IOWA’S FULWIDER NOMINATED AS BIG “I” PRESIDENT-ELECT; UTAH’S NILSSON ELECTED NEXT VICE PRESIDENT
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 25, 2006—The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America’s (the Big “I”) National Board has nominated Robert E. Fulwider as the association’s president-elect and has elected C. Brett Nilsson, CIC, as the Association’s next vice president.
Once confirmed by the Association membership, Fulwider will assume his new office at the next board meeting in New Orleans in September. Nilsson will move up to the vice presidency at the same meeting. Fulwider and current IIABA President-Elect Alex Soto, CPCU, ARM, will be sworn in as president-elect and president, respectively, during the board meeting.
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 CEO 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. He and Jan, his wife of 38 years, have one adult child and live in West Liberty.
Nilsson is vice president of operations for Acordia Mountain West in Ogden, Utah. Prior to being elected to the Executive Committee in 2003, Mr. Nilsson served as president of the Independent Insurance Agents of Utah from 1992-93 and as the state national director from Utah for nine years. On the national level, Nilsson has served on IIABA’s Communications Committee and as chairman of IIABA’s Finance Committee, which he chaired from 1999-2003.
Nilsson has long been devoted to both his business and his community. He has served on several different insurance company agent advisory councils. He was a past vice president of the Ogden Jaycees, served on several chamber of commerce committees and is a past president of the Ogden Golf and Country Club. Nilsson is a past recipient of Utah’s Agent of the Year and Young Agent of the Year awards, and he received an IIABA Presidential Citation in 2001. In 2003, Nilsson received his state association’s highest individual honor, the Burgener Award, a distinction that has only been awarded five other times in the history of the Utah association. He and his wife, Nancy, live in Layton, Utah. They have four children and four grandchildren.
Founded in 1896, IIABA (the Big “I”) is the nation’s oldest and largest national association of independent insurance agents and brokers, representing a network of more than 300,000 agents, brokers and their employees nationally. Its members are businesses that offer customers a choice of policies from a variety of insurance companies. Independent agents and brokers offer all lines of insurance—property, casualty, life and health—as well as employee benefit plans and retirement products. Web address: www.independentagent.com.