Here is surprising info about Bruce Nash, a key person at FIA Surety.
Nurture vs. Nature.
Bruce didn’t have a choice. His family was married to the lake.
Our Bruce was born in the beautiful town of Lake George, NY and he has two siblings. The main feature of the town is… obviously the lake. 32 miles long, with over 170 islands, this is a gorgeous Adirondack setting. And Bruce’s family had strong ties to it.
The family business was a marina his grandfather founded in 1928. Bruce grew up in the business where he did “everything.” They loved the water, and this meant boating and also sea planes flown on the lake.
Bruce’s grandmother was the first female commercial pilot in Warren County, New York and part of the WAACS (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) during WWII. Bruce’s grandmother and grandfather both trained pilots before, during and after the war.
This is his grandfather’s 1928 Garwood, “The Jug,” it was the super boat of its day. Some were called “Rum Runners,” because those equipped with V-12 engines could outrun the prohibition era police boats! Bruce’s grandfather was a Garwood dealer and bought it new. Bruce won dozens of awards for maintaining it in its original condition.
Bruce worked three jobs to put himself through college, a graduate of DePaul’s computer programming school in Chicago.
When boating season ends, upstate New Yorkers turn to winter sports. After college Bruce took a position with Bombardier Corp, a snowmobile manufacturer. Over the course of ten years he rose to become Director Systems and Marketing for the U.S. operations in Chicago.
His next employment was with the owners of The Robert Plan (Div. of AIG) where he became President of a boat manufacturing facility located just outside of Nashville, TN. After a few years he moved to N.Y. where he became Sr. VP and Chief Information Officer of their Assigned Risk Auto business. His Robert Plan boss left the firm to become president of FIA’s sister company First MCO, and he enticed Bruce to join him.
He became head of our IT department and is now the President and COO of our sister company First Managed Care Option, Inc. and ActiveCare Scheduling (a PT and Imaging Facility scheduling service.)
Bruce designed a state-of-the-art system for the managed care of auto and workers comp claims – which is the function of First MCO. This rapidly growing business currently employs eighty people and is housed at FIA’s Morris Plains home office.
He also developed a specialized imaging system that allowed FIA to move all its archived and active paper files into one central electronic location.
“IT Geek?” No, not Bruce! Like his grandfather and grandmother before him, he became an aviator. Naturally, this led to skydiving (gulp!). The snowmobile business inspired him to become an accomplished snow racer. He was also a SCUBA diver and moto-cross (motorcycle) racer!
Today, Bruce manages to skip most of the high-risk activities, but he is a Merchant Marine Captain and avid deep-sea fisherman.
Bruce brings great technical skills, plus a bit of “dash” to our FIA family. He is a valued member of the team!
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FIA Surety / First Indemnity of America Insurance Company, Morris Plains, NJ
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