Donald E. Bowles, Jr., president of McQueary Henry Bowles Troy LLP in Dallas, won the Drex Foreman Award and Rowdy Nutt, a producer with Bosworth & Associates in Tyler, was named IIAT Young Agent of the Year for 2004 by the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas during the IIAT Annual Convention held recently in Dallas.
Drex Foreman Award
The Drex Foreman award is named for a former executive director of IIAT who served the organization for 30 years.
“This prestigious award, the association’s highest honor, recognizes exceptional contributions to the Independent Agency System, the Texas insurance industry and local community and no one is more deserving than Don,” said Jim Berger, IIAT president.
André Juneau, IIAT immediate past president, in making the award presentation told some 300 guests gathered at the formal dinner-dance, that Bowles began his long association career as a member of the board of directors of the Dallas local from 1982 to 1987 including a term as president, following in the footsteps of his father. Just after his term as president, he was elected to the IIAT board of directors, ultimately serving as president during the 1992/93 term.
“The association went through two major changes under his leadership,” said Juneau. “First, he represented agents during the transition at TDI from a three-member board to a single commissioner of insurance, while working to loosen the regulatory constraints on our industry. He proved to be an effective lobbying voice for the association.
“His administration will be most remembered for accomplishing what no other state had found a way to do: the merger of the two agents’ associations in Texas into a single group affiliated with the national Big ‘I.’ When merger negotiations came apart at the national level, our honoree worked doubly hard to broker an agreement with the Texas PIA organization.
“The results were the creation of a merged organization in 1993, TAIA, which immediately became the largest state agents association in the country. Had it not been for this man’s vision and leadership, it is unlikely that we would be one group today, speaking with one voice,” Juneau explained.
Bowles also founded Y-Mutual, a Bermuda-based reinsurer that supports the self-insurance programs of over 400 local YMCA associations. Bowles has served on the national YMCA board and currently serves on the board of the reinsurer that he created.
Bowles has served as a member of the governing boards of the Academy of Producer Insurance Studies, the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors and the Dallas Chapter of the CPCU Society.
Young Agent Award
In presenting the Young Agent of the Year award to Nutt, Clyde Fitch, St. Paul Travelers president of agency operations for personal lines, remarked: “This year’s winner represents the best kind of example for young agents in this industry on how to succeed and serve.”
After five years as a senior transition analyst for a life and health consulting firm and then agent for New York Life in Austin, Nutt entered the property casualty business joining The Insurance Store/Capitol City Insurance Agency in Round Rock and then Bosworth & Associates in Tyler as a producer, where he has distinguished himself in a number of industry leadership roles at both the local and state levels.
A graduate of Northeast Louisiana University with a degree in finance and economics, he has been a board member of his local association for four years, including one year as president. He has been chairman of the Rose City Roundup Golf Tournament Committee.
At the state level Nutt, has been chairman of the IIAT Young Agents Committee and while chairman of the Trusted Choice Membership Campaign his committee received the Outstanding State Committee Project Award from the national Big “I.”
He is currently a member of the IIAT Finance Committee and in 2003 he received the IIAT Committee Chair or the Year Award. He is also a former president of the Rotary Club and president of the Rotary Club Foundation.
He is active in the local chamber of commerce, an athletic coach and a board member of the East Texas Boys and Girls Club.
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