John Pergande
Founder and Chairman of the Board
"Through our sound business strategy backed by advanced technology and insurance domain expertise, we expect InsureZone to be cash positive by year-end 2001."

A Brief Summary of John's Career
John Pergande is the founder and chairman of InsureZone. He is also general partner of Buena Venture Associates, the venture capital firm that financed InsureZone. John was chairman and CFO of Pyramid Services, a developer of insurance claims processing software. Pyramid was acquired by an investment partnership formed by John, which included Sid R. Bass and Pyramid management. John started his career at Spear, Leeds and Kellogg on the floor of the New York Futures Stock Exchange and then spent two years as a market maker, trading stock options at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. From 1991 to 1995, he served as a corporate banker for Citibank. From there, he joined the corporate finance group at Electronic Data Systems. Through BVA, John is an investor in and a director of INSpire, Tradecast, Inc., Xactimed, Inc., and Single Source Communications LLC. His nonprofit interests include board seats of the Boys & Girls Club of Fort Worth, The Community Foundation, and fund-raising for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. John earned a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Yale University and a master's degree in business administration from Northwestern University.

John on what led him to InsureZone
"While I was at Pyramid Services one of our goals was to process claims over the Internet. We sold Pyramid to Kemper before we had a chance to fully implement that strategy. At BVA, we further explored the idea of Internet-based claims processing, but found the market for selling insurance over the Internet to be far more lucrative. That idea became InsureZone. By establishing this company we are living out our vision of selling insurance online, using an advanced e-commerce platform to manage the entire sales process for an insurance policy, end-to-end."

John on his role at InsureZone
"My role as Chairman of InsureZone is to help the management team make the best strategic decisions possible. We are building a company that incorporates the success of an existing brick-and-mortar model, and complements it with Internet-based capabilities that will enable huge revenue growth. Our merger with Higginbotham & Associates, the nation's 118th-largest insurance broker, is proof of that. We needed real insurance industry experience, and we also needed the ability to incubate our ideas. Higginbotham has given us both of those things. This company has revenue and consistent positive cash flows. We've never believed that it makes sense to spend millions of dollars to brand a business that you hope will have the market share to justify losing money for five years before you break even. Through our sound business strategy backed by advanced technology and insurance domain expertise, we expect InsureZone to be cash positive by year-end 2001."

Ed Gillman
President, AgentSecure
"The strong personal relationships we've developed throughout the independent agency system drive a lot of what we do - both on a daily basis and in terms of long-range vision."

A Brief Summary of Ed's Career
The strong personal relationships we've developed throughout the independent agency system drive a lot of what we do - both on a daily basis and in terms of long-range vision.

Ed on what led him to develop AgentSecure
"I saw a clear need for a company like AgentSecure while piloting a small commercial brokerage concept for one of the major carriers at my brick-and-mortar agency. After succeeding at it the old-fashioned way, I wanted to take it to the next level using the Internet. Not to remove the agent from the equation the way some were trying to do, but to keep that agent right in the middle of the process. And especially to bring to the small and rural agent the bigger carriers with the best products and best claims handling, as well as competitive pricing. Now everybody has moved closer to our original business model, but just a few years ago it was revolutionary."

Ed on AgentSecure's role in the InsureZone family of companies
"What's driving me to succeed as a member of InsureZone's family of 'Secure' companies is the idea that we bring such tremendous value to the independent agency system - the cornerstone of which is 'choice.' But we not only give the agents choice, we also give the carriers choice. And, ultimately, the winners in all of this are the insurance-buying customers - who get to decide how they want, and who they want, to take care of their business."

J. Russell Reid
Board Member
"A big part of InsureZone's mission is deploying our strategy for InsureZone's affinity partners - for example, a financial institution establishing an online insurance business to serve its customers under its own label."

A Brief Summary of Rusty's Career
J. Russell "Rusty" Reid brings to InsureZone 18 years of insurance industry experience with a history of success. Since 1989, he has served as president and CEO of Higginbotham & Associates, Inc., the 118th-largest U.S. insurance broker. Under Rusty's leadership, the Fort Worth-based company grew from 500 customers to more than 20,000 nationwide, while premiums exploded from $10 million to $200 million. For more than a half century, Higginbotham has represented many of the nation's leading insurance carriers. Rusty began his corporate career in 1983, while still a student, as an assistant producer for Ramey, King & Minnis Insurance Agency. He moved on to American General Fire & Casualty Company as territorial marketing manager before joining Higginbotham. Rusty is a board member of Lone Star Insurance Co. Ltd., Fireman's Fund Presidents' Council, and the Safeco Summit Council, as well as serving on the advisory board of Frost National Bank in Texas. He is a member of The Young Presidents' Organization and a ranking member of several philanthropic organizations. Rusty received a bachelor's degree in business administration/insurance from the University of North Texas.

Rusty on what led him to InsureZone
"My approach has always been to take what I have, and reengineer it to make it work more successfully. When I came to Higginbotham, I deployed an aggressive growth strategy, and built the infrastructure and incentives to support it. It's also my style to try to be on the forefront. As we built Higginbotham, we were well aware that deregulation would allow banks to get into the industry, and that the Internet was obviously going to play a role. So we started working with banks to be the sole provider of insurance products to their customers, and with some large corporations to offer personal, auto, homeowners and umbrella coverage to their employees. The problem was finding an easy way to distribute those products. We needed a way, in essence, to look like that bank or that large corporation. InsureZone's MarketSecure platform provides that capability. So obviously, when InsureZone came to us with it, it made a lot of sense to partner with them."

Johny Hajjar
Chief Technology Officer
"Providing efficient and effective SEMCI solutions is an ongoing challenge and one InsureZone has become well-versed at solving. I'm proud of where we're at and excited about where we're headed."

A Brief Summary of Johny's Career
Johny is a 1995 graduate of USC (Go Trojans) with a BS degree in Mathematics. Upon graduation from college, Johny was commissioned an Officer in the United States Navy and started Cryptologic Division Officers training at NTTC Corry Station in Pensacola, Florida. He held various leadership roles while in the Navy including Cryptologic Direct Support Officer, Operations Watch Officer, Information Assurance Division Officer while stationed at NSGA, Rota, Spain. Johny started his software career with Input Software, Inc. in January 2000 as a Professional Services Software Engineer (PSG) for their InputAccel product. In June 2000 Input Software, Inc. was renamed ActionPoint, Inc. and during that transition Johny transitioned over to their new product DialogServer being the first PSG Engineer supporting DialogServer. In May 2001 the DialogServer part of the company was acquired by Chordiant, Inc., and Johny continued on with Chordiant as a PSG Engineer for DialogServer renamed Interaction Server. In October 2001 Johny left Chordiant, Inc. to begin work as an independent software development consultant.

He joined up with InsureZone in November 2001 as a contracted software engineer where he envisioned and developed our browser automation technology (Bowser) in collaboration with the lead software engineer at the time as well as many other contributions. In June 2004 the attractiveness of the business model, the uniqueness of the technology and great working environment resulted in him joining the InsureZone team full-time as lead software engineer where he continued to enhance our Bowser technology as well as introducing enhancements to our web application development and generation process. In June 2007 he assumed the role of CTO taking over an ever sophisticated suit of technology where automation and artificial intelligence marry up in such a way as to provide one of the seamless SEMCI solutions in use today.

Johny on what led him to InsureZone
"InsureZone represents a great combination for someone like me, interested in solving business problems through technology. I really enjoy the opportunity to utilize advanced and emerging technologies, the challenge of complex data and complex business processes, and the entrepreneurial environment. Add to that our friendly and capable people and you've got a recipe for continued growth and success."