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Kathy Ryan, SPHR, is an award-winning author and owner of Pinnacle Coaching Group, LLC.  Over the last 30 years, Kathy has influenced thousands of people in the business and non-profit sectors through her coaching, consulting, speaking and on-site training. Her expertise covers a wide range of subjects including leadership, communication, human resources management, team dynamics, and performance management.

Kathy earned her B.A. degree in psychology and history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and has been awarded a lifetime certification as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society for Human Resources Management. She has experience working with diverse industries including insurance, hospitality and entertainment. She is certified in the use of the Myer-Briggs Type Assessment (MBTI), as well as a number of other assessments and tools to support development.

Kathy is author of the book, "You Have to Say the Words" An Integrity-Based Approach for Tackling Tough Conversations and Maximizing Performance, which won a Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association.  Her interactive training program based on the book has helped thousands of managers to improve their coaching skills and drive performance. Her articles on leadership and other personal development topics have been published in numerous magazines including the Insurance Journal. You can follow Kathy’s blog, Inspired Leadership, at www.CoachKathyRyan.com .

Frederick J. Fisher, J.D. is currently the President of Fisher Consulting Group, Inc. and was the Founder of E.L.M. Insurance Brokers, a Wholesale & MGA facility specializing in Professional Liability and Specialty Line risks. He is a Member of the Editorial Board for Agents of America;  a Faculty Member of the Claims College, and was an original Member of the Executive Council, School of Professional Lines sponsored by the Claims & Litigation Management Association and is an Instructor for the Academy of Insurance.

Since his career began, Mr. Fisher focused on one vision: providing financial security to the client. The result was a successful 51-year career in Specialty Lines Insurance. In 1975, Mr. Fisher began his career on the service side, as an Independent E&O claims adjuster. In 1982, he bought the Company, continued with claims, while expanding the firm’s services to include qualitative claim auditing, risk management & loss control services, and acting as a TPA. In only 4 years, the annual billings increased by 400%. His claim auditing techniques and recommendations resulted in substantial client savings (including the SCRTD now known as the Los Angles MTA). Many Insurers and self-insureds adopted not only the performance standards raised in the audits but adopted his recommended Attorney Management Guidelines as a base, which are still in use today by many major insurers. 

In 1995, he formed what was  known as ELM insurance Brokers, a firm that has acted as an MGA and Wholesale Broker of Professional Liability Insurance and Specialty Lines. From nothing, the firm grew rapidly to a $30 Million dollar facility when sold in 2008. He has lectured extensively on professional liability issues since 1978 and authored over 80 articles in trade journals and periodicals. He is the author of BROKER BEWARE, Selling Real Estate within the Law, and Claims Made Insurance: The Policy That Changed the Industry. The Insurance  Journal called it an “irreplaceable classic”.  He designed a program to conduct on-site pre-underwriting risk management assessments of a clients' professional liability exposures. In 1993, he was elected to the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) Board of Trustees. After serving in all Officer capacities, he was elected President in 1997. In 2019, PLUS bestowed him with the  Founders Award for his lasting and outstanding contributions to PLUS.  He remains a Special Materials Expert for several RPLU courses and is the Senior Technical Advisor for The Professional Liability Manual, first published by the International Risk Management Institute in 1990. He has taught over 180 CE classes and lectures. He testifies regularly as an expert witness in cases dealing with the duties and obligations of professionals as well as on coverage and claims-made issues.  Most recently, his Current company, Fisher Consulting Group, Inc. successfully applied for and received  trademark status on his well known phrase “The Gotchya’s That’ll Getchya” ®.

Nancy Germond is the Executive Director, Risk Management and Education, for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, the “Big I.” She is located in Phoenix, Arizona. With almost four decades of risk management experience, her unique insights and abilities help businesses better understand and manage their risk. Nancy has authored scores of risk management-related articles, and white papers and has consulted and presented to public-sector and private-sector insurance organizations. She is a licensed P&C agent and adjuster.

A second-generation insurance professional, Nancy was the first risk manager of the City of Prescott, Arizona, and has worked in the private and public sectors as a claim and risk manager. Nancy holds a B.A. in Communication from Mills College and a Master’s degree in sociology from Lincoln University. She also holds the Associate in Risk Management, the Associate in Claims designation from the Insurance Institute of America, the Insurance Training Professional Designation from the Society of Insurance Trainers and is a Senior Professional in Human Resource Management.

Chris Burand is the Owner/Founder of Burand & Associates, LLC.  Chris is the only insurance agency consultant with an Institute of Business Appraiser’s Certified Business Appraiser Accreditation and one of the very few who are certified by the two largest E&O carriers to provide audits for agencies.  With more than 35 years of experience in the insurance industry, Chris is acknowledged as a leading consultant and is a nationally recognized speaker and author.  His broad experience and wealth of knowledge have enabled him to work with hundreds of agencies, taking great care to learn the client’s goals and understand their needs while developing a solution for their specific situation.

Chris combines education, experience, and knowledge from multiple perspectives at proven levels that few other consultants or educators can provide.  This enables Chris to provide holistic solutions.  Chris’s services help agencies, individuals, and carriers identify strengths and opportunities, optimize productivity and profits, implement real-world strategies, leverage resources, and develop realistic plans of action in order to maximize profitable growth.

Chris established Burand & Associates in 1992 (originally known as Growth Planning).  As a consultant, Chris has consulted with hundreds of agencies and many major insurance carriers.  He built and now facilitates two insurance agency networking associations.  He is also a featured speaker across the continent.  To date, he has presented more than 400 seminars and educational programs, and his articles have also been published more than 500 times.  He is a monthly columnist for The Insurance Journal, a past columnist for American Agent & Broker for eleven years, and his articles have appeared in Rough Notes, The National Underwriter, A.M. Best, many regional insurance publications, and many other trade publications.  He also publishes Burand’s Insurance Agency Adviser for independent insurance agents.

Areas of Expertise

Insurance Agency Appraisals:  Chris Burand’s professional services include appraisals for Acquisitions and Sales, Buy/Sell Agreements, Mergers, Dissolutions, and Perpetuation Planning.

Contingency Contract Analysis:  Contingency contracts offer opportunities to increase compensation through negotiations and strategically placing business.  Chris Burand’s Contingency Contract Analysis® service provides the information agents need to take advantage of those opportunities.

Note:  Chris Burand and Burand & Associates, LLC are advocates of agencies which constructively manage and improve their contingency contracts by learning how to negotiate and use their contingency contracts more effectively.  We maintain that agents can achieve considerably better results without ever taking actions that are detrimental or disadvantageous to the insureds.  We have never and would not ever recommend that an agent and/or agency implement a policy of, or otherwise advocate, increasing its contingency income ahead of the insureds’ interests.

PEP® (Productivity Enhancement):  Chris’s innovative statistical algorithm method for identifying procedural consistency, compliance, activity cost, and opportunity cost savings.

Carrier MD® Stability Analysis:  A unique analytical method for creating opportunities to learn negotiating points and insurance carrier stability from an agency’s perspective.

Producer Compensation Plans:  Chris Burand develops plans that increase profits and motivate producers.

Chris Christian stumbled into insurance in 1985 as a temporary employee at GAF Insurance Services, a bank-affiliated insurance agency in San Diego.  After six years with GAF, Chris moved to the carrier side, opening the San Diego branch office of RLI Corp, an underwriter of specialty lines of insurance.  The San Diego office was dedicated to Directors and Officers Liability coverage, and was the launching pad for Chris’s specialization in professional liability.

Chris left RLI in 1997 to establish her own underwriting facility at London American General Agency and branched out thereafter into professional liability broking.

Chris joined U.S. Risk in November of 2005 and six months later relocated herself, her significant other, and 26 animals to Tennessee, where she continues her pursuit of the art and science of professional liability broking, and contributes to the industry as a frequent speaker, author and association participant.

Timothy D. Dodge, AU, ARM, CPCU is the Assistant Vice President of Research for Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of New York, Inc., headquartered in Dewitt, New York. Tim is responsible for answering members’ questions about insurance technical, legal, regulatory, and legislative matters, and for all communications with the media. He also writes for IIABNY’s weekly newsletter; maintains sections of the IIABNY Web site; writes a blog about insurance technical matters; hosted an award-winning video podcast; and teaches continuing education classes. Since 2008, he has served on national committees that work with ISO to improve coverage forms. He previously worked as a commercial lines underwriter and underwriting trainer for CNA Insurance in Syracuse. He is a graduate of the State University of New York College at Brockport and received the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation in 1998. He has held his current position with IIABNY since 2002. 

Bob is a Claims Manager with Academic Risk Resources & Insurance, LLC. He brings over 20 years of professional experience in commercial multi-line claims consulting and risk management. He also has over ten years of claims advocacy experience on OCIP and large construction losses.

In addition, Bob teaches professional development insurance courses for the Insurance Library of Boston and Polestar Performance Programs, Inc. Bob also has extensive experience in large loss claim management and has been retained as an expert witness by both plaintiff and defense attorneys on insurance disputes in litigation.

Bob’s present responsibilities include: complex coverage analysis, working with insurers to obtain proper and timely claim settlements, conducting multi-line claim reviews to monitor the reserving and establishing claims handling protocols of his clients’ insurers and TPAs.

Jim Wochele is the Unit Manger in MarshBerry’s Sales Performance Consulting division. His team partners with insurance agencies by implementing tactical strategies that will allow them to achieve organic growth through new business production.

Their focus is helping agencies build a scalable organic growth engine through organizational capabilities best practices, sales process implementation, and improving producers’ individual sales skills through consistent coaching.

Jim is mainly responsible for relationship management of the Sales Performance clients, new client acquisition and onboarding, onsite client visits, carrier-sponsored sales trainings, and agency organic growth business planning.

Jim is a keynote speaker at educational seminars, insurance carrier conferences and executive leadership forums. He also leads the Organic Growth Leadership Seminars and SalesPro Producer Training sessions hosted by MarshBerry. Jim is also a frequent contributor to MarshBerry and industry publications.

Jim joined MarshBerry in 2011 as a Sales Management Analyst, which was followed by a promotion to Consultant in 2013, Senior Consultant in 2014, and Unit Manager in 2016. Jim has over eight years of sales, sales management and project management expertise. Prior to joining MarshBerry, Jim held a dual sales manager and project manager position for a construction firm located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Science in physics with a minor in mathematics from Baldwin Wallace University, while playing football and baseball for all four years.

Randy Sieberg, CIC, ARM, CRM is the founder and principal consultant of Workers Compensation Consultants, a nationally recognized independent workers compensation consulting firm based in Columbia, Missouri. His firm provides fee-based professional consulting services, expert witness and litigation services and assists employers, insurance agents and brokers experiencing problems with workers compensation premium, audits, classification code, claim, experience rating and other premium generating issues. He consults with clients throughout a broad range of industries including attorneys, insurance companies, insurance agencies, agents, brokers, contractors, service providers, transportation, manufacturers, retail and wholesale operations.

He began his career in the insurance industry as a business insurance specialist in 1981. As Senior Commercial Lines Consultant for Mid-America Specialty Markets, an Estal Insurance and Financial Services Company, he continues to direct the commercial insurance team in client risk analysis and product placement. As a licensed commercial insurance producer and independent agency principal he specialized in commercial property and casualty insurance, workers compensation and risk management programs. His expertise encompasses all areas of property and casualty risk management including risk analysis, program design and implementation, commercial insurance coverage analysis and pricing for commercial clients.

As the principal consultant for Workers Compensation Consultants Randy directs activities, provides support and assigns expert witness and litigation support duties to other expert advisers on staff. The firm's highly ranked website, WorkCompConsultant.com and blog is recognized as a valuable source of information for employers, agents and brokers while providing useful, in the trenches, real life help about commercial insurance and workers compensation premium related issues for all readers.

Randy received the Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation conferred from the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research in 1989, the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation from the Insurance Institute of America in 1986 and the Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designation from the National Academy in 1994. He maintains annual industry educational updates and participates in annual continuing education seminars. He is on staff as a teaching presenter with the Academy of Insurance.

He speaks on a variety of insurance and workers compensation related topics. His presentations include: "Workers Compensation -An Employers Point of View" -"Today's Workers Compensation Issues -Their Effect on the Human Resource Manager's Job" and "Real Solutions for Managing Workers Compensation Cost." His publications include "Most Common Workers Compensation Mistakes Employers Make" -published by the Courier Magazine. He has been interviewed and quoted by Eric Krell in his article "How to Avoid Workers Comp Premium Overpayments" published for the Society for Human Resource Management. His insurance related articles have been presented in a variety of association, employer and insurance related publications.

Randy continues to face the challenges presented by our industry and looks forward to assisting new and established agents and brokers unravel complicated insurance problems. As evidenced by his stable insurance industry work history and continued professional growth, Randy provides a professional guidance and knowledge base for those clients seeking assistance and support with issues found within his areas of expertise. 

Tom Wetzel, industry journalist and digital marketing consultant for independent agents, started with the Insurance Information Institute and later then headed a state association of insurers. He worked for several major public relations agencies, developing campaigns for companies and associations, including the Society of CPCU. He is a frequent contributor to major insurance publications, served as the social media columnist for Rough Notes and now writes a column for agents in the Insurance Journal called “Tech Talk.”   His consulting firm has helped hundreds of agencies with websites, blogging, and social media services.  He also stays in touch with agents and companies through his workshops and presentations, his blog “The Good Risk,” as a participant through many social media groups, as moderator of “Social Media Management for Insurance Industry” on Facebook and as a member of the Insurance Marketing & Communications Association (IMCA).   He has presented hundreds of presentations over the years to national and state agent associations and clusters.

Chris Cline has been fascinated by science, design, and the arts his entire life. He’s also spent most of his personal and professional life as an outlier. This combination of traits provides insight into his diverse interests and approach to life. 

Chris began his career as a graphic designer at an insurance company that afforded him many opportunities to learn, grow, and experience many facets of the business world. A senior executive once said to Chris, “I’m not sure if you are the most creative analytic I’ve ever met, or the most analytic creative…but, you do not think like most in this industry.”  He has chosen to embrace this observation and acknowledge how that sentiment has influenced and impacted so many areas of his life.

Throughout his career, Chris has been a part of and led several incredible teams, he co-developed and hosted an award-winning podcast, and was presented with the Independence Bell Award as industry person of the year by the Ohio Insurance Agents Association in 2022 for his passion and dedication to the insurance industry. 

Chris’s personal life has been even more rewarding. He currently resides in Ohio with his wonderful wife and son where they enjoy camping as much as they can. Though he has other deep personal passions across many diverse activities such as BMX, playing music, classic cars, and running, none of them are as important to Chris as the time he spends with his family. 

Learn more about Chris and the journey that created the Inertia of Legacy at https://inertiaoflegacy.godaddysites.com.

Craig Andrews is a forty-year veteran of the property-casualty industry with significant experience as a producer, independent agency owner, insurer commercial field production underwriter, coverage instructor, insurer commercial and personal underwriting and sales manager, expert witness, home office commercial underwriting manager and commercial product development officer.   He’s made perhaps hundreds of coverage presentations to diverse industry audiences throughout the country and has twice been interviewed by George Nordhaus for his “Monday Morning” webinars. 

Craig holds the CPCU, ARM, AAI, AU-M, ARe, AMIM and ASLI professional designations.  He has earned The Institute’s Award for Academic Excellence for both the ASLI and AMIM programs.  Craig is a graduate of Indiana University and a U.S. Navy veteran.  

Brennan Quintus is the Chief Executive Officer of the North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund (NDIRF), the source of risk services for North Dakota’s cities, counties, school districts, and other political subdivisions. Prior to being appointed CEO, Brennan led the NDIRF’s underwriting and loss control departments.

Brennan holds an undergraduate degree and an MBA from the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND and is currently pursuing a law degree from Concord Law School, an affiliate of the Purdue University System. He also holds many insurance designations, including the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designations.

In addition to his role at the NDIRF, Brennan also serves as the President of the ND Roughrider Chapter of the CPCU Society and as an Executive Committee Member for the ND HR Collaborative.