did basically a series of four of these and raised a tremendous amount of money for Ms and so
40:34
hence they they gave me that that’s good that’s great so if you ever if you’re
40:39
listening you probably can tell that this guy’s got a lot on his plate let’s let’s throw on this you sit on several
40:45
boards Rusty you’re on the All Saints Episcopal School Board Casa Manana board Davey O’Brien board several I think are
40:53
maybe have dropped off but tell me if I’m wrong but YPO the world president’s organization tcu’s Board of Trustees the
41:00
Council of insurance agents and Brokers which is a lot in itself and then I see one here goosehead goosehead happens to
41:07
me in this building this is another Insurance Agency could I ask about these guys yeah absolutely they’re uh by the
41:13
way a great success story um Mark and Robin Jones are the founders
41:19
of this business and it’s kind of in our kind of in our purview but not really they’re they they kind of have built a
41:26
business that’s very technically connected um where they they took advantage of
41:33
what I’ll call the captive Insurance space so if you think of the likes of the All-State State Farms and Farmers
41:40
where you you basically work for them they saw because Robin the wife saw that
41:47
she tried to do closings because she was in the mortgage banking industry and could never get a bindable policy at
41:55
closing and that resulted in a delay of closing which sometimes means you didn’t get it closed right and so Mark very
42:03
brilliant guy Harvard MBA and and was a bank consultant and they have six children and I’m sure there was some
42:10
discussion at the dinner table you need to get off the road and stay home so he he he retired and said let me think if I
42:17
can build a business model to solve for this so they they’ve built this incredible National footprint where they
42:23
basically served the mortgage lending industry to provide homeowners at
42:28
closing and they’ve got a phenomenal business that that does that will they
42:33
also kind of figured out that the because State Farm is both a sales arm but it’s also the insurance company will
42:40
if you’re with State Farm and you’re in Fort Worth Texas and you get to live liberated by one of our hail storms you
42:46
might not be able to write you know homeowners anymore so you need a multi-carrier platform and so they also
42:52
figured out hey we can build a franchise with this so I felt very honored and uh
42:58
blessed to be invited to serve on their board and it and for me I always look at and you talk about all these boards I
43:04
always look at boards as an opportunity for me really for professional development it also serves as an
43:11
opportunity for me to to to kind of see how other people do it and maybe we can take some of those things and apply it
43:18
to our business and so but they’re a great family that owns it and they took it public and so you know not that we’re
43:25
on a path to go public but it’s nice to see how a public company is run and operated and on the inside and should
43:32
that ever happen in our world at least I can have a little view of what that looks yeah I think that’s awesome
43:37
um do you have do you have much free time most of my I guess the good news bad
43:43
news is I’m not a golfer and I’m not a you know I enjoy the outdoors but I’m
43:49
not a huge Hunter and so my free time kind of is I work at Higginbotham I
43:55
support and I go all in on any of the non-profits or or different boards I entertain and then of course as you
44:01
probably surmise I’m a big family guy so we’ve been blessed to have three
44:07
wonderful children sanity of course he’s married to Eric and they have two kids
44:12
Molly Morgan and and little Mick and then of course my son Jake is married to
44:17
Emily his his uh College sweetheart and they have little Janie so by the way Mom
44:22
Morgan’s three mix one and Janie’s one and then Charlie uh you know our little
44:28
TCU football player he’s married to Sweet Michelle and they have a little J.R who’s won so a lot of my spare times
44:34
spent hanging out with them that is wonderful uh the future of Higg or the future of the insurance world as we
44:41
closer into this interview do you see I know your model is not going to change necessarily but it’s at some point
44:47
you’re going to pass the Baton but is does the future of the insurance World continue in the same trajectory or is
44:53
there do you see any vast changes with the world turning like it is yeah no I I think it I think it it you know we won’t
45:00
be identical to what we look like today no is Sands or butts but I do think it’s a it’s a matter of fact you know JW is
45:07
funny we when you go to colleges and universities it’s normally the longest
45:13
line for employment is whatever is the next Hot Topic right you know and you can think about what that was when you
45:19
went to school I can think about what that I what it was when I went to school I can think what it was like when my my
45:24
kid my adult children went to school colleges and you know it’s interesting
45:29
insurance has always been there and and when you kind of peel back the covers and you look at the industry it’s an
45:35
incredible industry like all Industries so you’ve got to adapt to change and modify and and I would tell you another
45:43
thing that that why I love having Youth in our organization uh is uh is you know
45:49
they help also open your eyes to hey it’s not just that way you need to be thinking about it this way also and so
45:56
you know I will tell you that we’re going to become much more data driven in our industry uh and and thank goodness
46:04
we’re an industry that’s been built on a lot of old Legacy systems and so thank goodness for Technologies like a
46:12
snowflake and others where you can build data lakes and it doesn’t matter where the data was you can bring it in and
46:18
then slice it and dice it for your utilization and so I I I can see it’s becoming very I won’t say data purely
46:26
data dependent because I think God gave us all this for a reason and you need to be able to look at that and then figure
46:31
out now what I do with that data but but no I think I think our industry is very
46:37
vibrant I think there’s it’s a great place to to work and literally spend a
46:43
career and we’ll have to adopt and you know adapt and change Etc
46:48
um but I think we’ll be there at the Long Haul as well nice one might say based on your your resume that you knew
46:55
what you wanted to do from early an early age and I don’t know many people in my life that I’ve met but that’s
47:01
pretty phenomenal in itself from when you were learning the business in college I think in north Texas you were
47:07
studying insurance and business and here we are all these years later you’ve done it man you’ve uh you’ve run a business
47:13
for so many years staying staying in your trajectory from your from the get-go is is a hard thing to do and I
47:19
commend you for that well I’ll I’ll give you a quick little secret though I really when I of course a little this
47:26
probably was like most kids you you don’t know what you want to do when you graduate from high school and and most
47:31
don’t know that candidate when they graduate from college and so with my of course my dad’s pass I had no idea what
47:37
I was going to do I was literally lost for a while so I decided I was going to go into pre-med and become a
47:42
pediatrician but I met this thing called organic chemistry and fortunately the
47:49
the dean of the the biology Department which was over pre-med pointed across the courtyard and said you need to go
47:55
see Dr Thornton over there and so fortunately he he guided me down the business path and and insurance I guess
48:02
since my dad and my grandfather both were in that industry I thought well that might be a path I should follow it
48:08
all worked out beautiful any regrets over your career no not at all you know I I really don’t I I’ve always tried to
48:16
not be a guy that just walked or talks to talk but walked the walk and and I just I you know I
48:24
I I really don’t have any address to be honest with you you’ve uh you’ve met some really interesting folks over your
48:29
life people that would call celebrities musicians Sports people any any particular favorites in during your life
48:34
boy I don’t know I’ve met a lot of thanks to my kids you know obviously my daughter and and and uh son-in-law are
48:42
in the entertainment industry so they’ve they’ve opened some incredible doors and actually when I was on the I’m I was
48:50
board chair at Casa Manana and we had a opportunity to meet some really fascinating uh people kind of along the
48:57
way and I’ve always had this incredible fascination with musician my high school buddies will tell you we had what we
49:03
called Rusty and the razor so I I probably uh you know that was my next question yeah yeah I probably you know I
49:09
would never make in that industry so thank God Insurance did come along but uh I I’ve always been fascinated with
49:16
talent and I’ve had a chance musical talent and that’s that’s truly from Broadway to uh you know folks that are
49:23
live on stage and and you know I had I’ve had a chance multiple times now to meet a guy like Elina Richie and was
49:31
just incredible and it just you you figure out why they’re so good at what they do every time you meet him you it’s
49:40
like you’re the only person in the room and we all have friends that you know you’re here but they’re looking at everybody else they don’t really care
49:46
that you’re right there right and this guy man he hones in he’s almost kind of nerve-wracking because he’s really
49:51
talking to you and you’re like you know he’s pretty famous and what’s incredible is here’s a guy that’s you know been at
49:57
it for God probably 50 years he’s 73 or so now or and and he’s you know he still
50:04
got it so it uh I’ve you know I’ve had a chance to meet him I had a chance one time to have lunch with George W bush
50:12
and just it’s it was kind of incredible because here I am meeting with the president of the United States and uh he
50:19
was you know having fun with the table next to us because they weren’t paying attention so every time they weren’t
50:25
paying attention he’d wad up a piece of paper and throw it you know so it’s it’s nice to know that they they they have
50:31
that side to them The Human Side surely you know if you will and and then uh you
50:36
know we’ve met some wonderful coaches along along the way too some great baseball players so it’s been it’s been
50:43
fun I like that kind of stuff my my wife Molly likes to refer to me as Fanboy so
50:48
and of course with Eric you know meeting you know Taylor Sheridan just what a yeah words can’t even describe how
50:55
unbelievably talented that guy is so been really really cool very cool uh
51:02
about this Rusty and the razors bit you brought since you brought it up um is this still ongoing is is Roxanne still
51:08
in there you know it made a made a little appearance that my wife had a little birthday party as you know and uh
51:14
it makes he made a little appearance there so for those that don’t know if there’s ever a chance a particular group
51:21
Top who by the way I first hired back when we did the MS rodeo in concert
51:26
we’ve hired them then and when Molly and I celebrated our first 40th birthday we hired him then and he’s just been part
51:33
of our family for a long time he’s just been very generous to let me come up and sing a song or two with him so yeah if I
51:41
get that opportunity I always of course have to take advantage of it yes sir yes sir well I’ve appreciated the time Rusty
51:47
for sure it’s it’s a phenomenal story you’re a hell of a guy and I appreciate that you’ve been a good friend to me and to a lot of people you’re always helping
51:53
people uh the last question I like we like to ask our guests aside from family
51:58
no wife kids grandkids none of that stuff do you have a best day of your whole life
52:04
golly the best day of my whole life oh I don’t know I I to be brutally honest
52:10
with you I’ve had some incredible days of my life you know uh you know so many of because as I mentioned before you
52:17
know my my my quiet time if you will spent with family so the very memorable
52:23
moments all coincide with them so I I yeah I don’t know I just feel as a human
52:30
being I’ve been real you know I’ve had certainly some tragedy along the way and you know broken being part of a broken
52:36
family along the way but I think that uh you know all in all it’s been pretty
52:42
pretty darn good gig uh imagine your father that you spoke of would be pretty proud of what you’ve done it’s uh and I
52:48
know he’s left a long time ago but if he was anything like you Rusty he’s probably a good guy so yeah thank you
52:53
thank you for being here it’s been a pleasure and I’ve always enjoyed you so thank you Rusty Reed uh thank you for watching fortitude the rest of your read
53:00
from Higginbotham 75th Anniversary happy birthday thank you my friend yes sir thank you
53:10
roxo media house
roxo media house
0:06
welcome back to fortitude folks today’s a special one I am sitting in the presence of a guy I’ve known for a long
0:11
time a man named Rusty Reed welcome to the show Rusty thanks JW fortitude is brought to you by the folks at cap tax
0:18
Bank thank you Mike Thomas we know you’re watching out there every day religiously so thank you for your time
0:23
and Your sponsorship but uh Rusty uh he’s here today for a lot of reasons particularly one big one Higginbotham
0:30
his company that he’s been running for so long is turning turning 75 years old happy birthday Hig thank you there we go
0:37
but before we get into the juicy stuff let’s talk about you a little bit if you don’t mind sure your childhood uh where
0:43
were you born so I was born in uh actually born in Baylor Hospital in Dallas Texas okay don’t tell you now I
0:50
know we’re in fact I won’t tell anybody be careful about that fair enough tell us a little bit about your childhood if you if you don’t mind what you can uh
0:56
what you can tell us yeah so sure happy too so uh born in Dallas I had a little
1:02
brother have a little brother uh Brian that I grew up with who’s of my sidekick
1:07
like many people unfortunately my folks ended up getting divorced at a pretty
1:13
young age I think it was like nine but I grew up living over in an area called
1:18
Medallion shopping center and so back in the old days where I went to the same
1:23
Elementary School Dandy Rogers for seven years and then they kind of shipped us
1:28
over to what was at the time called Ben Franklin Junior High same building turned in to the Freshman
1:36
Hillcrest Center so I went there and then Hillcrest High School so uh anyhow
1:42
long story short kind of spent all my informative years and uh Dallas and was
1:48
actually headed to the University of Texas which as much as I loved the Longhorns I’m glad I had a little
1:55
diversion kind of a sad story but a good it nevertheless I’m not the only fall in this category so get accepted go to UT
2:02
and unfortunately my dad passes away my folks were divorced but that passes away
2:08
so my grandparents encouraged me to stay close to home so I thought well I’ll
2:13
just go to SMU and they quickly explained to me that that wasn’t in the budget now the JW the comical part about
2:20
it this is I paid for my own way to go through school so I still I guess when you’re young you don’t kind of connect
2:25
those dots but I had a bunch of great friends of mine going to North Texas and
2:31
so I kind of followed that uh train to UNT or at that time North Texas State
2:36
University which by the way headed to Vegas I don’t know if you noticed a play in a little nit semi-final yes I did um
2:44
but I went to North Texas and really kind of set the trajectory of my life
2:50
which actually ultimately brought me to Higginbotham so I I’ve met my wife there
2:56
Molly who we’ve been married for quite some time since 1985 right uh wait let
3:02
me check my notes see that yeah work actually one of my colleagues today
3:09
was of tourney brother a guy named ed Coker when he was moving on for
3:14
graduation to go work for a company called American General down in Houston uh he worked for an agency there in
3:21
Denton called Raymond king of Menace and because I was still paying for my schooling he encouraged me to take that
3:27
job and I was like absolutely and so really a great great mentor of mine was a gentleman
3:34
named Carol King and he was one of the principals and so I got to work there kind of the junior half a junior year
3:40
and all my senior year and then a upon graduation he was very generous with his time and
3:46
and made a point to line me up with really three different job opportunities which I landed on at American General
3:52
and that’s what led me uh to Houston sure so I worked down there upon graduation and then I was at a in our
4:00
industry they have uh kind of industry conferences based on the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas and so I was
4:07
working the conference trying to get independent agents and Brokers to sell our product and the the president of
4:14
American General at that time a guy named J.D white came to me and said uh you know I’d love to have you uh come
4:21
back to the Metroplex because I know that’s where your home was and don’t have a spot for you in Dallas but I have
4:27
a spot for you in Fort Worth and I said of course naturally yes sir I’m happy happy to take that on and he said if you
4:34
mess it up you’re going to Baton Rouge so it kind of became my motivation to certainly do well and so I came to Fort
4:42
Worth and and my job to build out this market and the the gentleman that I became very
4:50
fond of was a fellow named Bill Stroud who was the nephew of Paul Higginbotham the founder of Higginbotham and he
4:58
encouraged me to join the business and I did that December of 86 and it’s like
5:04
say the rest is history so and before we get a little further so you said you helped pay for school by or you pay for
5:11
school by your own efforts was this selling insurance for the original or what were you doing now great great question so upon my Dad’s passing uh he
5:20
he had a number of rental properties and so my little brother and I it’s a joke would go we’d help help him work on
5:27
rental properties almost as the maintenance guys the paint guy whatever it may be and if we did really well we
5:33
got to have a free lunch if we did good the second half of the day we got to have a free dinner but but upon his
5:39
passing my other grandfather was in the advertising business and he he knew that I knew how to to paint pretty well and
5:46
so we created Reed Brothers Painting really and so we we patched out flyers
5:52
up and down Montgomery or Mike Montgomery Mockingbird there in Highland Park and landed a number of jobs so
5:59
putting my way through school I I had the opportunity to paint homes I had the
6:04
opportunity to work for National Health Studios up in Denton who by the way was
6:10
run by now the now Stacy McDavid so she was my boss and we always giggled about
6:16
that when we see one another and uh and then I also worked at Raymond King and
6:22
Menace so I ultimately by the time I got close to graduation I was only working that’s fantastic thank God it’s
6:27
fantastic yeah and so in 86 back to your where you left off E6 you joined Higginbotham with Mr Stroud as you
6:34
mentioned as the 12th employee that’s what I have yeah that’s right yeah so obviously it’s a small company at that
6:39
point uh only a few years short few years later in three years in fact you
6:45
were 27 years old and you were named CEO president of of Higginbotham correct that’s correct please for those that
6:51
know you and you know a lot of folks in this town and everybody says really nice things about you I assume you know that
6:56
you’re a really nice wonderful guy but how does one become a CEO at such an early age of a of such a young company
7:03
what what led what steps led to that if you that I wish bill was around uh he
7:08
had a lot of faith and confidence in me obviously um so it it’s probably important to note
7:13
that the training that I received when I was at American General uh was really very thorough and and I remember one of
7:22
my other colleagues at uh Higginbotham used to say because I’d always go to him
7:27
and go why me I’m so young and he’d say Rusty you know when you talk about experience you have guys that have 30
7:34
years experience but it’s just one year over and over and over again said you’ve yeah you’re neuter newer to the industry
7:40
but your experience is rather robust and it’s it’s full and so when I was
7:45
actually brought into Higginbotham Bill had two underwriting programs one with a
7:51
company called Crum enforcer and the one with the one called uh uh Providence
7:57
Washington and so my job was really to oversee that program so we at that time were again and I’ll also important to
8:04
note we were a tiny company but but my job was to actually oversee the business insurance side of the agency which you
8:12
know was probably represented about 65 percent of that and
8:18
um he very quickly I mean and it’s kind of my leadership style as well I mean he
8:23
he very quickly let me just kind of grab the Baton and I ran that and then I kind
8:28
of learned the early lesson I had a one of the sales guys I kind of had a little
8:34
uh a spat with there’s the nice way to put it and I went in his office almost
8:39
to be a little bit of a tattletale and he very quickly reminded me that when I had numbers by my name I I even like I
8:45
was producing not just overhead I could come in and have a much louder voice and
8:51
so I because of really my training that I had had um I really then kind of launched I
8:58
thought you know what I can run this side of the business but I’m going to actually go sell and really probably my
9:05
fondest Day is when I passed this guy because he was the largest sales guy at the time and so I think really the
9:11
accumulation of my product knowledge uh you know the fact that I I had really
9:17
already run the largest part of our organization and then on top of that I
9:22
was leading the firm in sales I think it kind of became a decision that and it
9:27
was his call because he owned 100 of the company but um he he was also and I’ll digress a
9:34
second I mean you know in life it’s always great to have great mentors and when I reflect back on my life and I’m
9:41
not that old you know as you were there I mean they say 60 the new 40. so I’m only 40. but when I reflect back on my
9:49
life I’ve had some very very wonderful mentors from from Terrell King Remy King
9:55
and menace to JD white at American General and then bill so you know I had a lot of great mentorship to help me
10:02
once I was past that baton to run the firm uh it was very very helpful and you
10:09
know I never bought a company either and so that’s the other thing that we did in 89 kind of in conjunction with me being
10:17
anointed as the president and CEO that I had the The Good Fortune of signing my
10:24
name on the dotted line which I still laugh about this today because I think I was Molly and I rent an apartment at
10:30
Highland Park Apartments and we were releasing a Volvo so it wasn’t like I had any assets to pledge right but as
10:36
Bill Adams who was our Banker first city at the time said well no if this thing fails I’m going to own you for life so I
10:42
guess it gave me plenty of motivation to get after but you know we bought the company
10:47
through a vehicle called an eShop Employee Stock ownership plan and trust and and it was great for Bill and and
10:55
what he deserved it was great for us as the buyers but more broadly culturally
11:01
and it’s really kind of who we are today as well it allowed me to you know I’m just a very loyal person you know this
11:09
because our personal relationship and I really believe you danced with the ones who brung it and I was sitting there
11:15
thinking about you know we we explored all kinds of ways to buy higginbot them you know at the time Bill was on the
11:20
border Bank of Commerce and we went down and met with them to see maybe that I just would he’d co-sign a note when that
11:26
note was paid off I’d owned the company and and that that didn’t sound like a
11:32
good solution to me for a couple reasons number one if I was the 12th employee excluding Bill there was 10 others that
11:38
had been there before me and it just didn’t it just didn’t feel right you know they were there getting that firm
11:44
from you know Bill when he took over to where it was when I I walked in and so I
11:49
didn’t like that truth be told and of course the ESOP meant everybody was going to own the company so that was a
11:55
great solution and then the other thing that that that I saw in in my you know
12:01
short time a couple years with American General was that if you didn’t have ownership in the agency oftentimes if
12:08
you know the guy in the corner owned it and you’re their top sales guy you just pack your bags up and you’d start your
12:15
own company and become a competing uh firm right and so I thought if we’re gonna a retain the people we’ve got but
12:22
more importantly attract people and then have people stay with us we need to we need to give them ownership I think
12:27
that’s one of the things that I love about the company is that this employee owned I think you talked about uh if I
12:34
could digress one second please your cells your shells style uh it’s very clear you’re very good at selling things
12:40
and that’s one of your secrets to your success what make what makes you would you say a good salesman in this world so
12:47
I think that’s a great question and I always advise my young people
12:52
um because I’m now 40 I’m I’m probably one of the younger but uh I here’s just
12:58
the fact of any industry I think you can have great people skills and you’ll do okay you can be very technical and
13:06
you’ll be okay I learned quite early on you need to bring those together in the middle and so I’ve always prided myself
13:13
on really being a student of the industry being very technically proficient but also to mirror with that
13:20
you know people skills right and and it’s that’s not hard right you’re you’ve
13:25
being a male I’m always want to be a gentleman I want to be very respectful uh I want to certainly if I say I’m
13:32
going to do something by God I’m going to fall through and do it I think what what people know about me is that I if I
13:39
if I commit I’m all in I’m not just gonna you know go half Hazard at it and
13:44
I’m naturally very competitive unlike you you and my son Charlie and even Jake and I mean I was I was athletic but I
13:52
wasn’t certainly going to play at the next level with sports football and and uh also was a pole vaulter believe it or
14:00
not so I I kind of got to do those two sports and love both of them um my problem is I digressed a second I
14:07
when in practice at Hillcrest I happened to go up against a guy that was six six a guy named Ricky Bolden that went on to
14:13
be part of the Pony Express and a very successful career with the Cleveland Browns and then one of our competing uh
14:21
teams we played against always was Thomas Jefferson and they had a little guy named Michael Carter who went on a
14:27
course to have not only be a wildly successful football player at SMU and I
14:32
think went on to the Chicago Bears but he also was a world-class shot putter in the Olympics I actually I actually spent
14:39
a lot of time with him because SMU was so close to Hillcrest they were generous enough to let a lot of the ISD Kids Go
14:47
go there and work out so I work when I pulled off and I actually went there to practice because we didn’t have that
14:52
facility and of course it amazes me this day thinking about Michael Carter literally as a high schooler was out
14:58
shot putting all the guys at SMU absolutely so but yeah um so the another thing that’s what’s
15:06
lovely about Higg is that it’s and this is one things I’ve heard and I’ve read several times but it’s a single Source
15:11
uh service model is which I think you’ve told me this yourself but you you want and I think that means just so we’re get
15:18
this uh right everything that you would ever need for an insurance needs should come through one person in one place is
15:24
that kind of what does yeah Jada perfect yeah and I’ll tell you I mean I I I I’m
15:31
the one here on the mic today but you know it it takes a village to build what we’ve built and and it’s certainly early
15:38
days you know which are still very much part of who we are today you know we early on as I began to get more in the
15:45
client-facing side of the business I had people coming to me going don’t you have somebody that does benefits and and
15:51
candidly I did not at the time I had a wonderful person a guy named uh uh John
15:57
Park who was with time insurance and he he kept pounding me listen I can help you you know broaden your business and
16:04
do employee benefits and so um I I took his took him up on his offer
16:10
and we landed a couple of wonderful accounts and I very quickly picked up the phone and called my pledge brother
16:16
and dear friend Jim Hubbard who at the time was working for New York Life and said Jim I think the demand is really
16:23
here I said I think we’re sitting on a gold mine we’re predominantly a property Cassidy firm uh and and people are
16:30
really wanting us to kind of manage other parts of their business at that time we did their business insurance and
16:36
then their personal think Auto home that kind of thing and so we added that line of business uh and then shortly after
16:43
him joining me in April of 89 and we buy the business in June of 89 Along Comes
16:48
Michael Parks who was actually one of my first social friends and Michael was working for Connecticut mutual and so
16:55
what we they they kind of started originally we called our life and health department which became a nice bolt-on
17:02
and we very quickly found that clients really did they we kind of thought about
17:07
it and back to my kind of technical side you know you can’t be a jack of all trade to master none and industry
17:14
because you’re you’re managing people’s assets their health care potentially their estate planning Etc and so that
17:21
really kind of broadened our efforts and both of them were life insurance guys
17:26
but then they even came and said hey we need to have life insurance experts and then they found themselves working on
17:33
retirement plans and like we need to get retirement plan experts in here
17:38
predominantly for 401k but you know other retirement vehicles and then you
17:46
know it broadened it it’s like you know a lot of these clients need HR Support right most mid-market companies which we
17:54
kind of Define you know 10 employees to really 2 000 you know oftentimes you
18:00
play a very active role in kind of be an extension of their bench right and so we added HR and then then we had clients
18:07
coming to us going hey we need help with lost control to make sure we have safe work environments and so we we very
18:14
quickly began to broaden our scope and provide a lot of ancillary services like
18:19
loss prevention and brought attorneys on staff to to help do not only risk
18:25
mitigation but if you help do contract review and claims adjusters and wellness
18:30
people and and so really I would tell you what’s been a fun thing to watch
18:36
from from my seat it’s just we we’re just we do a great job of listening really what clients need and then just
18:42
saying because we’re privately held you know we’re like okay what can we do to best surround the client and hence
18:49
became the single Source model right we put the client in the middle build professional disciplines around that
18:55
client so we could they know they could come to us but we could be their single source as it related to their insurance
19:03
financial services and HR needs if you will and that’s that’s kind of been our
19:09
model you know really from the get-go we’ve just kind of expanded those Services absolutely business offerings
19:14
that’s wonderful for comparison so when you started in 86 of this 12th employee till now how many employees does
19:21
Higginbotham claim well that’s always a good question because it’s always a moving Target
19:27
um but in a positive way I might add um I think we’re close I think the reported number we like to use now is
19:33
2500 uh believe it or not that that does Change Daily because back in 07 we kind
19:40
of deployed what I call a dual growth strategy so we’ve always grown very much organically we had a lot of people that
19:47
wanted to buy us to build out Texas and you know we as I like to say we may be
19:52
done but we’re not stupid we’re like well I built it out for you guys we’ll build it out for ourselves so we we kind
19:58
of developed a partner strategy and legal form to make Acquisitions to bring on to our team but then kind of
20:04
higmatize them get them doing business the way we do in business and and so our
20:10
organic growth adds a lot of employees but so does our partnership strategy so
20:15
I went you know when I started we were kind of one office 12 employees right here in one city Fort Worth Texas and
20:22
today we have I think about 87 offices spread over 15 states and I and and I’m
20:29
going to just I’ll use 2500 uh somebody might correct me if I’m too high or too low but that’s probably a good ballpark
20:35
do you ever think back to the 86 89 days and and look at look look at it now and
20:40
what is what does that make you feel like if you if you ever have those thoughts oh we we think about it all the
20:45
time and and and I say we because many of us when when I came to to Higg and
20:51
really our home for Higginbotham from 86 to really 97 when we moved our our
20:59
current location part of the business did and then the balance of the team moved later but we it was Bailey Street
21:04
so we were right there on the corner of uh Bristol and Bailey and so we always
21:10
when we all talk you know at the water or at the water cooler it’s always like ah back to the Bailey days so yeah we we
21:17
and and I will tell you that’s the the thing sometimes I think some of our smaller competitors like to throw stones
21:23
at us and and and but know we we are a we’re still we were named very wonderful
21:30
Accolade uh we were we’ve been named best place to work a lot not only in
21:36
terms of local markets but the state of Texas and even on a national scope and
21:41
one of my colleagues in the interview at the time we’ve grown since this interview is that it wasn’t that long
21:46
ago but his comment was and I think this holds true to culturally what we try to
21:52
preserve he said even though and at this interview we had a thousand employees so we’ve doubled plus that but he said he
21:59
he was number 30 coming into Higginbotham he said even though we have a thousand employees I still feel like
22:05
we’re a 30 person company and what that means to me is we’ve got at 2500
22:10
employees and because of our size we have all the resources to work very much
22:16
on a global basis uh leveraging our single Source model but we still can be
22:21
very local and that’s really what we are every one of our offices are in communities where we can we can be high
22:28
touch and I think in the world that we’re in you know not that we’re not digital and we don’t have some
22:35
incredible technologies that we leverage with our client base and our employees but being local I think I think in our
22:43
industry you either have to subscribe to the theory that you’re you know you’re you’re kind of an order taker or you
22:49
really subscribe through your people business and I I take it a step further we’re people business and we’re really
22:55
all about relationships and so we’ve tried to build our footprint in parts of the country where relationships really
23:02
do matter yes and obviously starting in Texas with you know Texas Roots it’s it’s it’s kind of what permeates as we
23:09
expand outside of the footprint so much so that you’ve built uh this company with with your employees to the largest
23:16
Independent Insurance Agency in the state of Texas and 20th in the country Still Still the numbers yes yeah and we
23:22
uh is your goal is your goal to keep going I mean I would tell you you know
23:28
our goal isn’t to to be the biggest um we really focused on more being the
23:34
best um and and and I think because we focused on being the best we’ve actually gotten quite large I mean most people
23:40
don’t realize this but if you look at the independent agency system there’s approximately 35
23:47
000 independent agents and brokers in the country and and and many of them that are larger than us have a full
23:54
National footprint where we’re only in the lower part of the U.S so um if you know if they let me cheat and
24:00
say well if I was at all across the country I’d actually be bigger than you guys but it’s really not about that it’s I always say everything in our lens ties
24:07
back to our mission vision and values you know our our mission says we want to exceed expectations of our
24:13
constituencies which are our employees our trading partners are are uh
24:19
certainly our clients in our communities our our mission our vision statement says we just want to be best for all
24:26
them and then our value statement says we want to be family to our employees would be complete advocates for our
24:32
clients partners with our carriers and then generous to our communities and so you know nowhere in that obviously says
24:39
we want to be the biggest it’s just been well you know it’s funny we looked up in 07 we were the largest firm in north
24:45
Texas I don’t know when we became the largest in Texas and you know one day if we become the largest in the country
24:51
great but I’m the things that matter to me and I know my partners is more about you know
24:58
having great retention of our clients great retention of our employees you
25:03
know really being fulfilling our mission to be generous to our communities um and and being you know in our
25:10
industry you know the reason why our insurance company some people refer to them as vendors or just the carriers but
25:18
we really want to be partners and kind of back to that southern hospitality we’ve learned through the years if you
25:23
treat them well it’s what my grandmother taught me right Rusty you treat people with kindness you’re going to get a lot
25:29
more in return than if you you know strong-armed them and I can’t tell you JW how many times we on behalf of our
25:36
clients have been able to take what’s a really tough situation and because we’ve got great relationships with our client
25:43
with our insurance companies get things done that nobody else gets done I mean literally and
25:49
um that’s you know so so that has helped us grow a lot which helped us keep some
25:55
incredible employees helped us keep some incredible clients help us land some
26:01
amazing new clients but you know it’s I say it’s a three-legged stool it’s kind
26:06
of us it’s the insurance company you know team and it’s always our our client
26:12
and it what the magic is how do you keep all that working well and in harmony so
26:18
anyhow we’re celebrating the 75th uh birthday of Higginbotham you’ve been at
26:23
the helm for more than half of that uh from then until now can you talk about
26:29
any of the major struggles that you’ve overcome throughout that time I mean everybody running a business in this
26:34
world takes a lot of a lot of work a lot of efforts and a lot of failures in some regards uh certainly you’ve seen your
26:41
share of of struggles and hurdles you’ve overcome is anything you could share with us you know it’s funny I used to
26:47
say and it’s almost true I’m hoping I’ve when 2030 rolls around I’ll be able to
26:52
pass the Baton to some somebody else because if I just follow my history with Higginbotham on every even decade so
26:59
think 1990 think 2000 I think 2010 I
27:05
think 2020 my oh my there’s no rule book to explain
27:11
how you get through this and I’ll go through them quickly so in night you know we buy the business in 89 in 1990
27:17
we look up and we are losing our riches I mean we we and and it’s like what you
27:23
see often a company that had no debt all of a sudden has debt um people you know we were pretty
27:29
comfortable as an organization because we’re a successful business but now we have debt and now you know you kind of
27:36
had to carry your weight right and so we we had to we we had to make some really hard decisions to to right-size our our
27:44
expenses and and unfortunately we did and we lost nobody we for us it wasn’t a
27:49
function of let’s go put a bullet in a lot of people that’s never been my leadership style
27:55
um I’ve always been a fan of let’s grow the Top Line everything if grow the top line and build it as it comes versus
28:01
building it and hope it comes has always been my strategy and so 90 was a we were
28:07
small and Tiny But a very challenging year and what was even more comicals I went to Bill Stroud and and I go oh my
28:14
gosh we’re going to have to do boom boom boom and he’s like well it’s your business now you figured out so you know
28:19
at a young age you had to grow up quickly roll the clock forward you know in 2000 we saw the.com boom but we also
28:27
saw a horrific.com bust and we we had a
28:32
web business that we were involved in and a lot of really tough times in and
28:37
around that but you know thanks to the team and I think some of the competitive
28:42
spirit that I’ve just you know either I was born with or have had to because of
28:47
my my you know informative years had to to to capture I was able to kind of lead
28:53
the charge through that uh you know 2010 I mean you know the financial crisis hit
28:59
in 08 and really things kind of went away you know the market hit an all-time low March of 09 and really two thousand
29:07
10 it was a booger bear and of course I left out the you know I remember like it
29:12
was yesterday we were in our our building we’re in today when 9 11 hit and you know I was on the on the phone
29:18
with Michael parks’s wife and and she’s like oh my gosh what do we do and I said I don’t know but you need to go pick
29:25
your kids up and you know take shelter and I remember bringing everybody in the atrium and saying having one of our he’s
29:32
deceased now God Rest his soul but Morgan Woodruff you know say a prayer and try to calm everybody’s nerves
29:39
because you know they were bombing you know things that were you know related to the military and right next to us we
29:46
had a government office and so you know the the the just not panicking and just
29:53
trying to be calm but not knowing well last time this happened here’s what you do uh so certainly 10 was an interesting
30:00
time because of the hope and it rebounded from the financial crisis and then of course whoever
30:07
knew the word covid-19 right and so uh what an interesting day that was you
30:13
know we we were I remember this thing all sudden became very real and and
30:18
again I did what I always did I don’t think I always have all the right answers and so I quickly formed what we
30:25
called the covid-19 task force and said how do we you know we we don’t have a rule book here boys and girls so we’re
30:31
gonna have to figure this thing out so long story short I’m sure there’s been a zillion others that are anywhere in
30:37
between but you know what what I think I learned in 90 was you don’t give up what
30:43
I learned in 10 is you don’t give up or in 2000 you don’t give up same thing in 10 and same thing in 20. and and I tried
30:51
to you know now that I’m older uh again only 40 but um Now That I’m Older I’ve
30:56
tried to really impression laughing yeah yeah try to impress upon our team mates
31:01
that you know guys it this too shall pass I mean it’s just nothing’s ever
31:06
guaranteed in life this too shall pass if you every day just try to do the
31:12
right thing you you’re it’s going to be okay it’s going to be okay and so uh you
31:17
know I kind of a comical sidebar oh Bill Stroud one of his favorite sayings
31:22
always was he’s like Rusty God takes care God takes care of children and
31:28
idiots aren’t you glad we’re idiots and so you know I can’t help but when these
31:33
tough times occur and then we find our way out out of them I just hear him in
31:38
my ear making that little comment so you mentioned you mentioned Bill Stroud several times uh I know there’s a few
31:45
more but could you tell are there any you have heroes in your life or I know you had bills that mentor and some of these people throughout their insurance
31:51
upbringing and even now but anybody other than an insurance man or a businessman that was ever your hero Yeah
31:57
well yeah of course I didn’t get to spend as many years as I wish I could have but my dad clearly a Great Hero I
32:04
was blessed beyond words to have incredible grandparents and and and it
32:11
was it was kind of funny I I tease and ingest with my family all the time because upon my grandfather Reed’s
32:17
passing and upon my grandmother uh or grandfather Jurgens which was my mother’s um uh Dad’s passing they both
32:24
told their respective wives don’t worry Russ will handle everything so I I guess
32:30
they they they for some reason thought I make things okay so they were they were
32:35
great people then of course you know Molly’s dad is is you know get emotional
32:40
but great guy yeah for sure absolutely and I know this man I have to agree with you for sure so big big dad you know
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it’s it’s uh it’s it’s you just feel blessed in life and not everybody gets this opportunity but you know met him in
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1981 and of course you know he played football at Auburn as did while his brother played football at north Texas
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under Hayden fry in my first meeting with them you know I’m just young preppy guy coming in from North Texas and I’m
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calling on his daughter and calling on Charlie little Charlie’s sister and
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first time I I met him I basically was welcomed with grunts like hmm you know
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and uh I knew I knew I’d captured uh the respect of him when I was leaving so
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when when I got my first job at American General in Houston I had Molly with me and my mother and we were going to drive
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down to Houston and as as we were pulling out of the driveway I hear this
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hey Russ and he’s you know he’s a big man we call him big dad for a reason you know him so you know what I’m talking about and now roll down the wind and he
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reaches in the car and kisses me on the cheek that was it not leading over to Molly
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and I go well I guess she likes me now so he’s a great he’s been a great dad not just father-in-law as is his wife
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to me and and more importantly you know you always know the impact people
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have on you because my kids they he’s the integral part of their lives is I am
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an integral part of their lives so you know his grandchildren and really anybody he touches he’s a very special
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man I’ve been very blessed to have him in my life um thank you for sharing that’s fantastic
34:16
um a little bit different subject but you’ve grown so much over the years uh and I own I know you’ve been off at
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people called and asked wanting to buy your business hey you should join up we should merge all the things that
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happened during course of business’s life how do you how do you stay independent all these years how do you
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not go after the Allure of the of the big public prize perhaps or I assume big companies have asked to buy you over the
34:39
years what is it about you and the company that makes you want to stay private is well I do think you know the
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the thing that’s been so great for us and I think this is a great for our employees and it’s great for our our
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clients and great for our carriers and our communities is you know we answer to
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our shareholders yes but our shareholders are us right and and we we’ve been very fortunate we’ve had a
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wildly successful run much greater than any of us ever ever ever ever envisioned
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um and we’ve we’ve set up our you know we run a tight ship
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um you know we we’ve always run a very conservative operation and it’s allowed us to be
35:24
profitable and and that profitability has allowed us to make distributions to our shareholders and so oftentimes you
35:32
know you have to sell your business because you’re not able to get liquidity and and and many people they build a
35:39
business and it’s time to ring the bell and get that liquidity um and in our case we we’ve kind of
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solved for that literally you know seven forward uh and and then the other thing
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I would tell you is you know you have to sell your business when you don’t really build back fill of leadership and we’ve
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got I mean the you know much like Bill Stroud did with me I kind of took a
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chapter out of his book and and and I’ve done the same I mean many of the young folks in our organizations have
36:07
tremendous responsibilities and they’ve done incredible jobs so you know my and
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I say this all the time my hope is um that Higginbotham truly is a legacy
36:18
asset that you know 75 years from now it won’t be you and it won’t be me but it might be your successor and be my
36:25
successor hosting this interview because we we’ve you know not to steal somebody else’s tagline but we’ve built
36:31
Higginbotham to last and and we and we’ve recognized the importance of all
36:36
the constituencies in our business what that really means and entails and I’ll tell you it’s harder to do it that way
36:43
than just get to certain Point ring the bell and say we all won but I think I
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think you know thus far our journey is you know we’re I always tell people it’s a marathon not a Sprint and I kind of
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personally feel we hadn’t even passed the 5K marker so I think we got a great future ahead of us since and I feel
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blessed to be at the helm and I feel blessed having great Partners helping me steer the ship You’ve Won multiple
37:10
Awards over the years you know your company itself you know you’re an insurance Business America Hall of Fame uh one of the most admired CEOs by
37:16
Dallas Business Journal for Chamber of Commerce has given you an excellent excellence in leadership award one of
37:22
the most Innovative agents in America you know and one particular one National Multiple Sclerosis Society funding Hall
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of Fame that one caught my attention the other things I think we all can agree that they’re warranted and you’ve done a
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wonderful job you give back to the community like none other uh what what is the Multiple Sclerosis Society and
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why is that in your in your life so a great question so early on and you know
37:46
we we now have the corsagen bathroom Community fine but early early on one of my it’s still the date a dear dear
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friend and a great client was a guy named David Miner and he had time had minors uh lawn care right and and so
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great great friend uh talk about a mentor I mean he he was he he definitely
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made me uh respect the fact that she better bring the best uh solution to the table for a client and he reminded that
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not only annually but frequently but David was also a great individual in the
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sense that here had been a community given to him and his family the opportunity to build a great business
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and it rewarded him rightfully so very very well and so he
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was on the board of multiple sclerosis he was actually the board chair and I shared with him I really wanted to get
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more involved at a philanthropic level just I I just I kind of was wired like that you can’t just build a business
38:43
hence taking from the community you need to get back and he said Rusty this is a great opportunity so I got involved with
38:51
Ms got on the board they host the first event I kind of got involved in was what they called the jiggling gelatin slide
38:58
and I had the Good Fortune of a friend of mine Dave Craddock known as Kidd Kraddick the radio he was he had his
39:04
radio show that was booming so he was my MC for the event and then for anybody
39:10
out there that’s a Barney fan uh one of our dear dear friends uh owned a
39:16
Levine’s Department Store and so Damon King’s Daughter Lauren King was on the
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Barney show and so she agreed to be our celebrity guest to you know basically
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slide down in this vat of gel of into of out of jello and so we raised a lot of
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money for Ms well then the next thing they came to me said what else you think you would like to do and so we we kind
39:39
of constructed what we called the MS rodeo and concert and so a gentleman in
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town on a guy named Gary McKinney who’s passed away now but his own McKinney Toyota had multiple sclerosis and he
39:53
said I think I can get the the north Texas Toyota dealers to not only contribute a truck to auction off but I
40:00
think we can we want to we’ll make a big blast out of this we’ll come in as a large large sponsor and so we basically
40:08
put on thanks to Phillips shoots who uh was helped do the PRCA Rodeo and then
40:15
thanks to my dear friend Gary osher we hired Lori Morgan who at that time was on fire and by the way she was dating
40:21
Troy Aikman who’s of course a Super Bowl you know winner and it just was that
40:26
perfect storm so we we did basically a series of four of these and raised a tremendous amount of money for Ms and so
40:34
hence they they gave me that that’s good that’s great so if you ever if you’re
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listening you probably can tell that this guy’s got a lot on his plate let’s let’s throw on this you sit on several
40:45
boards Rusty you’re on the All Saints Episcopal School Board Casa Manana board Davey O’Brien board several I think are
40:53
maybe have dropped off but tell me if I’m wrong but YPO the world president’s organization tcu’s Board of Trustees the
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Council of insurance agents and Brokers which is a lot in itself and then I see one here goosehead goosehead happens to
41:07
me in this building this is another Insurance Agency could I ask about these guys yeah absolutely they’re uh by the
41:13
way a great success story um Mark and Robin Jones are the founders
41:19
of this business and it’s kind of in our kind of in our purview but not really they’re they they kind of have built a
41:26
business that’s very technically connected um where they they took advantage of
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what I’ll call the captive Insurance space so if you think of the likes of the All-State State Farms and Farmers
41:40
where you you basically work for them they saw because Robin the wife saw that
41:47
she tried to do closings because she was in the mortgage banking industry and could never get a bindable policy at
41:55
closing and that resulted in a delay of closing which sometimes means you didn’t get it closed right and so Mark very
42:03
brilliant guy Harvard MBA and and was a bank consultant and they have six children and I’m sure there was some
42:10
discussion at the dinner table you need to get off the road and stay home so he he he retired and said let me think if I
42:17
can build a business model to solve for this so they they’ve built this incredible National footprint where they
42:23
basically served the mortgage lending industry to provide homeowners at
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closing and they’ve got a phenomenal business that that does that will they
42:33
also kind of figured out that the because State Farm is both a sales arm but it’s also the insurance company will
42:40
if you’re with State Farm and you’re in Fort Worth Texas and you get to live liberated by one of our hail storms you
42:46
might not be able to write you know homeowners anymore so you need a multi-carrier platform and so they also
42:52
figured out hey we can build a franchise with this so I felt very honored and uh
42:58
blessed to be invited to serve on their board and it and for me I always look at and you talk about all these boards I
43:04
always look at boards as an opportunity for me really for professional development it also serves as an
43:11
opportunity for me to to to kind of see how other people do it and maybe we can take some of those things and apply it
43:18
to our business and so but they’re a great family that owns it and they took it public and so you know not that we’re
43:25
on a path to go public but it’s nice to see how a public company is run and operated and on the inside and should
43:32
that ever happen in our world at least I can have a little view of what that looks yeah I think that’s awesome
43:37
um do you have do you have much free time most of my I guess the good news bad
43:43
news is I’m not a golfer and I’m not a you know I enjoy the outdoors but I’m
43:49
not a huge Hunter and so my free time kind of is I work at Higginbotham I
43:55
support and I go all in on any of the non-profits or or different boards I entertain and then of course as you
44:01
probably surmise I’m a big family guy so we’ve been blessed to have three
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wonderful children sanity of course he’s married to Eric and they have two kids
44:12
Molly Morgan and and little Mick and then of course my son Jake is married to
44:17
Emily his his uh College sweetheart and they have little Janie so by the way Mom
44:22
Morgan’s three mix one and Janie’s one and then Charlie uh you know our little
44:28
TCU football player he’s married to Sweet Michelle and they have a little J.R who’s won so a lot of my spare times
44:34
spent hanging out with them that is wonderful uh the future of Higg or the future of the insurance world as we
44:41
closer into this interview do you see I know your model is not going to change necessarily but it’s at some point
44:47
you’re going to pass the Baton but is does the future of the insurance World continue in the same trajectory or is
44:53
there do you see any vast changes with the world turning like it is yeah no I I think it I think it it you know we won’t
45:00
be identical to what we look like today no is Sands or butts but I do think it’s a it’s a matter of fact you know JW is
45:07
funny we when you go to colleges and universities it’s normally the longest
45:13
line for employment is whatever is the next Hot Topic right you know and you can think about what that was when you
45:19
went to school I can think about what that I what it was when I went to school I can think what it was like when my my
45:24
kid my adult children went to school colleges and you know it’s interesting
45:29
insurance has always been there and and when you kind of peel back the covers and you look at the industry it’s an
45:35
incredible industry like all Industries so you’ve got to adapt to change and modify and and I would tell you another
45:43
thing that that why I love having Youth in our organization uh is uh is you know
45:49
they help also open your eyes to hey it’s not just that way you need to be thinking about it this way also and so
45:56
you know I will tell you that we’re going to become much more data driven in our industry uh and and thank goodness
46:04
we’re an industry that’s been built on a lot of old Legacy systems and so thank goodness for Technologies like a
46:12
snowflake and others where you can build data lakes and it doesn’t matter where the data was you can bring it in and
46:18
then slice it and dice it for your utilization and so I I I can see it’s becoming very I won’t say data purely
46:26
data dependent because I think God gave us all this for a reason and you need to be able to look at that and then figure
46:31
out now what I do with that data but but no I think I think our industry is very
46:37
vibrant I think there’s it’s a great place to to work and literally spend a
46:43
career and we’ll have to adopt and you know adapt and change Etc
46:48
um but I think we’ll be there at the Long Haul as well nice one might say based on your your resume that you knew
46:55
what you wanted to do from early an early age and I don’t know many people in my life that I’ve met but that’s
47:01
pretty phenomenal in itself from when you were learning the business in college I think in north Texas you were
47:07
studying insurance and business and here we are all these years later you’ve done it man you’ve uh you’ve run a business
47:13
for so many years staying staying in your trajectory from your from the get-go is is a hard thing to do and I
47:19
commend you for that well I’ll I’ll give you a quick little secret though I really when I of course a little this
47:26
probably was like most kids you you don’t know what you want to do when you graduate from high school and and most
47:31
don’t know that candidate when they graduate from college and so with my of course my dad’s pass I had no idea what
47:37
I was going to do I was literally lost for a while so I decided I was going to go into pre-med and become a
47:42
pediatrician but I met this thing called organic chemistry and fortunately the
47:49
the dean of the the biology Department which was over pre-med pointed across the courtyard and said you need to go
47:55
see Dr Thornton over there and so fortunately he he guided me down the business path and and insurance I guess
48:02
since my dad and my grandfather both were in that industry I thought well that might be a path I should follow it
48:08
all worked out beautiful any regrets over your career no not at all you know I I really don’t I I’ve always tried to
48:16
not be a guy that just walked or talks to talk but walked the walk and and I just I you know I
48:24
I I really don’t have any address to be honest with you you’ve uh you’ve met some really interesting folks over your
48:29
life people that would call celebrities musicians Sports people any any particular favorites in during your life
48:34
boy I don’t know I’ve met a lot of thanks to my kids you know obviously my daughter and and and uh son-in-law are
48:42
in the entertainment industry so they’ve they’ve opened some incredible doors and actually when I was on the I’m I was
48:50
board chair at Casa Manana and we had a opportunity to meet some really fascinating uh people kind of along the
48:57
way and I’ve always had this incredible fascination with musician my high school buddies will tell you we had what we
49:03
called Rusty and the razor so I I probably uh you know that was my next question yeah yeah I probably you know I
49:09
would never make in that industry so thank God Insurance did come along but uh I I’ve always been fascinated with
49:16
talent and I’ve had a chance musical talent and that’s that’s truly from Broadway to uh you know folks that are
49:23
live on stage and and you know I had I’ve had a chance multiple times now to meet a guy like Elina Richie and was
49:31
just incredible and it just you you figure out why they’re so good at what they do every time you meet him you it’s
49:40
like you’re the only person in the room and we all have friends that you know you’re here but they’re looking at everybody else they don’t really care
49:46
that you’re right there right and this guy man he hones in he’s almost kind of nerve-wracking because he’s really
49:51
talking to you and you’re like you know he’s pretty famous and what’s incredible is here’s a guy that’s you know been at
49:57
it for God probably 50 years he’s 73 or so now or and and he’s you know he still
50:04
got it so it uh I’ve you know I’ve had a chance to meet him I had a chance one time to have lunch with George W bush
50:12
and just it’s it was kind of incredible because here I am meeting with the president of the United States and uh he
50:19
was you know having fun with the table next to us because they weren’t paying attention so every time they weren’t
50:25
paying attention he’d wad up a piece of paper and throw it you know so it’s it’s nice to know that they they they have
50:31
that side to them The Human Side surely you know if you will and and then uh you
50:36
know we’ve met some wonderful coaches along along the way too some great baseball players so it’s been it’s been
50:43
fun I like that kind of stuff my my wife Molly likes to refer to me as Fanboy so
50:48
and of course with Eric you know meeting you know Taylor Sheridan just what a yeah words can’t even describe how
50:55
unbelievably talented that guy is so been really really cool very cool uh
51:02
about this Rusty and the razors bit you brought since you brought it up um is this still ongoing is is Roxanne still
51:08
in there you know it made a made a little appearance that my wife had a little birthday party as you know and uh
51:14
it makes he made a little appearance there so for those that don’t know if there’s ever a chance a particular group
51:21
Top who by the way I first hired back when we did the MS rodeo in concert
51:26
we’ve hired them then and when Molly and I celebrated our first 40th birthday we hired him then and he’s just been part
51:33
of our family for a long time he’s just been very generous to let me come up and sing a song or two with him so yeah if I
51:41
get that opportunity I always of course have to take advantage of it yes sir yes sir well I’ve appreciated the time Rusty
51:47
for sure it’s it’s a phenomenal story you’re a hell of a guy and I appreciate that you’ve been a good friend to me and to a lot of people you’re always helping
51:53
people uh the last question I like we like to ask our guests aside from family
51:58
no wife kids grandkids none of that stuff do you have a best day of your whole life
52:04
golly the best day of my whole life oh I don’t know I I to be brutally honest
52:10
with you I’ve had some incredible days of my life you know uh you know so many of because as I mentioned before you
52:17
know my my my quiet time if you will spent with family so the very memorable
52:23
moments all coincide with them so I I yeah I don’t know I just feel as a human
52:30
being I’ve been real you know I’ve had certainly some tragedy along the way and you know broken being part of a broken
52:36
family along the way but I think that uh you know all in all it’s been pretty
52:42
pretty darn good gig uh imagine your father that you spoke of would be pretty proud of what you’ve done it’s uh and I
52:48
know he’s left a long time ago but if he was anything like you Rusty he’s probably a good guy so yeah thank you
52:53
thank you for being here it’s been a pleasure and I’ve always enjoyed you so thank you Rusty Reed uh thank you for watching fortitude the rest of your read
53:00
from Higginbotham 75th Anniversary happy birthday thank you my friend yes sir thank you
53:10
roxo media house