Florida’s Soto Nominated as Big ‘I’ President Elect; Iowa’s Fulwider Named Next VP

The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America’s (the Big “I”) National Board has nominated Alex Soto as the association’s president-elect and has elected Robert Fulwider as the Association’s next vice president. The board’s action came last week following the Big “I” National Legislative Conference.

Once confirmed by the Association membership, Soto will assume his new office at the 2005 Big “I” Convention in New York City Sept. 10-12. Fulwider will move up to the vice presidency at the same meeting. Soto and current IIABA President-Elect William Stiglitz III will be sworn in as president-elect and president, respectively, during the convention’s closing general session.

The 2005 Big “I” Convention will be held at the Hilton New York and Towers.

Soto, currently the Big “I” vice president, is president of Miami-Fla.-based InSource Inc. He was elected to the Executive Committee in October 2001.

Soto also has been active in the Big “I” nationally and in the Florida Association of Independent Agents (FAIA) during his 32-year career as an independent insurance agent. He is a past chairman of the FAIA and also a past national director. Nationally, he has served as chairman of the Big “I” Communications Committee, Trusted Choice® Branding Task Force and other committees.

Fulwider is principal and president of the Ray Wuestenberg Agency Inc. in West Liberty, Iowa, and of the Fulwider Agency Inc. in West Branch, Iowa. He also is president of Bob Fulwider and Associates, a life-and-health financial-planning agency in eastern Iowa.

Fulwider also has been very active in the Big “I” at the national and state levels since starting his career as an independent agent in 1973. He is a past chairman of the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa (IIAI) and currently sits on its Education Committee. He also is the only two-time Agent of the Year in IIAI history (1983, 1990) and was inducted into the Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame in 2003.

Nationally, he is a past chairman of the Big “I” Government Affairs Committee and the association’s Crop Insurance Task Force, and he also has chaired several other Big “I” national committees, including Farm/Agribusiness, Personal Lines and Markets Development.