People

McQueary Henry Bowles Troy LLP (MHBT), recently named Fred Pecina and Jeremy Sandusky partners in the agency. Pecina is based in the firm’s Ft. Worth office, and Sandusky works in MHBT’s Dallas office.

Pecina, previously the director of employee benefits in MHBT’s Ft. Worth office, has more than 20 years of experience with health care, dental care, pharmacy, vision and disability insurance for both self-insured and fully-insured programs.

Before joining MHBT in 2000, he spent time as a service representative for Fortune 1,000 companies such as Southland Corp., Marriott Corp., Chief Auto Parts and Delta Airlines. He was also a successful sales executive in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for health care companies such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente and Cigna HealthCare. Pecina is certified as a Group I – Life & Health Insurance Agent.

Sandusky, previously an account executive in MHBT’s Dallas office, specializes in commercial property and casualty insurance and has more than 13 years of collective selling experience in construction-related industries. Prior to joining MHBT in 2006, Sandusky served as an account executive at another local Dallas/Ft. Worth agency and as an account executive for Southern Star Concrete Inc. (formally Hanson Building Materials and Pioneer Concrete).

MHBT also announced that Brad Van Winkle joined its Austin, Texas, office as senior vice president.

Van Winkle brings more than 26 years of experience in sales and account management, as well as operations management. Prior to joining MHBT, he served as the director of Account Management, Key Accounts for Central Texas for United Healthcare in Austin for eight years. Van Winkle also has held senior executive level positions for organizations such as IKON Office Solutions/IKON Document Services, Aetna Health Plans of Texas and The Travelers Insurance Co.

Kyle A. Bailey joined retail insurance broker and risk management firm IMA of Texas Inc. as a vice president for employee benefits and property and casualty insurance. At IMA, he will be responsible for benefit client sales and service activities for fully insured and self-funded employers.

Bailey has more than 12 years experience helping companies throughout the Southwest implement employee benefits programs. Bailey previously held an employee benefits executive position with the Dallas arm of a national insurance brokerage. He has experience working at regional and national brokerages. He has also worked as an employee benefits underwriter.

Brown & Brown Inc. named C. Roy Bridges regional president responsible for most of the company’s retail operations in the western United States. He will have regional oversight responsibility for certain offices in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

Bridges has been with Brown & Brown since 1987, when the agency in which he was a principal was acquired. He has been promoted through several positions over the years and was elected as regional executive vice president in 2001.

Gary Y. Kusumi joined Addison, Texas-based Affirmative Insurance Holdings Inc. as executive vice president and president of each of the company’s five insurance company subsidiaries.

Kusumi joins Affirmative with approximately 30 years of experience in the insurance industry, much of it specifically in personal lines insurance. His background includes his most recent experience as president and CEO of GMAC Insurance’s personal lines business. In addition, he served as an executive vice president in the Great American Insurance organization, and spent more than 10 years at Progressive Corp. in a variety of senior managerial positions.

Hayden Haucke joined Swett & Crawford as a broker in its Dallas property practice group. Haucke was most recently with CRC in Dallas, handling both inland marine and casualty lines of business.

San Antonio, Texas-based independent claims adjusting firm IAS Claim Services named Paul C. Kottler president. Most recently Kottler was vice president of Crawford & Company’s U.S. Property and Casualty Western Division.

Alex Castano joined Texas Associates Insurors in Austin, Texas, as a risk and insurance advisor with a focus on developing and implementing risk solutions strategies for commercial entities.

He joins Texas Associates Insurors after a long career of real estate development and capital investment strategies with public and private firms.

Cathy H. Allen was named vice president of training for Lubbock, Texas-based insurance organization The Gibraltar Group. In addition, she will be working with the firm’s customers in human resources risk management.

Allen joins The Gibraltar Group from Workforce Solutions South Plains, where she spent the past year as project director for the South Plains Recruitment and Relocation Initiative. As project director she developed and administered a pilot program to recruit and relocate job candidates from surplus areas nationwide to the 15-county region of the South Plains.

Five insurance and risk management students at the University of Texas at San Antonio were awarded $10,000 in scholarships from the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT). The UTSA scholarship recipients for 2010 are Su-Whey Hu, Andre Moreira, Casey Passant, Joyita Saha and Rafael Velez.

The ICT Education Foundation provides scholarships and academic funding to UTSA and the insurance and risk management programs at nine other Texas universities. The Foundation has provided scholarships to 162 students during the past eight years.

Ryan Young has joined the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America as senior director of federal government affairs. Young previously served as legislative director to Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, where his legislative responsibilities included Financial Services Committee issues.

Topics Texas Agencies Property Casualty Risk Management Employee Benefits