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Senior Management
Michael Leonard Boguski President and Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Boguski has been with the Eastern organization since the inception of the workers’ compensation insurance operation in 1997. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Company operating subsidiaries since 2001 and was elected to EIHI's Board of Directors in November of 2010. He was promoted to the President and Chief Executive Officer position effective January 1, 2011. Mr. Boguski has 24 years of industry experience, including serving as Underwriting Manager at Aetna Property & Casualty Company and as Alternative Markets Underwriting Manager at the PMA Group. He is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and currently serves as the Finance Officer for the YPO Keystone Chapter. Mr. Boguski graduated from Bloomsburg University with a B.S. in Business Management, and earned his CPCU designation in 1995.
Kevin Merrick Shook Executive Vice President, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Shook has 19 years of insurance industry experience, including 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) in Philadelphia, and is responsible for all financial aspects of Eastern Insurance Holdings and its subsidiaries. During his tenure with PwC, Mr. Shook worked with insurance and reinsurance companies in the eastern United States and Bermuda, and specialized in assisting clients with initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions and internal control reviews. Mr. Shook is a graduate of Fairfield University with a B.S. in Accounting, and is a Certified Public Accountant. He joined the Eastern family of companies in 2001.
Board of Directors
Robert Morris McAlaine Chairman
Mr. McAlaine has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors since the Company’s initial public offering in June 2006. He also serves as Chairman of our Executive Committee and our Acquisition Committee, and serves as a member of our Finance/Investment Committee. Mr. McAlaine served on the Board of Directors of Educators Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1985 until its conversion to a stock company in 2006, at which time Educators Mutual was renamed Eastern Life and Health Insurance Company. Mr. McAlaine continued to serve on the Board of Directors of Eastern Life and Health until the sale of the company in June 2010. As a result of his long-standing history with Educators Mutual, Mr. McAlaine was particularly well-suited to oversee the operational and cultural integration of Educators Mutual and Eastern Holding Company, which merged and formed our Company. Until 2006, Mr. McAlaine served as Managing Partner of iNetVenture Partners, a technology consulting firm that he co-founded in 2000. From December 1999 through April 2000, Mr. McAlaine was Managing Director and Shareholder of sn.com. Prior to that, he served as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Namico, Inc., a manufacturer of industrial cleaning chemicals, a position he held for more than 18 years. Mr. McAlaine was also a General Partner in Snyder McAlaine Castle Capital Partnership from 1983 to 1990. He earned his B.A. degree from Williams College. Mr. McAlaine’s substantial executive experience and involvement in start-up ventures contribute to the development of the Company’s management team and strategic planning. That level of experience has also enabled him to be the logical Chairman of our Acquisition Committee. We believe Mr. McAlaine’s prior board experience and his many years of executive, operational and entrepreneurial experience make him valuable as Chairman of our Board.
Michael Leonard Boguski
Mr. Boguski has been with the Eastern organization since the inception of the workers’ compensation insurance operation in 1997. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Company operating subsidiaries since 2001 and was elected to EIHI's Board of Directors in November of 2010. He was promoted to the President and Chief Executive Officer position effective January 1, 2011. Mr. Boguski has 24 years of industry experience, including serving as Underwriting Manager at Aetna Property & Casualty Company and as Alternative Markets Underwriting Manager at the PMA Group. He is a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and currently serves as the Finance Officer for the YPO Keystone Chapter. Mr. Boguski graduated from Bloomsburg University with a B.S. in Business Management, and earned his CPCU designation in 1995.
Bruce Matthew Eckert Vice Chairman
Mr. Eckert has been with the Eastern organization since the inception of Eastern Re Ltd. in 1987. He participates as a director on the boards of several other financial services companies, and serves as Emeritus Chairman of the Board of The Pennsylvania Ballet and as a regent for the Mercersburg Academy. Mr. Eckert received his B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from the Dickinson School of Law.
Paul Robert Burke
Mr. Burke has been a member of our Board since its public offering in June 2006. Prior to that, Mr. Burke served on the Board of Eastern Holdings, Inc., having joined that Board in 2002 concurrent with his firm’s substantial investment in that company. Mr. Burke co-founded, and is a principal of, Northaven Management, Inc. and its affiliates, Northaven Partners, L.P., Northaven Partners II, L.P., Northaven Partners III, L.P., and Northaven Offshore, Ltd (collectively, “Northaven”). Northaven was formed in 1995 to make investments in the equity and equity-linked securities of financial services firms, including banks and thrifts, insurance companies, finance companies, asset managers, securities firms, and the financial services-related portions of the information and payment processing industries. Prior to co-founding Northaven, Mr. Burke was a Vice President in Bankers Trust Company’s Financial Services Group. At Bankers Trust, he was involved in the origination and execution of merger and acquisition, restructuring, and principal transactions for financial services firms. That extensive experience and working knowledge of the highly complex financial services sector made Mr. Burke the ideal member to chair our Audit Committee. He has served as Chairman of the Audit Committee since 2006 and also serves as a member on our Finance/Investment Committee, Nominating/Governance Committee and Acquisition Committee. Mr. Burke earned a B.A. in Economics from
Columbia University and an M.B.A. from the Columbia Business School. He serves on the Board of Kinloch Holdings, an insurance brokerage holding company. Mr. Burke’s continuing analysis of and participation in the many varied segments of the insurance industry makes him a critical presence on our Board.
Ronald Lee King
Mr. King has been a member of our Board since its public offering in June 2006, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Eastern Life and Health Insurance Company (formerly Educators Mutual) from 2000 until Eastern Life and Health was acquired by Security Life Insurance Company of America in June 2010. Mr. King has had a 45-year career in the commercial and industrial insulation segment of the construction industry and presently serves as a business consultant. Mr. King became Chairman Emeritus of Specialty Products & Insulation Co., a building products distribution company, in 2004. Prior thereto, Mr. King was Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Specialty Products & Insulation Co. from 1993 to 2004. Mr. King has also owned and operated a contracting business, served as a Vice President and
General Manager of a large national specialty contractor, and as President of a national accessory manufacturer. He is a past President of the National Insulation Association, the Southwest Insulation Contractors Association, and the World Insulation and Acoustic Congress Organization. He has been honored with the “President’s Award” on three different occasions from two insulation associations. That varied management and operational experience in a business sector, which is a principal focus of the Company’s underwriting strategy, has added immeasurably to the Board’s and management’s understanding of this diverse construction industry. Mr. King serves on the Board’s Nominating/Governance Committee and Audit Committee and is Chairman of the Compensation/Human Resources Committee. His extensive executive experience with companies of varied size and complexity qualify him to advise on matters of human resources, compensation structure, management training, and succession in his capacity as Chairman of the Compensation/Human Resources Committee.
Scott Carter Penwell
Mr. Penwell has been a Board member since our public offering in 2006 and has served as our Corporate Secretary since that time. Mr. Penwell was a founding member of Eastern Holding Company and served as a member of that Board since its inception in 1987. Mr. Penwell is a shareholder in the law firm of Stevens & Lee, P.C. He works in the law firm’s Harrisburg, PA office and co-chairs the firm’s Captive Insurance Group. Mr. Penwell is a former Chairman of the Business Law Section of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and the Insurance Law Practice group of TerraLex, and a former member of the Attorney Advisory Committee of the Pennsylvania Securities Commission and the Pennsylvania Corporation Bureau. Mr. Penwell’s extensive knowledge of, participation in, and consulting to the captive insurance industry in both Bermuda and Grand Cayman, qualifies him for membership on our Board. Mr. Penwell serves on the Board’s Finance/Investment Committee and Acquisition
Committee. Mr. Penwell currently serves as legal counsel to various organizations which participate in the insurance industry. His extensive
associations assist the Board in understanding the captive insurance market. Mr. Penwell received his B.A. in English from Rutgers University, his
Masters degree in English from Villanova University, and his J.D. from Temple University School of Law.
William Lloyd Snyder III
Mr. Snyder has been a Board member of our Company since our public offering in June 2006. Mr. Snyder also served as a director of Eastern Life and Health (formerly Educators Mutual) from 2002 until the sale of the company in June 2010. Mr. Snyder is the principal owner of Snyder & Co., an investment banking firm which he formed in 1973, specializing in mergers, acquisitions, financings, valuations, restructurings and divestitures. From 1968 through 1973, Mr. Snyder was employed by Butcher and Sherrerd, a Philadelphia investment firm, in its Corporate Finance Department, and became a Partner in that firm in 1973. In addition, he has served as Chairman of Huff Paper Company since 1977. From 1983 to 1990, Mr. Snyder was a general partner in Snyder, McAlaine and Castle Capital Partnership, a private investment fund, and, from 1987 to 1992, he was a Managing Director of von Seldeneck, Snyder and Company, Inc., an investment advisory firm. Mr. Snyder has also served as a General Partner in numerous limited partnerships, most of which invested in thrift securities. Mr. Snyder’s substantial knowledge of and participation in the financial services sector for the entirety of his professional career adds a broad perspective to the Board’s management of the Company’s business. Mr. Snyder continues to serve on the Audit Committee and Acquisition Committee and is Chairman of our Finance/Investment Committee. Mr. Snyder was a Trustee of The Shipley School from 1987 to 1996 and was Chairman of Shipley’s Board of Trustees from 1989 to 1995. Mr. Snyder was a Trustee of Amherst College from 1989 to 2001. In 1998, Mr. Snyder became a Trustee of the
Eisenhower Fellowships and in 2010, he became a Trustee of McLean Hospital. His service to those institutions and their endowments has additionally qualified him to oversee the Company’s investments and its investment policy and third party advisors in his capacity as Chairman of the Finance/Investment Committee Chairman. Mr. Snyder graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1968.
Charles Hall Vetterlein Jr.
Mr. Vetterlein has been a member of the Board since our public offering in June 2006 and was a member of the Board of Eastern Life and Heath (formerly Educators Mutual) from 2002 until the sale of the company in June 2010. Mr. Vetterlein has served as Managing Partner of the Philadelphia office of Willis North America, the third largest insurance brokerage firm in the world since 2008. Prior to that, Mr. Vetterlein was President of the Philadelphia office of Hilb, Rogal and Hobbs, an insurance brokerage firm, from 1996 until it merged with the Willis Group in October 2008. Previously, Mr. Vetterlein worked for American Phoenix Corporation (a subsidiary of the Phoenix Companies) from 1986 to 1999, and was President of American Phoenix’s Philadelphia office from 1996 to 1999. Mr. Vetterlein also serves on the board of The Academy of Insurance and Risk Management at St. Joseph’s University School of Business. Mr. Vetterlein represents a critical sector in the insurance industry. He therefore brings a necessary perspective to our Company’s management of insurance agency representation, compensation, marketing and distribution, and product development. Mr. Vetterlein serves on our Compensation/Human Resources Committee and Nominating/Governance Committee. His broad view of the casualty insurance marketplace continues to qualify him for service on our Board. Mr. Vetterlein received a B.S. in Economics from Washington and Lee University.
