pg20,21Profile_v2_DG_VM
5/6/08
10:57 PM
Page 20
PROFILE
BREATH of FRESH AIR
www.canadianunderwriter.ca • May 2008
20
As Glen Johnson, president of the Ontario Mutual Insurance Association, prepares to retire, he reflects on the highs and lows of the insurance industry and the traditional value system used by the mutuals to tackle modern day issues By Vanessa Mariga
alling short of the requirements for dental school admission was one of the greatest things to ever happen to Glen Johnson, president of the Ontario Mutual Insurance Association (OMIA). After a career spanning more than 30 years in the insurance industry, Johnson has announced his plans to retire within the coming year. He laughs as he recalls his foray into the industry, citing the process of elimination, curiosity and serendipity as some of the driving forces that led him to his current role. It’s clear from his tone that while he may have inadvertently stumbled across OMIA as a career option, he considers himself lucky to have been part of the association for the past three decades. Johnson is a native of Cambridge, Ontario. After realizing his childhood dream of dentistry would not become a reality, he turned his focus to business, quickly ruling out a career in accounting or sales. An ad for an insurance adjuster position, tacked to a placement board at McMaster University, piqued his interest. The element of investigation involved in the job was enough to sell Johnson on considering the insurance industry as a career path. After searching out a job in the adjusting field, he landed a position with Crawford & Company (Canada)’s Toronto office. The five-week training course in Atlanta, Georgia, and the use of a company car were the icing on the cake, he chuckles. After a stint with Crawford’s Toronto office, Johnson happily transferred to the company’s new Kitchener location. It was an opportunity for him and his wife, his high school sweetheart, to return to their home turf, he says.
F
Four years later, in 1978, fate in the form of cabin fever would take Johnson’s career around its next corner. “As far as getting to the mutuals, I was actually snowed in one day — one of those big snowstorms in the 1970s — saw an ad in the paper for an office manager at the Ontario Mutual Insurance Association and scribbled out a hand-written letter,” Johnson recalls. “I sort of did it because I was bored and couldn’t get out of the house and ended up getting an interview and getting the job.” He started off as office manager, before working his way up to the position of vice-president in the mid-1980s. He finally became president in 1990. GETTING OUT THE BRANDING IRON The most remarkable thing about landing the job with OMIA, he notes, was the fact that until that point he had never heard of the farm mutuals. Even after spending all of his childhood summer vacations working on his grandparent’s farm in Lucan, Ontario, and working as an independent adjuster for four years, he admits the concept was new to him. That sparked what would become his pet project over the years: developing a provincial branding program. “Because I worked on the farm every season, I never saw the end of a little-league season, and I used to think about my buddies back in Cambridge playing baseball,” he recalls of his time on the farm. “But I think in the long run, it really helped me because I understand farming and the rural community. It’s completely different than the urban setting.”