der starts

profile
Brown at
a training
session in a
community
hall in Kisoro,
southwestern
Uganda.
Water man
Up to four billion people routinely drink contaminated water, a number sure to shrink with Edmonton broker
Jeff Brown visiting underdeveloped countries to promote the safe and inexpensive solar water disinfection
system. “If people can solve this problem,” Brown says, “they can work their way out of poverty.”
J
eff Brown is truly a man on a
mission. The Edmonton businessman shows the inhabitants
of underdeveloped countries
how to create a safe and inexpensive supply of potable
water. And he’s doing so on his own
dime.
A management accountant with
an FCIP designation, Brown is also
the sole owner of Pratt Lambert &
Brown Insurance, an independent
home and auto brokerage specializing in professional and general liability insurance for selected markets.
Brown bought the business in 1994
from the estate of his late father Ken,
a longtime manager with Wawanesa
Mutual who, in 1949, decided to
strike out on his own.
Jeff, 50, was born and raised in the
Alberta capital. Wawanesa transferred his
father to New Brunswick to manage the
mutual’s branch office there, so Brown
attended university in the province, graduating with an undergraduate degree in
business administration. Before joining
www.insurancewest.ca
the family operation in 1990, Brown
worked with Reed Stenhouse in Edmonton and for Vancouver’s Jardine Rolfe.
Pratt Lambert & Brown has a staff of
14 and an annual premium volume of
about $11 million. In addition to Alberta,
the brokerage operates in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
The idea of helping people around the
By Ron Shorvoyce
world obtain potable water goes back
a few years, to a business plan Brown
developed for a water-bottling facility in
Nigeria. The project ran into all kinds of
obstacles – from corruption to high
capital costs, from war to theft.
“The experience made me search
for a solution that was practical but
would still appeal to my business
sense,” Brown said. “That’s when I
learned of the solar water disinfection system. It’s a very simple way of
purifying water, using nothing but
the sun’s energy.”
Brown says the system does not
involve large capital costs. About all
that’s required, he says, is getting the
knowledge out to people so they’re
able to treat their own water. It’s
remarkably simple: clear plastic bottles –
the type used by the soft drink industry
– are used to store the water, and are then
exposed to the rays of the sun.
“All you need is a one-litre pop bottle
that is transparent to ultraviolet radiation,” he explains. “If the bottle is clear, it
can simply be put on a rooftop that has
Insurancewest March 2009 11
a reflective coating. The water (clear, not
muddy) is left for one day – two if the
sky is overcast – which is enough to purify the water. It’s so simple, but people
don’t know about it.”
The science of the system goes something like this: the ultraviolet radiation disrupts
the genetic processes of
bacterial reproduction,
destroying the cell walls of
micro-organisms. One-litre
Diana Brown bottles work the best; oneand-a-half-litre bottles are
the maximum size that can be used. The
process, which has been approved by the
World Health Organization, dates back
to the ancient Romans.
“The Romans used to purify water by
leaving pans of water out in the sun,”
Brown says. “Archaeologists wondered
about this. About 30 years ago a professor at the University of Beirut demonstrated that it was possible
to purify water this way.”
Worldwide, he says, water
is the biggest single challenge to quality and safety
of life. Up to four billion
McPherson people routinely drink
contaminated water.
“If people can solve this problem, they
can work their way out of poverty. Mothers can go to work in the fields instead
of looking after sick children. Children
can stay in school and parents can spend
money on small businesses as opposed to
medicine.”
To promote the concept, Brown and a
group of like-minded individuals formed
the Kenmar Foundation, which has
applied to be recognized as a charitable
trust by the Canada Revenue Agency.
Brown’s travels typically take him
to the most impoverished parts of the
world. He’s been to Africa twice to promote and demonstrate the process and
recently visited Brazil. In June he’s going
to the central African country of Cameroon. He pays
all his own travel expenses.
“There really isn’t any
big organization behind
me,” Brown says. “But I link
up with other organizaPowell
tions that are sympathetic
to the cause. In the field I’m careful to
align myself with schools, churches or
other institutions that have a credible
presence in the area.”
Vital Stats
• Brown’s wife Diana is also an accountant.
She runs the brokerage in his absence.
The couple has two children; both live at
home. Ryan is 14. Meagan is 17.
• He used to play guitar a lot when he
was younger and has recently rekindled
an interest in the instrument. “My son is
playing bass guitar now and I jam with
him a bit.”
• Brown and his family often visit Vancouver. “My wife’s family is out there.”
• The Browns live in Edmonton’s Terwillegar Gardens area, about 20 minutes
from the office.
• Brown golfs, but poorly. “I’d rather just sit in
the cart and open the beer for people.”
• He enjoys cycling. If he has the day off,
he’ll ride for four or five hours.
Gary McPherson, executive director of
the Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Alberta’s
School of Business, is an old friend. He
and Brown socialize regularly.
“We live in close proximity to each
other,” said McPherson, an author
and quadriplegic who in 2006 ran for
the leadership of Alberta’s Progressive
Conservative Party. “There’s a group of
us guys who get together once a month
for what we call choir practice – at least
that’s what our wives think it is. We pour
a little alcohol. Jeff is a quiet, low-key
kind of guy. He’s sure not the loudest guy
at a football game.”
Robert Powell, who owns an Edmonton firm producing educational and
training programs, has known Brown
for about four years. He describes the
brokerage owner as a devoted, unassuming family man and an
accomplished guitar player
who appreciates scotch.
About his friend’s mission, Powell says, “It’s all
volunteer work. What can
you say about a guy like
Strean
that?”
Billy Strean, who teaches physical education at the University of Alberta, has
known Brown for 15 years. They used to
be neighbours.
“He has a phenomenal sense of
humour,” Strean says. “He’s not exactly
the life of the party, but he’s quite clever.
He’s like the book you can’t judge by the
cover.”
More information about the potable
water problem and solution is available
at www.solarwaterdisinfection.ca. IW
Facilitating
solutions for
the insurance
industry
Partnership Powered by Compu-Quote
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12 March 2009 Insurancewest
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streetTalk
Continued from page 9
the Yukon, a town of about one thousand
residents.
The seven-member Yukon branch of
Axis, which recently celebrated its first anniversary,
is owned by Jeff Peters, a
former account manager
and broker with Aon in
Whitehorse.
Axis Insurance ManagPeters
ers, an all-purpose operation, has five B.C. locations in addition to
its Whitehorse branch – three in Metro
Vancouver and one each in Kelowna and
Williams Lake. Its president is Tony Davis.
HATTON ON THE MEND
Duncan, B.C., broker Don Hatton, 50,
is nursing three fractured
ribs, bruised kidneys,
battered lungs, internal
bleeding and a lacerated
shoulder after taking a
race-ending spill on the
fourth day of the two-week
Hatton
long Dakar Rally South
America, the most punishing motorsport
contest on the planet.
“I hit an inaccurately marked jump at
130 kms an hour,” Hatton told Insurancewest in a long-distance telephone
interview from Argentina shortly after
leaving hospital. “I actually thought I was
going to die. At first the doctors figured
I’d broken my back.”
The 9,500-km race route, which begins
and ends in Buenos Aires, winds along
the potholed, dust-choked mountain and
desert arteries connecting Argentina with
Chile. Only 113 of the 235 motorcyclists
who began the ordeal were able to finish.
McFarlan Rowlands Insurance Brokers of
London, Ont., and the former president
of the Insurance Brokers Association
of Ontario, will represent
the province as a member
of the Insurance Brokers
Association of Canada’s
national board of directors.
In other IBAC news,
outgoing president
Hancock
Danny Craig, president
of Ontario’s Craig, McDonald, Reddon
Insurance Brokers, has been elected the
organization’s chairman of the board.
Former IBAC VP Justin MacGregor,
HANCOCK JOINS IBAC EXECUTIVE
Rod Hancock, president and CEO of
Continued on page 20
Let’s Get Personal
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14 March 2009 Insurancewest
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profile
Where the
boys are
Victoria, B.C.’s Megson FitzPatrick grew out of a
small family operation launched in 1968 by Alan and
Evelyn Megson. Over the past 30 years the couple’s
son Michael (left) and his university roommate
Dave FitzPatrick – “the boys,” as they are sometimes
referred to – have expanded the business to include
eight partners, four locations and 80 employees.
By Stan Sauerwein
B
ack in 1977, when he began
working at his father Alan’s Victoria, B.C., brokerage, Michael
Megson entertained doubts
about a career in insurance.
The industry did present the challenges
he was looking for, however, and he had
been invited to buy in as an owner – an
invitation, as the saying
goes, that was hard to
refuse.
Alan Megson had started
the brokerage in 1968.
While the business did
well in its first decade, it
Ireland
remained a small family
enterprise. Prior to his son’s arrival, staff
consisted of Alan’s wife Evelyn and Jane,
his sister.
Michael Megson had worked part time
at the agency while studying economics
at the University of Victoria, so he was
familiar with its customers and carriers.
The move from the classroom to a desk
at the family operation was a comfortable one.
“I thought I’d give insurance a try,
but the brokerage was pretty limited in
scope.”
He had ideas about how to grow the
business, but he would need help. David
FitzPatrick had been Michael Megson’s
roommate at university. He was, says
Megson, a “fun guy, always telling jokes,
www.insurancewest.ca
always happy. Dave kept me up laughing and partying more than a couple of
nights.”
FitzPatrick had started his own insurance career as a management trainee at
the Victoria office of Guardian Insurance
in May 1978. While working on his AIIC
designation – Associate of the Insurance
Institute of Canada, precursor to the CIP
– he won the Marsh & McLennan award
for the top student in B.C.
“Politics,” his major in university, says
FitzPatrick, “was a fallback position.”
As the pair was finding a footing in the
industry – FitzPatrick on the company
side, Megson at the family brokerage –
they maintained the friendship, often
meeting to talk shop. In September 1979,
one year after Alan Megson had retired,
they joined forces, renaming the Megson
family operation Megson FitzPatrick.
“Dave joined me on the condition that
I sell half the shares to him right away,”
Megson said. “I had to agree because I
think the shares were still
just $10 and that was about
all he could have afforded
anyway.”
Like his partner, FitzPatrick also enjoyed “the
people side of things that
Mattear
went with being a broker.”
Megson, 54, spent a couple of years
in the early 1980s on the executive of
the Insurance Brokers Association of
B.C. He also served as president of the
Victoria Insurance Brokers Association
(VIBA). He and wife Shawn raised their
two daughters in Cordova Bay, a short
drive from the provincial capital. Megson
took on the VIBA presidency again in
1995 and was president of IBABC in
1998. Away from the office, he’s a serious
motorsport enthusiast, the
owner of four motorcycles.
FitzPatrick, 56, also
served the industry. He
has been president of the
Victoria chapter of the
Insurance Institute of B.C.
Bolster
and president of VIBA. He
was president of IBABC in 1990. The
14-handicap golfer (who this year bagged
his first hole-in-one) also enjoys walking,
swimming and all manner of sports. In
the past 20-plus years he’s attended every
Grey Cup game but one.
“My wife Wendy and I also love to travel,” said FitzPatrick. “I wouldn’t be reticent
about going anywhere in the world.”
The brokerage, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, has come
a long way since its modest beginnings
as a small family-run enterprise. There
are presently eight partners. Besides the
operation’s eponymous founders, they
include Brenda Ireland, Craig Mattear,
Laura Bolster, Jay Tuson, Ralph Libby
and Luke Mills. Employees staffing the
four Greater Victoria locations number
80. Excluding Insurance Corporation of
B.C. revenue, premium volume is about
$30 million per year.
“We like being independent,” says
Insurancewest March 2009 15
FitzPatrick, “and we’ll never be owned by
an insurance company. We restructured
ourselves recently because of our size and
have become much more
focused and systematic.
“Up until three years
ago, Mike and I basically
managed everything, and
we were the main producers as well. We ran really
Tuson
hard, but it got to the point
we were just managing – reacting to
what was coming at us instead of being
proactive.”
Both Megson and FitzPatrick belong
to Sitkins International – formerly the
Vertical Growth Network – the exclusive,
invitation-only assemblage of non-competing, high-performance brokers who
represent the majority of top p&c insurers in the Canadian marketplace.
“It helped us to restructure the company and delineate duties so that we’re
not going in 10 different directions all
the time,” FitzPatrick said.
The two senior partners
are enthusiastic about what
the restructuring has meant
to the business.
“For the next three years
we’re trying to concentrate
on becoming more domiLibby
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nant on southern Vancouver Island,” said
Megson. “We’re trying to solidify our
position here and then, hopefully, if we
get that right, expand.”
Added FitzPatrick:
“We’re much more naturaltalent focused now, getting
people doing what they
do best and are happiest
doing.”
Getting the culture right
Mills
in the firm was critical, says
Megson.
“The employees are not just physically
engaged but emotionally engaged when
they come to work,” he said. “We spend a
lot of time and effort on service training
and human resources.”
Succession is also a concern.
“We’ve told everybody in the firm that
we’re going to perpetuate from within,”
said FitzPatrick. “This is a place they can
come to and make a real career. If they
have the right stuff, they make partner.”
“We’re much better now at communicating our values and asking employees
and partners to live those values too,”
said Megson.
Megson and FitzPatrick were able to
savour the fruits of their
labours at the anniversary
shindig. Two hundred industry friends turned up.
“It was very moving,”
said Megson.
“When I started here
Wynne
there were only four of us
on staff, and David and Michael were
already thinking long-term then,” said
partner Brenda Ireland. “They weren’t
thinking about today or next month.
Their focus was on building a great reputation and relationships. They always
took the high road, and that’s why I’m
still here.”
Phil Wynne, regional
VP with ING (now Intact)
Insurance, has known
Megson and FitzPatrick for
25 years.
“Michael and David have
always been the consumStickle
mate professionals,” Wynne
said. “They are to be commended for
building the largest independently
owned insurance brokerage in Victoria.”
Darwyn Stickle, senior partner with
Vancouver Island’s Coast Claims, has also
known “the boys,” as he calls them, for
more than 20 years.
“I’ve seen just how hard they’ve
worked to build their business,” Stickle
said. “When people work that hard, you
like to see them succeed.” IW
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Some things
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profile
The start of
something big
When Dan and
Catherine Mengel
bought a brokerage
in Imperial, Sask., in
1996, the business
had premium volume
of $400,000. These
days the couple has
six offices, a dozen
employees and
premium volume of
$5 million, making
it one of the largest
rural brokerages in
the province.
T
By Ron Shorvoyce
welve years ago Dan Mengel’s mother-inlaw, Gayle Brooker, suggested he consider
buying Lewis Agencies, where she was
employed, in Imperial, Sask., a village of
about 350 people halfway between Regina and
Saskatoon.
It was an interesting proposition. Mengel grew
up on a farm in the Holdfast area, not far from
Imperial, where his wife Catherine was from.
Within a month the couple returned from Edmonton, where they had been living, and bought
the business.
The brokerage had an annual premium volume
of about $400,000 – small by any standards. But
it was the start of something big, because the
couple now owns a string of five insurance offices
through their firm, Long Lake Insurance. They
also own another agency, Watrous Insurance Brokers, which they bought in 2007.
In all, including Watrous, they have
a dozen employees. Annual premium
volume is about $5 million, which makes
it one of the largest rural brokerages in
Saskatchewan. Mengel had no idea the
business would do so well.
“The people we have allowed us to
succeed,” he says. “Without our staff, it
wouldn’t have been possible.”
This past November, to show their appreciation, the Mengels treated everyone
The Watrous office
working for Long Lake to an all-expenses-paid
trip to Las Vegas. Next year, Dan says, they’ll do
something nice for their Watrous employees.
Joanne Measner is the longest-serving staffer
18 March 2009 Insurancewest
at Long Lake. She started with Metz Agencies in
Holdfast 18 years ago and was pleased to stay on
when the Mengels bought the brokerage. Measner
runs the Holdfast office.
“I really enjoy working for the Mengels,” she
says. “They’re good people, very easygoing. I feel
like a co-worker.”
Measner says she appreciates her independence
on the job.
“I feel comfortable when Dan is here. And when
he’s not, I don’t have to phone to find out if I can
do something.”
One of the newer employees is Donna Kirk,
who works for Watrous Insurance. She popped
into the office one day and one of the girls asked if
she wanted a job.
“I now oversee the front office and handle the
licence-issuing. I like the work; it’s challenging.
And the Mengels are fair. They’re always ready to
listen.”
Kirk wasn’t certain the insurance business was
going to be a good fit for her when she started. But
now, she says, there’s nowhere else she’d like to be.
“You don’t get bored, that’s for sure.”
When Dan Mengel graduated high school in
Holdfast, insurance wasn’t even on the radar. He
took electronics training at a technical institute
in Moose Jaw and then went to work in the early
1980s as a technician at CKCK Television in Regina. He was only there a couple of years before he
began thinking about the insurance business.
So he took a job with Saskatchewan Crop Insurance, a provincial Crown corporation, at its head
office in Regina. Soon he relocated to Melville.
Then Mengel became manager of administration.
But the provincial government changed in 1991
www.insurancewest.ca
Mountain Lake, which everybody in the
and the following year the New Demoarea refers to as Long Lake because of its
cratic minions decided that Mengel, who
length. In 2004 they acquired a brokerage
had been hired under a Conservative
called Metz Agencies in Holdfast; it had
administration, had to go.
satellite offices in Bethune and ChamberMengel had always been an excellent
lain. They purchased Carlson Agencies
golfer, so he took a golf management
in Craik in 2006 and Watrous Insurance
course at Grant MacEwan College in Edin 2007.
monton. It was while he was working at
“Watrous was a bit of an unfortunate
golf courses in the Alberta
situation,” Dan Mengel says. “The previcapital that his motherous owners, Jim Crawford and his partin-law called about Lewis
ner Gary Manson, decided to sell because
Agencies being for sale.
of Gary’s illness. Gary was diagnosed
“It was an opportunity
with terminal cancer and passed away
to have our own business,”
very quickly. So Jim offered the agency
Mengel says. “I got my
Measner
to us.”
licence at a time when
The Mengels currently live in Saskalicences were being grandfathered.”
toon to accommodate their
For Catherine, it was a nice transition.
son Dallas, 16, a promising
“My mom worked for the brokerage
golfer. The courses in rural
and Imperial was my hometown,” she
Saskatchewan are not quite
said. “It was a good opportunity.”
what they are in the city.
Gayle Brooker retired about a year ago.
“He’s ranked among the
Owning and running a brokerage, Dan
top 10 or 15 amateur golfMengel learned, is not the same as workKirk
ers in Canada and he likes
ing for a Crown corporation. There was
to compete,” Catherine says. “He’s been
a steep learning curve. But the Mengels
all across Canada and has competed in
picked up things quickly and it helped
San Diego.”
that Catherine was a CGA and could
The Mengels plan to remain in Saslook after the books. She’s also a broker.
katoon until Dallas finishes high school
The couple named their brokerage
and enters12/12/2008
university. Then,
says AM
Dan,Page
43, 1
Long
Lake Insurance after nearby Last
GMS_InsuranceWest_2009:InsuranceWest_2009
11:38
they may settle in Watrous, since it’s the
busiest of all the offices.
The Mengels commute each day from
Saskatoon, sometimes travelling together
and sometimes separately, depending on
the agenda. Dan Mengel is on the road
a lot, regularly visiting the offices of his
Long Lake empire. Catherine works out
of the Watrous office, which also has a
real estate arm.
“Besides the accounting, I’m starting
to get involved in the insurance side as
well,” Catherine says. “I do some farm
accounts and deal with customers.”
High school sweethearts, the Mengels
got married in 1985.
“When we started dating,” she says,
“Dan was in Grade 12 and I was in Grade
10.”
Their insurance business has spawned
another business. The Mengels have set
up Long Lake Promotional Products,
which operates out of the Chamberlain
office. It supplies items such as hats,
shirts and key chains to anyone interested in purchasing the products for their
own promotional purposes.
“I give away a lot of stuff to customers
and I thought I might supply it myself,”
Dan says. “It’s turned into a good little
business.” IW
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Insurancewest March 2009 19
streetTalk
meanwhile, is the new president-elect.
“There’s been a noticeable drop in new
business. It makes us a little nervous that
people might start to reduce the level of
insurance they normally buy.”
SLOWDOWN IN ALBERTA
Hard economic times are apparently having an impact on the insurance
business in Alberta, according to broker
Dean Bailey at Banff ’s
Rocky Mountain Agencies.
Bailey, a director-at-large
with the provincial brokers
association, says fewer cars
are being bought and fewer
houses sold.
Bailey
ONTARIO MERGER
One of Canada’s largest brokerages
was begat recently with the merger of
KRG Insurance Brokers, which is not
related to B.C.’s KRG Insurance Brokers
(Western), and Roger R. James Insurance Brokers (RRJ), both Ontario-based
firms. KRG continues to operate under
its present name.
Founded in 1976, RRJ also acquired
Whetter Oaklin Insurance Brokers and
Continued from page 13
Frost Insurance Brokers of Lindsay,
Ont.
“We’re very excited about the
merger,”said KRG’s CEO and president Paul Martin. “It will bring a lot of
synergies together. And while we’re both
Ontario-based, we’re not ruling anything
out.”
In a press release, RRJ’s co-CEOs Abraham Baboujian and Jennifer Jones said,
“KRG’s size and reputation for quality
and good business practices will become
a model for our growing and evolving
brokerage.”
The new entity will consist of five ofContinued on page 22
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hole-in-one program – now better than ever with new
discounts, multiple policy savings and the chance to
WIN cameras or a 52” TV!
Visit avivaholeinone.com today for all the details or
phone us at 1-866-898-9987.
20 March 2009 Insurancewest
www.insurancewest.ca
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