People & Places

Jennifer Fahrenkrug

Jennifer Fahrenkrug has been promoted to territory manager at Sheboygan, Wis.-based regional property/casualty insurer ACUITY and will handle the company’s Michigan and Northern Ohio territories. Meanwhile, Kelly Taber has been named commercial lines staff underwriter at the firm’s corporate headquarters.

Kelly Taber

Fahrenkrug began her insurance career with Citizens Insurance as a commercial lines underwriter, eventually earning promotions to commercial lines processing supervisor and commercial lines production underwriter. She left Citizens to join St. Paul Travelers as an underwriter for select commercial accounts and later joined Fremont Insurance Co. as a commercial lines production underwriter. In 2003, Fahrenkrug joined the staff at ACUITY as a commercial field underwriter for Michigan, the position she held prior to her recent promotion.

Mark Temnyk

Taber joined ACUITY in December 2000 as a senior commercial lines underwriter. Prior to ACUITY, she had nearly seven years of commercial underwriting experience at Wausau Insurance and also worked for five years in the commercial lines area of Sentry in Stevens Point, Wis. ACUITY currently operates in 13 Midwestern states, writes over $700 million in premium through 650 independent agencies, and holds more than $1.4 billion in assets.

Matthew Carletti

Farmington Hills, Mich.-based specialty insurance wholesaler Burns & Wilcox appointed Mark Temnyk as the company’s information technology infrastructure manager. Temnyk is responsible for managing the Burns & Wilcox network and computing infrastructure and directing the IT support staff.

Kathleen Preston

Temnyk joins Burns & Wilcox with an extensive IT background as both a technician and manager. His expertise includes voice and data telecommunications, server administration, business process analysis and information security. Temnyk previously managed the IT for a multisite manufacturing company.

Matthew Carletti has joined Chicago-based insurance industry investment banker Cochran, Caronia & Co. as a vice president. Carletti will cover the property/casualty insurance sector for Cochran, Caronia’s research unit. The unit aims to provide unbiased information and analysis to the institutional investing community regarding the insurance industry and insurance-related companies. The firm provides active equity research coverage on more than 50 insurance-related companies, as well as sector-specific and industry trend research.

Before joining Cochran, Caronia & Co., Carletti covered the specialty finance sector for Piper Jaffray, an independent, publicly traded financial services firm. He also spent six years in the equity research group at Fox-Pitt, Kelton Inc., the equity research and investment banking division of Swiss Re.

Property/casualty insurer St. Paul Travelers announced Kathleen L. Prestonwill join the company as executive vice president of field marketing. In this newly created position leading St. Paul Travelers’ 13 regional executives and 29 district executives, Preston will report to president and CEO Jay Fishman and be based in the company’s Hartford, Conn., office.

Preston currently serves as president of the retail annuities division at Travelers Life & Annuity, which was purchased by MetLife in a transaction expected to close sometime this summer, according to a St. Paul Travelers spokeswoman. Preston oversees product development, risk management, distribution, marketing, asset retention and training. She also serves as executive vice president of Travelers Life & Annuity, with responsibility for communications and community relations.

While Preston has served most of her professional career in leadership positions within Travelers Life & Annuity, she also served as senior vice president of insurance sales and operations for Fleet Financial Group from 1995 to 1998. Preston will join St. Paul Travelers following the completion of her current responsibilities at Travelers Life & Annuity, which will end once the sale transaction to MetLife goes through.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced the following recent appointments to the Workers’ Compensation Appellate Commission:

Gregory Przybylo of Okemos, an attorney in private practice. Przybylo is appointed for a term expiring Sept. 30, 2005. He succeeds Richard Leslie who has resigned.

Granner Ries of Clinton Township, an attorney in private practice. Ries is appointed for a term expiring Sept. 30, 2005. He succeeds William Reamon, Jr. who has resigned.

The Workers’ Compensation Appellate Commission has statutory authority to review opinions and orders of the worker’s comp magistrates and to promulgate rules to amend its administrative appellate procedures. It also has the authority to review orders of the director of the Bureau of Workers Disability Compensation. The appointments stand confirmed unless disapproved by the Senate within 60 days.

Appleton, Wis.-based mutual SECURA Insurance Cos. promoted three senior executives at its recent annual meeting.

Vice president of finance and SECURA officer Kathryn Sieman was promoted to senior vice president of finance. Sieman has served as the vice president of finance for SECURA Insurance since 1997. In her role, Sieman is responsible for corporate strategic planning, financial planning and reporting, cash and investment management, billing administration and regulatory compliance.

Chief actuary Marty Arnold was promoted to vice president and chief actuary and named a SECURA officer. Arnold is responsible for the management and continued development of the actuarial department, reinsurance, as well as competitive intelligence functions for the company. He also serves as director of policyholder retention.

Lastly, controller Jeff Kargus was named a SECURA officer. Kargus joined SECURA in November 2003 as controller and is responsible for SECURA’s internal financial reporting and management and external compliance reporting.

SECURA, which offers personal, commercial and farm insurance products and services, is represented by nearly 390 principal agencies in nine states.