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Rising Stars
Goin' North
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Business New Haven
10/23/1995
By: Michael Gomez
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Ever since he was a child, Bob Walczak wanted to be a stockbroker.
That admission conjures up an agreeable picture in the mind's-eye - a boy dressed in a dark suit, wing tips and wearing a tiny, shiny Halliburton briefcase, buying and selling shares in companies (Nabisco? Mattel?) - while all around him other kids dream of a future in Yankee pinstripes or NYPD blue.
Fourteen years ago, Robert J. Walczak realized his destiny when he hung out a shingle on his own New Haven brokerage business. Now that firm, the Polaris Group, is Connecticut's largest, independently owned full-service brokerage and financial-services house.
“I want to be No. 1 in the country,” Walczak, 45, says. And he thinks he's found the right formula to take him to the top.
“I don't eat unless my people sell something.”
Walczak eats regularly. His Polaris Group, comprising a registered securities brokerage, a registered investment advisory services unit and an insurance and annuities brokerage, will top $400 million in sales in 1995 - four times what it grossed just five years ago.
That growth has been fueled by a virtual office - 400 registered representatives and another 1,000 producers across the country selling stocks, bonds, mutual funds and life, health insurance and annuities to individuals and small-business owners.
Those sales people are independent businessmen and women, drawn to Walczak's group of companies by generous commissions and quality financial products.
“I am most comfortable running salespeople,” says Walczak. “I'm best at dealing with fiercely independent financial entrepreneurs. I deal with a lot of strong egos. There's no profit in it for me to be in control, shouting orders.” His demeanor is calm, to let his brokers and agents gripe about a problem, and then to help them devise a problem/solution approach to a thorny situation.
In an industry where commissions on sales of mutual funds average about 30 percent for a registered rep in a big brokerage firm like Merrill Lynch, Walczak lures top independent producers to his virtual office with 80-percent commissions.
That still leaves Walczak with plenty of cash to pay overhead, salaries and benefits for the company's 25 back-office employees. And enough extra to leave him and his family comfortably fixed in their home in prestigious Sachem Head overlooking Long Island Sound in Guilford - a long way from the Bronx, where he was born, and a Long Island childhood where he dreamed of puts and calls and odd lots.
Arising From the Ashes
Chris Earle is a Civil War buff. And although he looks good in grey, Earle saw no need this July to emulate Confederate General George Edward Pickett in a hopeless charge to save Founders Bank.
Instead, Earle welcomed latter-day federal forces when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) seized the New Haven-based Founders and buried that fatally wounded institution in a banking-industry equivalent of Cemetery Ridge.
Within weeks of the FDIC seizure, the Waterbury-based Centerbank bought Founders' assets and hired Earle's small corps of specialized lenders - the top originators of U.S. Small Business Administration loans in southern Connecticut.
“Centerbank is a pretty forward-thinking organization,” Earle says. “It saw an opportunity to get into a line of business that is profitable and whose risk is mitigated.”
Centerbank's importation of Earle, 40, and his three SBA lending specialists already is paying dividends. In the six weeks since the unit pitched camp, Earle and company have secured $1 million in SBA loans, with another $4 million in the pipeline. That puts them on the pace for a $15 million year, and positions Centerbank to become the biggest SBA lender in the state.
“That is our goal,” Earle says. And he thinks it's attainable.
“At Founders, and especially in the latter months, we didn't have all the tools in the box. Now, here we are with one of the strongest banks, with all the lending lines. So if an SBA customer has other commercial lending needs, Centerbank can fill them.” That offers a solid opportunity, he says, to make the SBA customer a complete customer of Centerbank.
Earle has dispatched his SBA specialists to New Haven, Waterbury and Meriden to drum up more SBA business. “Our regional presence works better,” he says. “We're closer to the customer.” And the group is mining leads from other Centerbank departments.
Earle has quickly helped Centerbank earn the respect of the SBA. Centerbank recently received certified lender status, becoming the 12th authorized SBA lender in Connecticut. That means the bank can get SBA loans approved within three days after receiving a completed application, instead of a week to a month or more.
Faster turnaround means more loans.
That equation promises to become even rosier. Earle intends to seek preferred-lender status from the SBA by the end of 1995, allowing Centerbank to act as an agent of the SBA and approve loans on the spot.
HMOs' Boy Wonder
As CEO of Oxford Health Plans' growing Connecticut operation, Bryan Birch knows the importance of regular exercise to maintaining robust health and an even disposition.
Birch, 30, plays basketball twice a week in a Norwalk league, often against his colleagues at the rapidly-growing Oxford Health Plans. It can get raw on the court, with elbows wielded like scalpels, drawing wounded cries and heated words.
“Kinda makes meetings the next day a little tense,” he laughs.
Oxford's culture seems to flourish with that sort of competition. Perhaps inuring themselves to the heat of a battle tempers the Oxford team for the war that counts most - winning in the marketplace.
So it's no surprise that Oxford is building a winning record in the managed-care game. A darling of Wall Street, the Norwalk-based Oxford Health Plans has mushroomed since its start 11 years ago, becoming the fastest-growing managed care company in the industry, with almost 900,000 members and 24,000 participating physicians.
Oxford offers health-maintenance organizations, point-of-service plans, Medicare and Medicaid coverage, and other health-care options in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and, since early 1994, Connecticut.
“We're headquartered in Connecticut, and we believe in being a community-minded organization,” Birch says. “We saw a need for strong managed-care products in the state. There was a good business opportunity here.” In less than two years, Oxford's Connecticut operations have enrolled 22,000 members and 3,500 physicians. Birch expects to multiply membership in the state five times by the end of 1996.
Such phenomenal growth, Birch says, is due to Oxford's dedication to customer service.
“When you think of companies that are known for their customer service, you name L.L. Bean and American Express. Most people don't think of insurance companies that way.
“Our goal is to make Oxford Health Plans a high-caliber service company - not just an insurance company,” Birch explains. We believe our service is well above what our members and participating physicians are used to in the health-services industry.”
Typically, after signing on, members and doctors quickly become lifers. Oxford's retention rate for group membership renewal is 99 percent, and more than 98 percent of physicians renew each year - among the highest in the industry.
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