| ASHEVILLE - Right away, Jim Stickney acknowledges that selling insurance isn't exactly glamour city.
"Very few people grow up wanting to be insurance agents," Stickney said with a laugh.
But the Stickney siblings - Jim, president of the company; Sam Stickney, senior vice president; and Mary Alice Stickney Arthur, vice president over administration - have found they enjoy helping people and companies find policies that fit their needs. For the past 50 years, they've been doing just that with Insurance Service of Asheville, a business their father, James W. Stickney III, formed in June 1958.
The elder Stickney's family moved from Cuba to Asheville when he was a first-grader. Always driven, he finished UNC Chapel Hill in three years and then worked in the construction industry. He gravitated toward the insurance end of the business.
Starting from scratch
Jim Stickney III started a small insurance operation in a basement room of the Battery Park Hotel, and the business moved to four other locations before settling in Executive Park just off College Street, its home for the past 20 years.
Jim Stickney IV, now 53, joined the company 30 years ago. Most people call him "Jimbo," a nickname that differentiated him from his dad.
Back then, the agency had five employees and about 700 clients. Today, ISA has 20 employees and about 2,000 customers, many of them longtime clients such as Black Dome Mountain Sports, which has had its business insurance through ISA since opening 24 years ago.
"They've always been a very hands-on business," said Black Dome President Trent Thomas. "They get to know you, and I've actually become friends with that whole family as well."
Thomas said he likes that ISA is independent and able to approach more than one company for policies and pricing. It allows them to "fine-tune a program" that works for each business. The father's influence
The elder Stickney retired in 2000, but he kept a hand in the business afterward.
He passed away three years ago, but he's left an indelible mark on the business.
"Dad used to say the client is everything - that's what pays the light bill, and we wouldn't be here without them," Sam Stickney said.
The Stickneys are reflecting on 50 years in business, but they're also planning for the next 50. They have embarked on a marketing campaign to better compete with other firms.
The company offers all kinds of insurance, and serves some of the larger enterprises in and around Asheville, including the Biltmore Estate and the city of Asheville. That diversity in clientele and established revenue stream are always tempting to national outfits looking to buy thriving agencies, but ISA likes being independent.
"There are about half the number of independent insurance agencies in Asheville than when I started," Jim Stickney said. "I think that gives us an edge because we can make decisions instantaneously, and we don't have to go to a board of corporate headquarters to make a decision."
He added, "It's great fun being your own company, your own man and running your own shop. And we've found the clients like it that way, too."
A family affair
Jim Stickney has a 23-year-0ld son and a 20-year-old daughter, but neither has expressed serious interest in joining the firm yet. Mary Alice's 28-year-old son, Lloyd Hammarlund, joined ISA as a commercial service assistant about a year ago - as his mother says, he "started at the bottom."
"It's nice to be part of something that's been in my family so long," Hammarlund said. Nobody gets a free ride at ISA, though.
"My son, daughter, my nieces or nephews - they're going to have to earn their way into the business," Jim Stickney said. "I hope that happens, but as a CEO, I've got to be realistic. Ideally, it'll be family, but I've got to look at all the angles." The other Stickneys all worked their way up through the business.
"I was a janitor here before I had a driver's license," Sam Stickney, 48, said, laughing. He joined the company in 1984 after graduating from UNC Greensboro with a degree in business administration.
Mary Alice Arthur, who has a degree in business administration from Salem College, worked for the company for a few years in the early 1980s but moved to Burlington, where she worked in municipal finance. She rejoined ISA five years ago and now oversees bookkeeping, human resources and other office management.
"People always want to know how I handle working with my brothers, and I tell them, 'You know, I really don't see them that much," Arthur said with a laugh.
Sam Stickney joked that so much closeness on the job does make holidays trying sometimes.
"You see somebody every day, and then you have to spend the holidays with them," he said, adding that on a more positive side he's got pretty solid job security. "I guess I could be fired, but it hasn't happened yet." |
