People

Woodruff-Sawyer & Co. has named Brendan Williams its Southern California practice leader.

Williams will be assuming leadership of the Southern California region in early 2018 upon the retirement of Ron Packouz, founder and current practice leader in the region.

He will be supported by a leadership team comprised of Jared Pelissier in business development, Laura Kearney in operations, Jeff Slay in employee benefits, and Ron Guerena in property/casualty.

Williams is a senior vice president and partner at Woodruff-Sawyer. He was previously senior vice president and director at Worldwide Facilities Inc.

In addition to driving growth in Southern California, Williams has overseen the region’s directors and officers liability practice and mergers and acquisitions insurance solutions for public and pre-IPO companies. He serves clients in technology, life science, healthcare, retail, real estate and manufacturing.

San Francisco-based Woodruff-Sawyer has offices throughout California, and in Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Hawaii and New England.

LP Insurance Services Inc. named John Bolce regional manager of the Las Vegas, Nev., office.

Bolce now oversees the sales team, productivity, development and growth of the Las Vegas, Phoenix and Sacramento locations.

Bolce is a member of the LP Insurance Services board of directors and vice president.

He is an active broker with more than 30 years of insurance industry experience specializing in construction risk. In 2001, he joined Lucini/Parish Insurance before it was acquired by Wells Fargo in 2007. He waMatthew Stitham,s the construction practice leader while at Wells Fargo Insurance Services. In 2012, he became a principal and shareholder at LP.

Reno, Nev.-based LP and has Nevada offices in Elko and Las Vegas, California offices in Sacramento and Truckee, as well as in Phoenix, Arizona.

XL Catlin’s Global Excess Casualty has named Joel J. Konczal as assistant vice president and underwriting manager for Northwest excess casualty. He will be based in San Francisco and report to senior vice president of the Western zone.

Konczal held various excess casualty unWilliam Portello derwriting positions at and Zurich prior to joining XL Catlin.

XL Catlin is the global brand used by XL Group Ltd.’s insurance and reinsurance companies, which provide property/casualty, professional and specialty products.

Bickmore has added to its Sacramento, Calif., office.

He will serve as the director of litigation management and will oversee the litigation management team and assist pool members throughout California with developing contract requirements and provide employment practices consulting.

Portello is a member of the bar in both California and Oregon and has more than 20 years of experience in civil litigation, insurance law, employment law and consumer law.

Portello recently worked as litigation managing attorney at Guichard, Teng & Portello, where he oversaw all aspects of civil litigation representing both private and public entity clients.

Bickmore is a division of York Pooling, a provider of public entity self-insurance pool management and administration.

Fresno, Calif.-based United Valley Insurance Services Inc. has named Maggie De La Torre a marketing team assistant.

De La Torre holds a will provide support to the United Valley marketing team and will market high net worth personal lines, flood and other specialty accounts.

United Valley is a membership network of 80 independently owned and operated insurance agencies with more than 100 locations in California and Arizona.

San Francisco, Calif.-based Cooper & McCloskey Inc. Insurance Brokers has named Jack Witherspoon the lawyers professional liability team leader.

Witherspoon will be responsible for leading and managing the CMI LPL team, driving new business, and cultivating and managing existing retail relationships.

He has more than 30 years of experience. He joins CMI from Liberty International Underwriters where he was an underwriting manager.

Cooper & McCloskey is a wholesale insurance brokerage specializing in professional liability.