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Matt Welding is the vice president of CBM Insurance in Delaware, an Alera Group company. l PHOTO COURTESY OF CBM INSURANCE[/caption]
NEW CASTLE — Matt Welding has provided insurance products through Delaware-based CBM Insurance with a community service flair for more than a decade, even as he’s recently moved into a leadership role within the company.
He began working in insurance in 2006 after graduating from Salesianum High School in 2002 and St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pa. Welding switched to CBM Insurance in 2011 as a producer, selling a variety of insurance-related products to help improve the community around him.
Over the years, he specialized in workers compensation and all lines of commercial insurance, and he grew his experience and knowledge-base and now helps run CBM Insurance alongside Partner Candi Shoupe. He is an active member of the Delaware Contractors Association, Delaware Business Leads and the Delaware Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors.
“There’s different problems to solve every day. We work within different industries, so contractors, restaurants, non-profits, real estate, dental offices, doctor offices, professional offices… it always changes so it is a bit of a challenge every time you look at it, which is kind of cool,” Welding told the Delaware Business Times.
As a leader within the company located in New Castle, Welding doesn’t only sell insurance; he also helps manage the day-to-day operations and about 48 staff members that frequent the halls of CBM Insurance. He also helped see the company move through a different change – from privately owned as it had been since 1981 to a part of the Alera Group, an independent, national insurance and financial services firm.
“I continued to sell when I started taking over some of the manager’s responsibilities from a marketing perspective and a sales manager’s perspective and that’s just leadership in general for the agency as we went from privately owned to a part of the Alera Group back in November of last year,” he explained.
He now helps manage the employees, CBM Insurance’s budgetary process, best practices for the firm and works closely with other leaders, such as Shoupe, to ensure continuity and a positive company environment.
“If something goes wrong, people can come to me and I’ll make sure we get it taken care of. I work with our managing partner Candi to look at our budget from year to year and make sure our numbers make sense and we’re not going to overextend ourselves,” Welding told DBT.
The balancing act doesn’t end at budgets and day-to-day operations for Welding, however. With a growing family of his own at home, he knows all too well the importance of a good work life balance and he tries to emphasize that on the job, as well, which he says their employees appreciate.
“My wife is a teacher. . . We have two young kids. We have a fifth grader and a second grader and I’m heavily involved in their sports and activities. My son’s basketball and soccer stuff and my daughters soccer, dance and Girl Scout things,” he said with pride. “I’m on the pastoral council at the school and church that we go to, as well, so I sit down for meetings once a month for about eight months out of the year just to talk about the parish and give guidance about where things are going, where things are headed, who needs help, things like that. . .”
While maintaining that work life balance can be a hurdle to success, he said it doesn’t have to be with the right team. For example, many team members, including himself, often get their work done early, allowing them to leave early on days when they have family obligations or other needs.
“I think most of them understand that they have the ability to do what they need to and they have the freedom to do that in the office and at home. I think that freedom provides them the ability to know they’re cared about and they can give their all here at work and still give their all at home. I think people appreciate that about the culture we’ve created here,” Welding said.
Along with a good work life balance, Welding said giving back as an office is important to CBM Insurance and their track record shows they put in the work to make it happen.
“Within the office, we do a lot of non-profit sponsorships for various entities, and we’re very involved with that,” he told DBT. “I think one of the reasons we’ve been very successful as an agency is that we have a really tight knit tie to the community. Our founding partner Brandon Baffone has always been a part of the community. I think we’ve been able to grow so much is because he was able ask people in the community, ‘Hey, take a chance on me and let me write your insurance.’”
Those community ties often build upon themselves to help the company generate more business while the community itself grows.
“We have always thought we were best served in the community to partner with people that we know, go to school with, go to church with and are friends with and that tight knit feel that we have in Delaware is obviously really apparent because it’s more of a large town than a small state,” he added.
While connecting with the community and creating a needed work-life balance is key to success, he had one more piece of advice for those looking to bust into a professional field.
“If you find something you like to do, it’s not going to feel like work. 365 days of work, I think about work, but the actual days I’m here, it doesn’t feel like work,” he said. “I like the people I work with. I like the clients I work with. If you find people you like to work with, it won’t feel like work and you’ll probably have that organic opportunity for growth anyway.”
“It’s really important for me that the leadership team and I, Brandon and Candi, share a lot of the same core values and that has helped,” he added. “I would say: Make sure you’re surrounding yourself with people you wouldn’t mind spending time with outside of work because that will help it seem like it’s not work.”
