New Risk Management director brings pooling experience

Lester Nixon’s labor of love has brought him across the country to the Association.

Previously chief executive officer of the Utah Counties Insurance Pool, Nixon took over as director of the NCACC’s Risk Management Pools on Nov. 5.

“Pooling is what I do and what I love,” he said.

Nixon boasts a long history of leading risk management pools for local government associations and entities in five states west of the Mississippi River, and he has experience with all three of the areas covered in the Association’s pools: group health (County Health Plan), liability and property, and workers’ compensation.

After joining the Utah county pool in February 2003, Nixon helped grow membership to include 28 of the state’s 29 counties. In the two years prior to that, he guided the New Mexico Association of Counties’ pools, in which 27 of 33 counties participated.

Long term, Nixon will work to strengthen the pool’s finances and value to counties. Currently, 73 of North Carolina’s 100 counties participate in at least one of the NCACC’s three pools. Nixon hopes to see that number grow during his tenure.

“With a program like we have, it’s not the price so much as it is how we can add value to our programs to make it worthwhile for them to participate,” he said.

In the short term, Nixon has been meeting with staff and preparing for the Dec. 12-13 Board of Trustees meeting. He also hopes to hit the road soon and begin meeting with pool members and county officials. And – of course – find a place to live in the Raleigh area. Yen, Lester’s wife of 15 years, was in Raleigh in early November searching for a home for the Nixon family, which includes sons Philip, 11, and Patrick, 7.

A Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Nixon’s insurance experience includes stints as: risk manager and budget director for Seattle School District No. 1 (November 1998 – January 2001); risk manager for Humboldt County, Calif. (April 1995 – May 1997); and risk manager for Oklahoma City (March 1976 – December 1984). For more than 10 years in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, he served as vice president and manager for Sedgwick’s Oklahoma City office. Sedgwick is one of the Association’s service partners.

During his time at Sedgwick, Nixon was instrumental in the formation of the Oklahoma Rural Water Association’s Assurance Group, which he underwrote and marketed and helped grow to 170 members in seven years.

“I am very passionate about pooling, having witnessed the early days of pooling and the good it has accomplished for America’s local government units over the years,” he said.

His experience with county associations stretches beyond insurance – for eight months he served as the New Mexico Association of Counties’ acting executive director, a position that exposed him to lobbying for county interests in the state legislature and allowed him to serve on a number of state boards, such as the state’s Information Technology Strategic Plan.

He serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Governmental Risk Pools (AGRIP), and is a member of the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS), Public Risk Management Association (PRIMA), American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), and Society of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters (SCPCU).

Nixon earned his bachelor’s degree from Arkansas State University and is just six hours short of earning his master of public administration from the University of Oklahoma.

– Jason King