Agents to Build Insurance Careers for Disabled Vets

Insurance agents James R. Pender and Gary V. Trippe, principals with Ft. Myers, Florida-based BB&T-Oswald Trippe and Co., have experienced disability in their own families. That has been part of their motivation for many of their volunteer and charitable activities over the years. Now they are directing their interest in helping disabled persons into building a new organization, Disabled Veterans Insurance Careers, which promises to provide education, training and employment in the insurance industry for disabled veterans -jobs they can perform from their homes.

“[A]s we got more into dealing with the subject of these heroes and heroines who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, the way we fight our wars today, we realize that there are thousands of them, and there’s a place for them in our industry, some of them,” said Pender, who is himself a Vietnam veteran.

Pender envisions a young person who is missing legs or arms or has another disability coming home to an uncertain future. “They might live to be 105 in today’s world through the state of medicine, the way it is. At age 20 or 26 or whatever, to not have a meaningful career path ahead of you is just unthinkable. We want to change that.”

If the agents’ dream comes true, disabled vets will be given the training and technology they need to work from home and insurance employers will be given access to a network of trained insurance sales and customer services reps through DVIC.

Joining Pender and Trippe in launching DVIC are other executives from Oswald-Trippe and people from Marsh & McLennan, Bankers Insurance, The Sullivan Group (California), Chubb, Rutherfoord, Marsh Berry, NetVu, Rough Notes Co., Knapp Consultants and Assurex, along with leaders from the military and the United Way.