Effective July 1, 2010, AMRG has entered into an agreement to assume the management of Insurance Skills Center, a subsidiary of IBA West, the California Big I affiliate. Those of you in California are no doubt familiar with ISC and those of you in other states may recognize their Agribusiness and Contractor conferences, held in various locations throughout the country, and which confer the Agribusiness and Farm Insurance Specialist (AFIS) and Certified Insurance Specialist in Construction (CISC) designations, respectively. I co-created the AFIS designation, along with the late Dr. Emmett J. Vaughan, and oversaw its early implementation. I will be serving as the Managing Director of ISC, helping to evaluate current programs, developing new areas of focus such as agency management, and speaking at various ISC events. We also hope to expand some of the programs AMRG has developed, such as the Ultimate Producer and Ultimate Account Manager schools and integrate them into ISC. Because I will be focused on leading ISC over the next several months, I will be scaling back a bit on other endeavors, while still serving the needs of my valued clients and fulfilling any previous commitments. More on that to follow, but I welcome the opportunity to continue to work with each of you as time permits and wanted to be the first to let you know about these changes. Our other consultants are not impacted by this change, and stand ready to help with your agency’s needs, whether it’s sales, operations, accounting, valuation, E&O loss control or in-house training and education. This is an exciting development and an opportunity I could not pass up. I believe it will augment the consulting, training and education services currently offered by AMRG, and allow us to continue to help agencies in California and across the country grow and prosper in these difficult times.

Cheryl L. Koch, MBA, CPCU, CIC, AAI, ARM, AAM, AIM, AIS, ARP, API, ACSR
CEO
Agency Management Resource Group