Calamis carves out ‘big league’ career with Starkweather

DRIVING FORCES: Natale "Nat" Calamis (left), president and CEO of Starkweather & Shepley Insurance Brokerage Inc., and William McGillvray, chairman and chief financial officer, will retire at the end of this year. / COURTESY OF STARKWEATHER & SHEPLEY  INSURANCE  BROKERAGE INC.
DRIVING FORCES: Natale "Nat" Calamis (left), president and CEO of Starkweather & Shepley Insurance Brokerage Inc., and William McGillvray, chairman and chief financial officer, will retire at the end of this year. / COURTESY OF STARKWEATHER & SHEPLEY INSURANCE BROKERAGE INC.

Natale “Nat” Calamis’ first career started not in the boardroom of Starkweather & Shepley Insurance Brokerage Inc., but rather on the baseball diamond, where he played second base in the minor leagues for the Detroit Tigers.

After three years of professional baseball, however, Calamis retired and entered the insurance industry, where he’s worked at Starkweather & Shepley for nearly four decades and plans to retire at the end of this year as its president and CEO.

“It’s funny, I tell people I didn’t make it to the big leagues in baseball, but I feel like I made it to the major leagues in business,” Calamis told Providence Business News.

Starkweather & Shepley, based in East Providence, is the largest independent insurance agency in Rhode Island, and the 69th largest brokerage firm in the U.S. The company, which offers commercial and personal insurance, health and employee benefits, surety bonding and risk-management service, was founded in 1879 by James Starkweather and George Shepley.

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After his baseball career ended, Calamis came to Rhode Island to be near his soon-to-be-wife, Ellen, who had a teaching job in the area. He started his insurance career in commercial sales at Liberty Mutual in 1975. And it was there he met one of his mentors, Bob Williams, who gave Calamis some valuable advice that’s stuck with him throughout his career.

“He always told me that in business you have to work hard because nothing is going to be handed over to you,” Calamis said. “I took that advice to the bank.”

Three-and-a-half years later, Starkweather & Shepley recruited Calamis from Liberty Mutual to work as an account executive. Calamis made the leap to the new company, and while he wouldn’t work for another company for the next 39 years, his first assessment of Starkweather & Shepley wasn’t glowing.

“The company at the time was stiff, and being Italian-American, people told me I’d have no shot of making it,” Calamis remembered. “But I told myself, ‘I’ll give it my best shot, and if I can sell, I can’t believe they won’t move me up.’ ”

The company at the time had about 60 employees with annual sales totaling about $2 million, according to Calamis. After a couple years of successfully selling, Calamis says he started taking a more active role in voicing his opinions about how he thought the company should grow. Comparing it to his experience at Liberty Mutual, Calamis argued Starkweather & Shepley should have a more aggressive selling strategy, which helped spur more activity.

“My first goal was to start changing things here because we needed to get with the times,” he said.

As Calamis’ career progressed, he worked his way up the ranks at Starkweather. He held various titles, including assistant vice president, vice president and sales manager, before being named president and CEO in 2009. The timing of his succession was expected, but the financial crisis of 2008, which led to the greatest U.S. economic recession since the Great Depression, was not.

“I had a game plan, but when I [took over] I thought, ‘I don’t think this game plan is going to work,’ ” he said with a laugh. “It was a little scary. I was a little nervous about how we were going to get out of it. But we moved forward with conviction, saying we needed to make it work, and we did.”

Indeed, when Calamis took over, the company’s annual sales totaled about $27.5 million. This year, he expects to retire with 2016 sales totaling about $50 million, representing an 81.8 percent increase in seven years. He’s also helped grow employees and the company footprint. The firm now employs 220 people in 11 offices in four states.

The firm will soon have to adjust to life not only without Calamis. His long-time colleague and friend William McGillvray is also retiring.

Starkweather’s chairman and chief financial officer has likewise had a long career with the firm, working with the company a year longer than Calamis.

“We’re like brothers,” Calamis said of McGillvray. “We couldn’t get along better, even though we didn’t always agree on everything. He’s been a big part of our success.”

McGillvray, who’s looking forward to retirement, had similarly high praise for Calamis.

“He’s a very dynamic leader and wonderful man,” McGillvray said.

Calamis and McGillvray are handing the company off to Larry Keefe, who will take over as chairman and CEO, and David Soforenko, who will take over as president and chief operating officer.

“They have the right stuff and understand how to grow the business,” McGillvray said. “We have full faith and confidence in them.”

Keefe and Soforenko, who take over beginning Jan. 1, have worked with the company for a combined 50-plus years, and Calamis feels good about how he’s leaving Starkweather.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished everything that I needed to accomplish,” he said. “The future has never looked stronger for Starkweather & Shepley.” •

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Nat, great career at S & S and enjoy your well-deserved retirement. I’m sure to be “looking up at you” at the 101 “O” from the ground level. Stay healthy and enjoy retirement! Rich & Deb

  2. Nat, great career at S & S and enjoy your well-deserved retirement. I’m sure to be “looking up at you” at the 101 “O” from the ground level. Stay healthy and enjoy retirement! Rich & Deb