A Century of Growing and Giving Back

Article

Old age hasn’t set in at Barney & Barney yet and with almost 20 percent growth in each of the last nine years, it doesn’t look like it will take root any time soon.

With $32 million in revenues and $263 million in property/casualty premiums in 2008, Barney & Barney ranked 38th in the 2009 Insurance Journal Top 100, which tracks privately-held independent insurance agencies.

In business since 1909, this insurance brokerage is in the habit of giving: to its employees, to its clients, and to the community.

The firm was recently named one of San Diego’s “Best Places to Work” by the San Diego Business Journal.

What makes this brokerage worthy of this accolade? According to employees, it is the work environment. The company’s leaders work hard to insure their workers are happy and secure in the workplace.

Paul Hering, CEO of Barney & Barney since 2004, makes it a point to maintain a family environment, even through the company’s growth.

“We’re 350 people strong now, but we still try to operate like a family company,” Hering says. “I meet with every single new associate in the company within probably the first 30 days of their arrival and we spend—15 to 30 minutes together just to get to know one another and learn a little bit about each other’s backgrounds. I think that’s important, and yet I’ve had many of them say ‘I can’t believe you’re meeting with me.'”

Trindl Reeves, the director of business development, left her position as managing director at larger Marsh San Diego for the opportunity to work more directly with clients. “I was miserable,” Reeves says of her former job. “I have two young children, my husband stays home with them, and I was absolutely hating my life, and my husband says, ‘What are you doing? You need to make a change. You were happiest when you were working with the clients. You need to fix that.’ And I decided to fix it.”

She walked away from her job and joined Barney & Barney, which was her former firm’s strongest competitor.

“I was in Paul’s role at the biggest competitor across the street. We (Reeves and Hering) did battle.” The battle quickly ended when Hering hired her and, due to her experience as CEO, offered her part ownership of the company.

Today, Reeves works with the producers at Barney & Barney to create new business opportunities. She also does production herself, which allows her the opportunity to work directly with clients.

Hering says Barney & Barney is big on promoting work-life balance. Reeves agrees.

“Paul has the work-life balance discussion with every person who comes in the firm,” Reeves says.

But, she continues, it’s not just talk.

“I just lost my mother to cancer and we had a lot going on at the time. We had a big dinner one night that was planned, and I was leading it, and he (Hering) looked at me and he goes ‘I’m gonna’ handle this; you need to go now.’ And literally I was out of the office for three weeks straight. I was my mom’s primary caregiver during her last days and the people just rallied and took care of all my stuff. There was no question; it was, get out of here, go. That’s how they are.”

The owners are patient with employees who for whatever reason are unable to perform up to their standards.

“We have people out there that stretch out for three years ’cause we believe in the person,” Reeves says. “We give everybody every opportunity to be successful, and if at that point, we can’t get them there, then we’ll part ways. When we do part ways, we’ll help them find a job and it’s always a positive experience.”

Not surprisingly, Hering is proud to say that Barney & Barney has a very low attrition rate. “I think the last numbers that I saw were probably for the end of ’08 and I think our turnover rate was less than eight percent. In this day and age, when you look at financial services companies, and especially those in the insurance industry, the statistics that I saw on that, turnover was well over 15 percent. We were less than half that in terms of our turnover rate as a company. We’re pretty proud of the fact that our people stick around, they seem to like it here and—we try to keep them happy.”

Hal Dunning, who joined Barney & Barney in 2001 as chief financial officer, says the opportunity to work there has been the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“People come in, they literally come in, and say ‘wow, seems like people are really upbeat’,” Dunning says. “It really is a high performing organization. We have almost 20 percent growth for each of the last nine years, that helps. It is by far the best corporate culture I’ve ever been part of.”

Core Values

The secret behind Barney & Barney’s enthusiastic employees and what they see as an exemplary workplace, lies in eight core values. These values are the glue that holds all the people and pieces of the firm together. They eight core values are: community involvement; teamwork; attitude; integrity; accountability; creativity; excellence and fairness.

These values are not taken lightly. They are so important to the owners that CFO Dunning trains the employees himself in their meaning, covering one core value every month.

The owners are so serious about community involvement that they give employees three days a year off to go out and serve an organization of their choice. It can be any activity, ranging from working in a school, to helping in a church, to being a big brother or sister.

“Giving to the community is not just something we like to do, we just want to do that,” Dunning says. “It’s a thank you. Probably now, more than ever, the community needs it. Things are pretty tough out there for the non-profits in the community.”

CEO Hering’s civic involvements include Big Brothers & Sisters, United Way, Rady Children’s Hospital, University of California and the San Diego Symphony.

Dunning chairs the CFO Roundtable and is chairman of the group’s “Day for Change,” a charity that serves abused and neglected children. He recently founded the Orange County chapter of the CFO Roundtable. For the past eight years he has been the president of the board for Walden Family Services, the largest foster family agency in San Diego. He has also volunteered at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla since 1995.

Reeves is no slouch either when it comes to community service. “I think the number, I have to count for you, I think I’m on eight boards right now,” she says with a chuckle. “And almost all of them, I lead a committee of some sort, whether it be their HR committee, their nominating committee, their membership committee—I was the president of one of them several years ago.”

She is on the San Diego County YMCA board, the BIOCOM board, the Connect board, the economic development corporation board, the San Diego Venture Group board, the Orange County Venture group board, and the UC Irvine CEO round table board. She “thinks” she is on one other board.

“This company has been very deeply involved in the community for a long time,” Dunning says. “We exist to serve our clients, our colleagues, and our community.”

Ownership Opportunities

Barney & Barney has always been privately owned. Today, with 32 owners, this remains an integral part of the strategy.

“We have a broad ownership strategy, whereby we give people who are really contributing to the success and to the increased value of the company the opportunity to become an owner,” Hering says. “In my view, that allows us to attract and retain the best and brightest talent and it allows us really to only focus on our clients and associates. We don’t have to worry about quarterly financial reports to Wall Street or outside investors that we need to try to make happy. We only need to be accountable to our clients and to our people.”

Ownership is not just for the elite within the company, either. Opportunities are available for those who work hard, even for those who enter at the bottom. Reeves says there is a clear path to ownership, even for younger people coming in.

“We made a woman an owner who started out as a receptionist,” Reeves says. “She kind of embodies the whole Barney & Barney picture and what we want in a partner and she was asked to come in the ownership group two years ago and it was just a wonderful day. The whole place rallied because she is the epitome of somebody coming in as a receptionist and working her way up.”

The average age of the owners at Barney & Barney is 45. “It’s a fairly young group of owners leading the firm,” Reeves says. “It’s a group of people all our age and we’re sitting around the table making decisions to drive the company. It’s just really exciting.”

The owners look at certain factors when judging whether someone is worthy of being added to the ownership ranks. “We look at, not just the financial performance, but we look at their overall contribution, their good citizenship, do they fit the culture, or someone that we think is going to help grow the firm in the long-run?” says Reeves.

New owners are offered equity in the firm; each has a different amount of equity. When business is going well, the owners give profits back to the employees in the form of 401k and bonuses.

In 2008, Barney & Barney merged with another California agency, Saylor & Hill. Between the two, they now have three offices in California: in San Diego, in Orange County, and in the San Francisco bay.

Hering says this has been a great match so far. “They (Saylor & Hill) were about one-fifth our size. They had a great ownership team and they were looking for ways to continue to grow their company.”

In addition to producers and support staff, there are a variety of specialized experts on staff. Attorneys serve as risk and loss advisors, executive liability experts, claims management experts, and D&O insurance specialists. Their main purpose is to be a resource for clients.

“We’ve got five or six attorneys on staff,” Dunning says. “We have actuaries on staff, we have, just so many more resources in our offices here than most brokers have because we know that we can make that investment and we don’t have to worry about what our quarterly earnings might be. We can just do the right thing.”

Foundation for the Future

Oct. 1, 2009 was a special day for Barney & Barnet. The firm held its company-wide celebration of its 100-year anniversary. They celebrated in two ways. In the morning, they held their first-annual, caring-for-community 5k walk as a fundraiser. They closed their offices, and everybody in the company did a 5k walk. The firm divided its 340 associates into teams of 12 and had some friendly competition. Their goal was to raise $200,000 from just that morning.

In the evening, they held a large celebration with the community, key clients, key prospects and all the associates.

Barney & Barney has regularly donated to about 50 charitable causes every year. The annual giving is generally about $200,000. As part of the 100th anniversary celebration, Hering decided to create the Barney & Barney Foundation.

“We’ve been around for 100 years and we have a rich tradition of giving back to the community,” Hering says. “But we’ve always just done that on, I guess, what you’d say is sort of an informal basis. But I thought it would be wonderful for us to celebrate our 100th anniversary by creating a Barney & Barney Foundation that will be a lasting legacy for our company. I thought this (the Barney and Barney Foundation) was a neat way to celebrate those 100 years, but also look to the future, and continuing to celebrate one of our core values, which is focused around giving back to the community.”

The company has an ambitious goal for the foundation. “The ownership is donating some stock, and a significant amount of cash. Some key insurance partners made contributions. We’re hoping to get some of our retired owners to contribute, and then, with our $200,000 that we’re gonna’ raise from our fundraiser, our goal is to raise a $1 million in our first year.”

Hering’s vision for the next 100 years is to keep Barney & Barney growing, to continue to give people who contribute to the company’s success opportunities for ownership, and, above all, to remain privately owned.

“I’ve been asked many times in my role as CEO what my biggest challenge is that I perceive and it’s growing the company without losing sight of what made us a great company in the first place,” Hering reflects. “I think corporate culture is a way overused term, but I guess I like to think of it as the company’s character. It’s a challenge to grow without losing the character of your company, but that’s what we have in mind.”

Barney & Barney’s 8 Core Values: