Gary G. Pederson

President/CEO

Most people in the insurance industry say they “fell into” the profession. In Gary’s case, he literally did. Working in construction, straight out of college, Gary suffered a fall which changed the trajectory of his life. Wanting to prevent others from suffering serious injury as he had, Gary became a loss control specialist for a major insurance company. Several years later, he took the knowledge learned as a consultant to the “real world” and developed an extremely successful risk management program for Eliason & Knuth (E&K), one of the nation’s largest specialty contractors. In that role, Gary reduced the total cost of risk by 40% within three years. Gary also created and managed a professional employer organization for E & K, serving as its President and CEO. Working through challenges with E & K gave Gary that “real world” experience and understanding of the challenges faced by risk managers which distinguishes him from most other insurance professionals.
Gary’s brokerage experience began when he created and launched a nationally recognized workers compensation consultation practice for Lockton Companies. Gary earned the opportunity to move to Lockton’s Denver office and produced a large book of business from scratch, breaking the record for the quickest rise to $1,000,000 in production. His demonstrated strengths in leadership, innovation, consultation, and problem solving, led to his invitation to serve on Lockton’s Executive Committee.

While with Beecher Carlson, Gary played a key role in creating and launching ZOOM, an integrated discipline involving risk control, predictive analytics, and insurance marketing. The ZOOM was responsible for generating new business and reducing Beecher’s client’s total cost of risk. Gary was also responsible for oversight of Beecher Carlson’s data mining and predictive analytics, and for creating and leading a successful workers’ compensation practice focused on reducing employer’s cost of risk.