Board of Advisors

Alan R. Badanes

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Alan recently retired after a 16-year career at Swiss Re. Since 2013, he co-led Swiss Re US Life Reinsurance business and was a Member of Swiss Re’s Americas Management Team. At Swiss Re, Alan worked in London, Zurich, and New York with clients across the globe in the Property-Casualty and Life & Health industries. During the 2008 financial crisis, he formed Swiss Re’s Global Business Development unit, which supported clients’ capital needs during that period and developed a range of reinsurance-based capital management solutions.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, Alan was a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase in the Investment Banking Department. Having joined Chase Manhattan Bank in 1981, he spent three years in Europe before joining Chase’s new Insurance Banking Department in New York in 1987. Moving to London in 1991, Alan built Chase’s insurance client franchise in Europe. With the 2000 JPMorgan merger, he continued to lead the bank’s European insurance team until returning to New York in 2003. In his time with Chase and JPMorgan, Alan was a leader in innovative financing solutions as well as M&A in the insurance industry.

A Cincinnati native, Alan graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a BA in History in 1979 and earned a master’s in International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in 1980. Alan and his wife, Ellie, live in New Canaan, Connecticut.


Thomas Cassady

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Thomas D. Cassady is president and CEO of USI Midwest, LLC, which is a part of USI Insurances Services, a national insurance brokerage firm. He has responsibility for 22 offices in the Midwest that include 150 salespeople, 500 service associates and over 1.5 billion dollars of premium. He entered the insurance field shortly after graduating from the University of Cincinnati. Thomas has earned professional designations as Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU); Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU); and Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC). He was a trustee of the Independent Insurance Agents of Ohio and a member and past president of the Cincinnati Insurance Board. He founded Queen City Insurance, which he sold to USI in 1999.

Thomas has been active in the Cincinnati community, serving on the Board of Directors for Beech Acres Parenting Center (where he was President 2007-09). He has served on the Board of Advisors for UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences and Beta Theta Pi International Fraternity as Vice President and General Secretary (1988-1992). He is former President of the boards of both Mount Notre Dame High School and The Milford Spiritual Center’s Board.

A 1976 graduate of the University of Cincinnati, where he majored in history, Thomas was active in numerous extracurricular organizations. He was president of Beta Theta Pi, attorney general of student government and vice-president of the Inter-fraternity Council. He became a member of Cincinnatus, Men of Metro, Sigma Sigma, Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) and was awarded the Fisher-Krieder award for the Greek man of the year in 1976.


David Eslick

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David L. Eslick is chairman and CEO of Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, a business unit of Marsh Inc. that is dedicated to serving the insurance needs of small to mid-sized U.S. companies.

He has nearly 30 years of experience in the insurance industry and joined Marsh in January 2009. Most recently, he was chairman, president and CEO of USI Holdings. He led USI’s rapid expansion during the past five years to become the ninth largest insurance brokerage in the U.S., negotiating and completing more than 50 acquisitions in the process. 

In October 2008, Marsh announced the establishment of Marsh & McLennan Agency to be one of the premier insurance agencies in the United States, offering commercial property and casualty, directors & officers liability, surety, employee benefits and personal lines products to customers through a dedicated sales and service force in retail locations across the U.S.

David began his insurance career with Ohio National Life in 1979, and held positions with Prudential Insurance and Acordia (now Wells Fargo Insurance) before joining USI. 

He earned an MBA degree from Xavier University. A member of the Young Presidents Organization, David serves on the board of directors of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers.


Frank Nutter

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Frank Nutter is President of the Reinsurance Association of America (RAA).

He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, an adjunct to the Harvard University School of Public Health, the Advisory Board of the OECD’s International Network for the Financial Management of Large Scale Disasters and the RAND Center on Catastrophic Risk Management and Compensation.

Frank has recently served on the Council of the American Meteorological Society, the Board of the University Center for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of universities managing the National Center for Atmospheric Research sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Worker’s Compensation Research Institute, the Board of Overseers of the Institute for Civil Justice, a subsidiary of the Rand Corporation and on the Board of the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences.

Frank Nutter has a Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Cincinnati. He was an officer in the U.S. Navy and is a Vietnam veteran.


Erick D. Schmidt

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Erick is the CEO of McGohan Brabender. He has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry and possesses a wealth of knowledge concerning employee benefits, trends in healthcare, and issues impacting rising healthcare costs. 

Erick entered the insurance business upon graduation from the University of Cincinnati, and held various positions in sales and marketing with Community Mutual Insurance Company, in Cincinnati, and in management with Rush Prudential Health Plans in Chicago. In 1997, Erick moved back to Cincinnati, where he joined Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield as their Director of Sales for Anthem’s Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Dayton markets.

Erick joined McGohan Brabender in 2001 and was given the opportunity to become a Shareholder in 2006. He led McGohan Brabender’s expansion in Cincinnati in 2006, Indiana in 2020 and Kentucky in 2022.

Erick is a 1990 graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where he majored in finance and real estate. At UC, Erick was active in numerous organizations on campus, including being the president of Alpha Rho Epsilon business fraternity, treasurer of Sigma Nu and a member of the Student Alumni Council, Men of Metro and Sigma Sigma.

Erick has previously served on the Board of Governors for the University of Cincinnati Alumni Association and has held board positions with the Dayton Area Diabetes Association, and the American Diabetes Association in Cincinnati, where he was previously recognized as the ADA’s Corporate Leader of the Year.


Steven Valerius

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Steven J. Valerius, FLMI®, CPA, is President of the Individual Division of Ameritas. He has also served in various other management capacities since joining the company in 1986.

He is an MDRT Foundation trustee, having served as board liaison on the Grants Committee, and also served on LIMRA’s Strategic Marketing Issues Committee. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati.