New Award Recognizes Extraordinary Service
The URMIA Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Larry V. Stephens will receive URMIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 Annual Conference in Boston next September. This new award was created specifically to honor URMIA members for extraordinary leadership and commitment to URMIA and the profession of higher education risk management.
Larry’s contributions were recognized by his peers with the Distinguished Risk Manager (DRM) award, until now URMIA’s highest honor, in 2002. Referring to the new award that Larry will receive during the upcoming annual conference to celebrate URMIA’s 50th anniversary, Jenny Whittington says, “Larry’s significance to the development of URMIA cannot be overstated. He has had such an enormous, unparalleled impact that the Honors Committee unanimously agreed that a new award had to be given to Larry for his pivotal role.”
Impact on URMIA
Larry has served countless terms as an URMIA committee chair, conference chair and board member. He is one of just two individuals to have served twice as URMIA’s president, once in 1999-2000 and again in 2001-2002. As Paul Clancy, director of risk management (retired) at Boston University, noted, there were so many things Larry still wanted to accomplish as his first presidential term ended that he was motivated to check the bylaws to see if running for office was prohibited. It wasn’t, and he won re-election.
What Larry wanted to accomplish has defined URMIA. He was the driving force behind transforming URMIA from a volunteer-run organization into a modern association administered by professional staff dedicated just to URMIA. Earlier attempts were made to establish an URMIA administrative office at NACUBO’s headquarters and with United Educators. For a time, URMIA even hired a management company to provide these services, but the results did not meet the association’s expectations. It was Larry who advocated for a national office located on a university campus, and in 2004 he created the space and support for it in his own workplace at Indiana University (IU). Larry even briefly ran URMIA’s National Office until Jenny Whittington, who continues to serve as executive director today, came on board in early 2005.
He also was behind the one resource that URMIA members say they value above all else, the URMIAnetwork online community, which grew out of what were called “listservs” back in the 20th century. Although Larry didn’t establish URMIA’s first listserv, he started and maintained a successful second listserv, which served as the precursor to the URMIAnetwork.
Larry has been a mentor to a generation of higher education risk managers. His advice for the new generation: “Chart your own course through your career. You’re part of your school’s management team, but you will sometimes stand in the way of what they want to do because many people don’t have enough knowledge to understand and appreciate risk—or it’s just inconvenient to consider it.
Career and Retirement
Larry’s route into risk management was, like many of his generation, a circuitous one. He began his IU career with the IU Police Department from 1970-73 and served again with that department from 1975-77. After what he calls “outside stints” as a police officer in Jefferson County, Kentucky, a truck driver, and an insurance adjuster, he returned to IU in 1985, joining the Property & Casualty Insurance Department, which later became the Office of Risk Management and finally Insurance, Loss Control & Claims.
He officially retires as IU’s director of insurance, loss control and claims on March 1. Later in the spring, he intends to do computer programming for the university on an hourly basis from a remote office. He also plans to attend to household chores that have been “put off for too long,” indulging his keen interest in genealogical research and spending more time with family. With a characteristic twinkle in his eye, he says, “No big changes envisioned, no moving off to Bali.”
Larry advises that one should never stop learning. He also urges members to use resources at hand, “especially what URMIA offers.” Acknowledging that risk management is a stressful career, Larry is an advocate for balance and retaining a sense of humor. He’s injected fun into the workplace by driving a Segway down the hallway in the original URMIA office, and he’s relaxed in his leisure time playing bass in country music, southern gospel and bluegrass bands. Larry urges today’s risk managers to remember it’s only a job and that “there are more important things in life you don’t want to lose or harm, including your family and sanity.”
As for the association he has devoted so much time and energy to building, he says, “I’ll be forever grateful for the assistance I’ve had from the people associated with URMIA and all the friendships.” He pauses and, with that playful grin, continues, “It’s been fun—mostly.”
Editor’s Note: See also the essay Faces of Risk Management: Larry V. Stephens.