I grew up in the small, Southern Colorado town of Trinidad. My father was an over the road truck driver my entire life growing up. My mother jumped from various jobs around town to being a stay-at-home mom raising my older brother and I. My childhood was spent doing a lot of different activities like Cub Scouts, basketball, and other school activities and groups. When I was 8 years old I was introduced to golf which soon became a passion of mine that would take up a lot of my time in the years to come. Me and some of my best friends would play seemingly all day long through our early years into high school, and it was something that my dad and I would both equally get better at as we competed with each other through the years. In high school, I made it to the state high school golf tournament all 4 years, tying for All State my senior year of high school.
Trinidad was a small, but comfortable and pretty quiet place to grow up. We didn’t know any different, so it was home to us. Our big weekend may be traveling north to Pueblo, CO so that we could go shop at the mall! Pueblo was so much bigger than Trinidad! Traveling to Colorado Springs was more of a treat, and Denver often seemed light years away. The once a year or so that we made it there always felt like a different world entirely! The small, seemingly leisurely town of Trinidad was so much less hectic and busy. I enjoyed growing up in Trinidad, but I was also ready to leave and see more of the world and hopefully find more opportunity in a bigger city someday.
The University of Colorado, Boulder – 1999 – 2003
School was also a high priority of mine growing up. I studied and worked hard and eventually became valedictorian of my senior class. I was fortunate enough to obtain several scholarships which helped to pay for college at the University of Colorado in Boulder. In college I worked for 3 years as a licensed assistant to agents at Country Insurance, assisting them in their paperwork, lead quotes to prospective clients, and data entry for their property and casualty insurance business.
Post College 2003
Like a lot of college students, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do when I graduated. I eventually ended up majoring and graduating with a degree in Political Science. I had always been interested in policy, politics, and government, and when I graduated, I had wanted to eventually get a job working in Washington D.C. I had also been thinking about going to law school. Upon graduating, I moved to Denver and worked for one year at a law firm to test out not only working in the law arena, but to also get some experience in the business world and decide what the next best step was. The next year I obtained a job working in politics on the 2004 election. It was one of the hardest and most time consuming jobs I’ve ever had. After the grueling campaign was over however, I knew that what I wanted to do was work in the real economy and in business…
Once I had finally moved to Denver, I absolutely fell in love with it! I moved to the Denver Tech Center which was a great, central location, and I have really never left the area since then. It’s always been a convenient place for me to get to and from work, and there are so many things to do nearby. Colorado is an amazing place and Denver is such a beautiful, great city. I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else. The diversity of our climate, our people, and the tons of fun activities that we have in Colorado make it the ideal place for me. I plan to grow old and retire here! Also, I’ve met so many great friends that I enjoy being around so much that I wouldn’t want to leave to start over anywhere else. Colorado is home, and I love it!
2005 – 2008
After I had decided to not work in government and to focus on working in business, I soon got a job at a life insurance company called American Income Life, providing final expense and other life policies, as well as supplemental health. It was a good experience, and it was also very challenging. The company developed relationships with unions, credit unions, and associations to provide small accident policies to their members, and it was our jobs as agents to contact the members, deliver the policies, and then present upgrades to their plans. The job taught me a lot as it was my first 100% commission position. I learned a lot about people and how to listen to their needs in order to fit them into a plan that was best for themselves and their family. Probably the best thing I got out of the job was some of my closest friends to this day and current co-workers of mine. Had it not been for that job, I would not be doing what I am today. The traveling with the position was less than ideal however. We would get members assigned to us that were in all corners of the state like Grand Junction, Springfield, Paonia, Craig etc. So we would spend 2 or 3 days setting up hopefully 25 appointments in those towns for 2 days or so. It was a tremendous amount of driving, and I definitely desired something that was closer to home. The experience however was invaluable in many ways. I learned a lot about life insurance and health policies, and how to evaluate the best fit for clients’ needs.
As I would come to learn, a lot of times it’s all about who you know and who you come to meet in life. I ended up migrating to a mortgage company upon the recommendation of a former coworker of mine. I spent the next 2 1/2 years as a loan officer/mortgage banker from late 2005 until early 2008. Again, the experience was a great one as a I worked directly on the financing side of business in one of the most important areas of the economy – residential real estate. Over that time, I gained great experience, as a mortgage banker really has to see all aspects of someone’s life and financial picture in order to secure financing for them. I saw many hundreds of credit reports, income and asset statements, delinquencies, etc, and really got to understand how financial institutions grade people to approve them for mortgage loans. It was also a LOT of work, and I learned that it was a difficult industry in a lot of ways because there are so many things that can go wrong in a mortgage transaction, from a borrower’s statements not adding up to what they said they were going to, to red flags or unknown liens popping up on a title report, to appraisals coming in below what a borrower would estimate. It is also a very rewarding industry too as you’re able to help customers get into their dream or first homes, or you’re able to hopefully lower their payments and debt dramatically, often saving them from financial disaster many times in the process. This also marked the end of the purchasing and refinancing boom of the middle 2000s, and the start of the financial crisis.
My last year in the industry was really the start of the MAJOR issues and bankruptcies in the sub-prime mortgage arena. In 2006 I worked at H & R Block Mortgage, which owned a significant subprime lender as its main source of business. Our Denver branch was closed and dozens of us were laid off as the company was just beginning to figure out how to get rid of its sub-prime exposure. I then worked for over a year at one of the largest privately owned mortgage brokers in the country, Ace Mortgage Funding. The Denver office was one of the most successful branches in the country, as they had over a dozen branches across the nation. I had great, hard-working bosses who taught me a lot about managing and leadership. They ran a great and disciplined branch, but they were not able to sustain the losses from all of the other branches across the nation.
2008 – Present
I started preparing to leave the industry in early 2008. I could see A LOT of the lenders we worked with starting to fold up left and right. As the financial crisis of 2008 finally began to take hold sub-prime lenders were starting to become non-existent, and the lenders that were likely to make it through the crisis had started putting tighter and tighter restrictions on their loans – demonstrating that they barely felt comfortable lending at all in the current environment. Housing values began to plummet, making financing harder to obtain. This was the beginning of the major correction in the industry that would end to thousands and thousands of job losses across the country in the housing and financial industry – and rippling through to the rest of the overall economy. I could see the writing on the wall, and I decided it was time to make a change. I left the company and the industry in early 2008. Later that year, Ace Mortgage Funding declared bankruptcy across the country, and every branch in the nation shut down.
One of the main reasons that I left the mortgage industry for good was on recommendation from one of my long-time friends that I had met at American Income Life 3 years earlier. My friend Andrea had been hired by a division of Unitedhealthcare called Secure Horizons, which was their Medicare plan division. Andrea had been working there for over a year, and had taken an agent manager position. It is probably the best move and decision I’ve ever made. So in early 2008, I came over to UnitedHealthcare as an agent in their Medicare division. I LOVE what I do! I assist people on Medicare with deciding on their best options for Medicare Advantage Plans, Medicare Supplements, and Medicare Part D plans. Many people on Medicare are very confused by the system and their options within it, and for seniors, healthcare is often their largest expense and worry as they age and develop more ailments. Making the right decision on the most appropriate policy to be on is a very important process, and often the policy option that they choose will be what they’re covered under for the rest of their life. I feel great about being able to assist people, educate them, and advise them on the best choice for their health and financial needs.
As I would begin to learn all of the ins and outs of the Medicare industry starting in 2008, in 2009 I decided to start my own independent insurance agency to be able to assist people in other important areas for their insurance needs. For Medicare plans, I started out in the industry working exclusively for UnitedHealthcare Medicare plans. Over time I would transition to adding additional companies to my health and Medicare portfolio of products. Also, there were too often times that I would meet a husband aging into Medicare, but his wife was 5 or so years younger and needed an individual health policy. And yet, they didn’t know of anyone who could assist them in this process, along with many of their other insurance needs. Under my agency, BAP Insurance and Financial, I specialize in being able to offer those individual health insurance options among many major companies in the health insurance arena. In 2014, with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, I became certified with the Colorado insurance exchange, Connect For Health Colorado. After completing the training, background checks etc, I am able to offer and advise on all policies through Connect For Health Colorado.
Under my company, BAP Insurance and Financial, I also got back into helping clients with their life and final expense needs, and being able to protect and grow their assets with Universal Life policies and annuities. I feel great that I can help evaluate so many clients’ financial needs with them, and offer them an array of services and companies to protect and grow their assets, but most importantly, alleviate a great worry and stress from their shoulders. I look forward to working with people for decades to come to help them with their insurance and financial needs!
