Two Appointed to Arizona State Compensation Fund Board

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has increased the size of the Arizona’s State Compensation Fund board of directors by appointing two new members to serve during the organization’s transition to becoming a private, mutual insurance company.

Named to the board were Morenci, Ariz., native and founder of Calderon Law Offices, Ernie Calderon and current SCF President and CEO Don Smith.

Legislation passed earlier this year requires that SCF privatize by January 2013. Included in the bill were a number of stipulations, one of those was the addition of two members with specific areas of expertise:

• One member shall have at least 10 years of substantial property and casualty insurance expertise, and
• One member shall have at least 10 years of substantial business or financial management expertise.

Calderon has practiced law in Arizona for 25 years, focusing on business and government litigation, employment and labor law, administrative law, healthcare and professional licensing, education law, general law and alternative dispute resolution.Prior to entering private practice, he served as the director of legal affairs for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Arizona, practiced as a litigation attorney for Arizona Public Service Co. and served as law clerk to Senior U.S. District Judge Walter E. Craig.

Smith is a 33-year veteran of the insurance industry and a former deputy secretary within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry. He joined SCF Arizona on June 1, 2000. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in private industry at New York-based insurer Continental, where he began his career. From 1990 until joining the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he was vice president and director for the company’s Mid-Atlantic region.

He carries the designation of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter and earned a law degree from Widener University School of Law in Harrisburg, Pa.