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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
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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
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comfortable as an organization because we’re a successful business but now we have debt and now you know you kind of
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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
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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
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around that but you know thanks to the team and I think some of the competitive
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spirit that I’ve just you know either I was born with or have had to because of
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my my you know informative years had to to to capture I was able to kind of lead
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the charge through that uh you know 2010 I mean you know the financial crisis hit
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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
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10 it was a booger bear and of course I left out the you know I remember like it
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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
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was blessed beyond words to have incredible grandparents and and and it
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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
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they they they for some reason thought I make things okay so they were they were
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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
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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
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
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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
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
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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
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
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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
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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
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