People

Kansas-based Brooke Franchise Corp., a subsidiary of Brooke Corp., elected Kyle L. Garst as its chairman and chief executive officer, and Dane S. Devlin as its president and chief operating officer.

Garst was most recently national sales manager and senior vice president of Brooke Franchise Corp. with responsibility for managing its franchise sales activities. Garst joined Brooke as a sales representative in 1994 and was a sales representative and profit center leader for Koch Industries in Phoenix from 1997 to 1999. Garst returned to Brooke in 1999 and has since served in various management positions, including vice president, regional sales manager, investment sales manager, and investor relations manager before becoming national sales manager in 2001 and senior vice president in 2004. Garst has served as director of Brooke Franchise Corp. since 2005. He is also a member of Brooke Corp.’s controlling shareholder group and serves on its board of directors.

Devlin was most recently national operations manager and senior vice president for Brooke Franchise Corp. Devlin joined Brooke in 1986 as its first employee. Devlin was an operations officer for Brooke from 1986 to 1996, then owned and operated a Brooke franchise from 1996 to 2000 before returning to Brooke in 2000. He served in various management positions including vice president, Missouri state manager and Kansas City regional manager before becoming national operations manager in 2001 and senior vice president in 2004. Devlin has served as director of Brooke Franchise Corp. since 2003.

Gregg Effner has joined Main Street America Group as assistant vice president of distribution management.

Effner will be based at the company’s corporate headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla., and report to Doug Eden, senior vice president of field operations.

Prior to joining Main Street America, Effner was vice president, director of corporate analytics, at Zurich North America in Schaumburg, Ill. He also served as vice president, national broker relations and cross-sell at CNA Financial Corp. in Chicago. Effner held management rolls at Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co., USF&G Corp. and Northwestern National Insurance Group.

Appleton-Wis.-based SECURA Insurance named Bob Van Beek vice president-Agency Automation. Previously, Van Beek served the company as director-Agency Automation.

In his position Van Beek will continue to lead the company’s group of field service professionals and the internal automation help desk. Prior to joining SECURA, Van Beek was manager-Agency Automation with West Bend Mutual Insurance Co.

Chicago-based Unitrin Inc. appointed John M. Boschelli to the positions of vice president and treasurer. Boschelli oversees the company’s day-to-day investment operations, cash management and corporate finance.

Boschelli had served as treasurer since his election to officer by Unitrin’s board of directors in 2002. Prior to that, Boschelli served at Unitrin in several other capacities since 1990, including assistant treasurer, investment accounting manager, senior accountant, supervising senior auditor and staff auditor.

Kansas City-based wholesale broker Westrope added Joyce James as the Eastern Region client manager, responsible for client relationships, service and account retention. James has more than 20 years of insurance experience.

The Ohio-based Oswald Cos. recently named David Kramer as vice president and practice leader of the companies’ National Lawyers’ Professional Liability Practice. Kramer will be responsible for general business development and for the management and sales related functions of the lawyers’ professional practice. In addition Kramer will perform sales related functions in several industry segments, including commercial real estate.

Kramer formerly was a vice president at a national insurance broker. Kramer will be located at the Birmingham, Mich., office.

Jeffrey Burke joined Encompass Insurance Co. as the regional sales director the company’s West Central Region, headquartered in Englewood, Colo. The region includes the states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Burke comes to Encompass from American Family Insurance, where he began his career as a sales agent, and served as vice president of marketing and regional vice president of sales in the company’s Northwest/Great Lakes region.

Insurance broker and risk advisor Marsh Inc. appointed John C. Butcher as head of its Chicago office. Previously, he held client relationship leadership positions in the Midwest and in Washington, D.C.

Marsh’s Chicago office has more than 800 risk consultants and insurance professionals, including experts in a variety of risk disciplines and industry sectors, such as financial institutions, manufacturing, health care, transportation, construction and retail.

Arch Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Arch Capital Group Ltd., announced executive changes in its property division.

Michael Kmetz has been promoted to senior vice president and will be the new business unit executive for Global Property reporting to Mark Lyons, president, Arch Insurance Group.

Kmetz was regional vice president for Global Property in the Northeast Region. He previously spent 13 years at the ACE-CIGNA organizations in global underwriting and management roles both in the field and in home office that included tours of duty in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Steve Manahan was promoted to senior vice president and will be the new business unit executive for Excess & Surplus Property, also reporting to Lyons.

Prior to joining Arch, he held various positions of increased responsibility at Home Insurance, Reliance National and Gulf Insurance in Chicago.

Topics Agencies Kansas