Welcome to The Association News Network Association News Network, Inc. Communications Bringing Claims Professionals Together Throughout Northern California Sharon Richards Association News Network Personality Profile: East Bay Claims Sharon Richards Paving the Way for the Many to Follow by Bryan Harrison, Association News Network, Inc. March 2010 The first ever female president of the East Bay Adjusters Association comes full-circle to share her story   TThe rain was pouring as I drove up interstate 680 toward Pleasant Hill in late February for a chat with the subject of this month’s Personality Profile. I thought about our first meeting in late 2009 when, following a luncheon meeting of the Sacramento Claims Association, I made my way over to the annual Sacramento Legal Seminar put on by a prominent San Francisco-based defense firm. Due to an overlap in the timing of the two events that day, I walked in just as the first session of the afternoon seminar was letting out for a quick break. One of the first people I saw walking into the reception area was long-time East Bay Claims Association member/supporter Colleen Abney, of NovaPro Risk Services. Colleen, who has recently returned to the EBCA meetings when held in Pleasant Hill, was actually even more actively involved in the forerunner organization, the East Bay Adjusters Association. Always a friend, Colleen seemed more excited to see me than usual, as a smile lit up her face. Thinking at first it was because mine was a familiar face in a location out of context, I went to greet her. She quickly said hello and stated flatly, “there’s someone I want you to meet.” Turning, she introduced me to Sharon Richards, and proceeded to explain that Sharon was the first-ever female president of the East Bay Adjusters Association! As we exchanged pleasantries, my mind was calculating, while racing through memories in an effort to recall whether we had ever met previously. Her smile looked familiar, or at least warm and welcoming. Once Sharon clued me in on the year of her presidency, and that she had to leave the organization due to a company move a year or so afterward, I realized we could not have met previously. We then went through a brief list of names attempting to identify any commonality in people we might have both known in the organization. Only one name registered, that being Curt Farnsworth, a longtime stalwart member of EBAA, and claims professional for many years with George Hills Company, who I personally had opportunity to know only casually in my own early years with the organization. With not much time to chat at the seminar, Sharon and I agreed we should get together. I believe it was Colleen that first suggested we do an interview article on Sharon. I whole-heartedly agreed, as I was also already thinking the same thing. How much fun to take a look into the past of the organization, especially with a woman who was, as it turned out, more instrumental in its development than she could have known. Sharon Richards has had a very rewarding career in the insurance industry. A successful Assistant Vice President for C.V. Starr & Company (California), based in San Francisco, Sharon utilizes her expertise in handling Excess Liability/Reinsurance for public entities, general business, and commercial/residential construction, drawing still from her early experience as a Field Adjuster for St. Paul Insurance in the mid-1970s. Born in Southern California during the very heart of the Baby-Boom Generation to a British mother and an American father who was stationed in England as a civilian employee of Lockheed while Lockheed built planes for the war effort. Sharon is the eldest of her mother’s three children. She never really knew her biological father, as he and her mother split up shortly after moving to the L.A. area, when Sharon was but one year old. Her mom met and married an Englishman who also had immigrated to the Los Angeles area when Sharon was about four years old. Her new dad, Alan Richards, immediately took her on as his own, officially taking steps to adopt her straight-away. “By all rights, he is my father,” she said with the love of a daughter in her voice. Sharon comes naturally, then, to the insurance industry, with her dad becoming an actuary who was Chairman and Chief Executive of E.F. Hutton Life Insurance Company. She grew up mostly in La Crescenta, California, near Burbank and Glendale before the family moved to Orinda during her junior year in high school. She graduated from Miramonte High School, where she played viola and sang in the a cappella choir. She went on to achieve her Bachelor’s degree in English from U.C. Berkeley, “with a minor in Music”, she told me with a smile. She actually attended Cal during the tumultuous Vietnam war protest era, and found great joy in the music program, as a member of the University Chorus. Another first, she told me, was when “the chorus performed at the 1968 opening concert that dedicated Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley. We sang Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and Stravinsky came in person to hear us,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “The master of ceremonies was another UC alum, Gregory Peck.” Once out of college, Sharon landed a job early-on with St. Paul Insurance, a company that later merged with Travelers. She did well at St. Paul where, under the mentorship of Richard Amorde, she worked with Jack Pattee and Dale Halbert. Sharon soon became the first female multi-line field adjuster (simultaneously with another female employee). Sharon covered the greater East Bay Area, including Alameda and Contra Costa, up into Solano County, and out as far as San Joaquin. “I handled pretty much everything East of the Bay Bridge, while my cohort, a lady by the name of Maxine, handled the San Francisco side of the bay at that time,” she explained. It was during this time that Sharon discovered the East Bay Adjusters Association. Jack introduced Sharon to the group, inviting her to attend a meeting. “I had a lot of respect for Jack, so I went,” she said. “The meeting was held in a dark, dank, basement of a room at what I believe was the Lake Merritt Hotel in Oakland. “I was the only woman there, amidst about a dozen guys,” she said. “At that time, the organization was about 44 years old, as I recall, and had what I perceived as an aging population,” she said. Membership was down to maybe 30 or 40 people. Sharon “naively” volunteered to help with the Membership Committee - a job she took to heart. “At that time, so many of the carriers had moved from San Francisco out to the Walnut Creek/Concord area that I immediately moved the meetings out that way,” she said. Finding a good home for gatherings at Petar’s in Lafayette, Sharon single-handedly re-energized the EBAA. “I actually looked through the Yellow Pages and began calling claims managers at all the carriers I could find. Thirty more people showed up at the first meeting at Petar’s, and we wound-up driving membership to 110 that year,” she stated proudly. Amongst those new attendees were more women. “I suggested to the claims managers that they allow their phone adjusters and inside people to participate as well as the field adjusters. And, I would invite people to “bring a friend”. This, in a time when some men still vehemently frowned on women earning any kind of similar income as men - backlash from which she experienced, as well. Sharon’s next step in the EBAA was to work on the Golf Tournament committee, where she handled the banquet end of things. “The association had very little money, so I suggested we offset some of the costs by calling some of the body shops, contractors and the like and asking them to sponsor things like wine, flowers on the tables, and trophies.” Something they apparently had never done previous to that. Quickly establishing herself as the go-to “idea person”, it wasn’t long before they made Sharon Vice President of the organization. “I was so shy I had no intention of taking that next step to becoming president,” she expressed to me. “I accepted the Vice President’s position with full conscious thought that I would resign the association before the following year, just to avoid having to run the meetings.” As it turned out, she didn’t get the chance. The man elected President when she became Vice President was transferred to his company’s office in Santa Rosa just one month into his term. Sharon therefore succeeded to the Presidency “a bit like Lyndon Johnson,” she joked. Still, she remained very reluctant to take it on. She was convinced by a leader in the group, Curt Farnsworth, that she could do it. Curt reassured her that he would find all the speakers and handle other duties to keep things going. All she would have to do is lead the group in the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of each meeting, introduce the speaker, and cover any announcements and business items that needed to be discussed. So, reluctantly still, she went forward with it. Following the first meeting, Curt said, “that was really good, but next time could you talk a little bit slower?” “Curt was so kind and such a strong influence in the group,” she said. “He was truly an amazing investigator, too,” she said with high praise. Curt, she said, was the lead investigator at the infamous Martinez bus crash of 1976, which killed 27 Yuba City high school children and their music teacher. So it was that Sharon Richards became the first female president of the East Bay Adjusters Association in 1978. Sharon carried her tenure through the eleven month term, and remained active in the group before her company closed their Concord office, transferring her to San Francisco at the end of 1979, where she got in to Excess Lines and Reinsurance. “I rode BART every day and was no longer able to make the meetings,” she explained. For me personally, over the years as a member of EBAA (now EBCA) since the mid 1980s, I can say that I have heard the story of the group’s move from Oakland, and how it was revitalized (if not saved) by that at the time. I’ve also heard stories at East Bay, as well as the other similar associations, over the years of the shift that occurred about that time with women entering the claims world. In this case, it clearly made a huge impact. So, for me to have a chance to get to know the woman responsible for so much of it is quite a pleasure and an honor. Sharon has gone on to greater successes in her career, with a recurring theme of being the ground-breaking first woman. In the early 80s she went to work for AIG as the Assistant to the Manager, who also happened to be a woman. After establishing herself there for about three years, she wound-up being triple promoted in a 90 day period, winding up as the Regional Supervisor of Professional Liability Claims. Extensive travel has been a theme in much of Sharon’s work life. “I really feel like I have paid my dues,” she stated. Much of her travel has to do with auditing client files around the country. She has traveled extensively to such places as Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Montana, Jefferson City, Missouri, New Orleans, Nevada, and various locales within California. She expressed one trip, in particular, that brought her full-circle in her life. Her biological father was born in coal mining country in West Virginia, the son of the town’s doctor. On one of her many treks to that part of the country, she found herself just across the river from her father’s home. “The people there were so nice, and gracious,” she said. Though she didn’t have the time and opportunity to investigate much of her past, she is acquainted with that side of her family. She told me of the many cousins she doesn’t even know. She did also tell me of a time she got to spend with her birth father, who was living in Sedona, Arizona. “I’m glad I had that opportunity,” she said. He passed away in 2003. Sharon was an only child for the first 12 years of her life, before her parents brought the first of her two brothers into the world. Her youngest brother was born when she was a senior in high school. The family moved back to Southern California in 1977, just as Sharon was really establishing her professional career. “I like to say the nest left me,” she joked. “Insurance runs deep in our family,” she said. She explained that she has a cousin, Bruce Bunner, who was the California Department of Insurance Commissioner from 1983-1986, appointed by then Governor George Deukmejian. “He stepped down with one year remaining in his appointed term,” she said, as he didn’t agree with policies of the industry or the administration. Roxani Gillespi followed her cousin, as the last appointed Insurance Commissioner, before John Garamendi was elected. Sharon’s resume boasts a broad-range of expertise and qualifications. Since 1986 she has worked in excess and reinsurance for American Reinsurance and San Francisco Reinsurance, where she handled high exposure, complex liability and workers compensation claims. Before joining C.V. Starr & Company (California), Sharon worked 10 years for Wexford Underwriting Managers as Assistant Vice President handling excess workers compensation claims for self-insured public entities and Fortune 1000 companies. She has extensive experience in evaluation and resolution of high exposure workers compensation, auto liability, professional liability, and general liability claims made against public entities, commercial and residential contractors, transportation companies and manufacturers. Sharon’s meeting-up with Colleen Abney at the Legal Seminar was no coincidence. Colleen handles claims for one of Sharon’s clients, in her work at NovaPro Risk Solutions. In her free time, Sharon has been involved in a trivia group for the past 25 years or so where, again, she was the first woman member. She ran the Honolulu Marathon on December 9, 2001, which would have been her grandmother’s hundredth birthday, raising $5,000 for the San Francisco AIDS foundation. She also shared that some of her more memorable experiences include being stuck underground on BART during the Loma Prieta Earthquake, and being in Paris, France, on 9/11. “I was on a 6 a.m. flight out of Orly to Heathrow and then from London to the U.S., one of the first flights from Orly on the day the airport reopened.” ... but you guessed that. This April, she’s taking advantage of all her air miles to take a trip to Australia. Sharon Richards is a delightful lady who has left her mark, and made a difference for all of those who have followed in her steps - no matter what aspect of life we’re talking. Articles Index | ANN Home | Articles by Joan Barrett webmaster: bryan@AssociationNewsNetwork.com copyright ©2010 Association News Network, Inc., all rights reserved