NASBP Surety Professionals Follow Many Paths to Success

There are many ways to achieve success in the surety industry. No matter what side of the industry surety professionals begin their careers—company or producer/agency—they can reach the top from diverse backgrounds and experiences. One characteristic they all share, however, is an appreciation for the opportunities that the industry has provided for growth into different leadership roles. The three active NASBP surety professionals profiled below are excellent examples.

A conversation with another passenger during a train ride from Philadelphia to New York changed the course of David Hoover’s career. The man, a Cigna employee, offered to pass Hoover’s resume around the company. It ended up in the surety department, where Hoover landed a job.

“Of all the resumes that I’d sent out and all the interviews I’d done, just having a conversation with somebody on the train made all the difference,” Hoover said.

The accounting and finance involved in surety bonds appealed to Hoover, who had graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a BS in finance and earned an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University. He also served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves and was on active duty in Kuwait during the first Gulf War.

After working as a bond underwriter, he became a Senior Surety Underwriter at General Accident Insurance of America. He opened new field offices for General Accident and for Liberty Mutual, then served as President for the Nielsen Hoover Group, one of the biggest surety producers in the southeast, for 16 years until the company was sold to Acrisure.

Over the last five years at Acrisure, Hoover has taken on more leadership roles, overseeing 1,500 employees as the company has rebranded. “It’s been a transformative period taking all of these small agencies and pulling them together into one big company,” he said. He’s enjoyed this entrepreneurial role and the ability to influence how things are being built.  

“It’s a scale and a pace that I haven’t worked at before,” he added.

Hoover will continue his role overseeing Acrisure’s Southern Division of Surety, which is one of the company’s largest product lines. “Because of my background, surety has received a lot of positive attention at Acrisure; it’s receiving money for technology and growth that does not always exist at other brokers,” he said. 

Hoover’s varied roles during his career enabled him to grow professionally. As a bond manager, he had the autonomy to build two offices from scratch and to generate a very profitable return for the companies he worked for. In reviewing thousands of financial statements and sitting in hundreds of meetings, he developed the ability to recognize recurring patterns that can indicate whether people will be financially successfully or will struggle. “I think one of the reasons that I have the role that I now do is that I’m not so much focused on one product as I am on financial outcomes,” he said.

But Hoover also recognizes the importance of the human element in surety and appreciates the relationships he’s developed during his career. “I thought when I started in surety and there was so much focus on financial analysis that it was highly quantitative and that your ability to understand numbers was going to be the differentiator,” he said. “What I really learned over time is it’s much more qualitative, where you have to understand the people and their ability to perform.”

An executive at Continental Insurance Company who interviewed Matt Curran in his senior year at Susquehanna University said he’d be a good fit for the surety department. Although Curran immediately agreed, he didn’t really have any idea what surety actually was. But after graduating with a finance degree, Curran went to work for Continental’s surety department (bought by CNA) and spent the next several years learning everything he could about the industry.

“If you get the passion for it within five years, you will be hooked and know there really is not a better place to be. Being in surety offers you more than you could ever imagine,” said Curran.

During his 22 years with them, he held trainee, underwriter, and branch manager positions before becoming an Assistant Vice President. He said that building professional networks inside and outside of the company was essential to moving on to positions of increasing responsibility. 

In 2014, Curran accepted an opportunity with a startup surety, which he describes as both exciting and nerve wracking. “I spent five years there and had various levels of success and failures. Because of the experiences I had in creating, building, and leading that team, I had the chance to move forward to the job I have today,” he said.

For the last six years, Curran has been in a strategic planning and leadership role for Sompo’s entire surety business. “We have about 120 employees and over $200 million in gross written premium,” he said. “I spend most of my time with our people, making sure we have a good culture, providing our teams with learning and development opportunities while supporting them in their underwriting and marketing efforts that deliver the right surety solutions for our producer partners and clients.”

The work continues to engage and excite him. “I am very pleased to have the opportunity to continue to help Sompo grow profitably and exponentially, whether it’s through organic growth, new hires, acquisitions, new programs, or a combination,” he said. “Those are all things that are on the table for our future.”

During his years in surety, Curran has come to understand how relationships in the industry last, and how important it is to maintain a good reputation. “The people you meet early in your career will stay relevant to you throughout your career,” he said. These long-term friendships have been among the biggest rewards of his career and several of these individuals have been and continue to be mentors. 

Curran has enjoyed the career flexibility that the surety industry has offered, as well as the opportunities it has provided him to give back to the industry and his community. “You could do different things all the time, from underwriting and using your financial analysis skills, to being people-focused internally and externally.  Also, you’ll have chances to participate in networking events, travel, and learn. You will not be bored, and you will be challenged,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s a career that affords you the ability to be purposeful in pursuing whatever it is that you define as success.”

Heidi Rodzen did not know much about surety when she took a position as an Assistant Bond Clerk with the Skillings Shaw & Associates in Auburn, Maine. She also did not realize that the skills and contacts she had acquired in her previous jobs made her a great fit. Some of the contractors she had contact with during her time with a modular home company were clients of the agency. She had also previously worked for an area insurance agency processing renewals and endorsements, and that agency turned out to be a Skillings Shaw customer as well.

“Everything kind of fell into place the way it was supposed to,” she said.

Rodzen wanted to advance her career, so she asked NASBP Past President Bob Shaw, the agency’s President, to consider her for other opportunities as they came along. Through the course of her 21 years with the agency she has worked in several roles, processing contract performance, payment, and bid bonds, handling new commercial business, and eventually moving into account management, underwriting, and producing, before transitioning into her current Assistant Vice President role.

“I’m the office manager, and I deal with all of the HR relative to our staffing and handle all of the internal accounting functions for our office. In addition, I have a book of business that has grown over the years of my career, and I still handle new business as it pops up,” she said.

Rodzen has also continued her education on several levels. With the assistance of Shaw, she completed her interrupted college degree. She’s attended NASBP’s surety schools, obtained her Property and Casualty license, and has taken advantage of other educational and networking opportunities offered by the Association, including the 5-15 Leadership Committee. She now serves on NASBP’s Board.

Through NASBP, Rodzen has benefited from meeting people throughout the country who work in all aspects of the industry. “There’s so much knowledge out there, and so many fantastic people that you can learn from,” she said.

Rodzen admits that many of these activities have taken her out of her comfort zone. “But I feel like you have to do that to grow; that’s how you get better,” she said. She has worked hard to make herself valuable to the agency and to the insurance firm that now owns them. Her goal is to position herself to have the skills, experience, and know-how to run a surety agency.

She continues to appreciate the challenges of a surety career. “I don’t like to be bored, and, in surety, every contractor is different, every bond situation is different, every project is different, and the financial makeups are all different. You’re not doing the same thing every day,” she said. “It’s also pretty cool to drive down the road and see a building that you’ve put a bond on or drive by a contractor’s truck and know that you bond them. It’s satisfying to be able to help someone meet their goals and build their company with them.”

Help NASBP Connect Students Who Complete the NASBP Make Surety A Career Course with an Internship in Surety

Commit to offering internships for students who complete the NASBP Make Surety a Career program course and express interest in surety career.

Agencies, brokerages, and sureties interested in offering internships should contact NASBP at [email protected].