Deborah Becker

(Bow tie aficionado and VP of Awesomeness!)  At the tender age of 22, I was heading into my second senior year of college. To be frank, I’d postponed my graduation (this is not something I would’ve admitted at the time) because I had no grasp of what it was I wanted to do with my marketing degree. I’d made good money tending bar at a college watering-hole for five years, but suddenly questioned why I’d never thought that it might be worth sacrificing the jingle in my pocket to add some experience on my resume more appealing to potential employers in my field. On a whim, I interviewed for a State Farm internship advertised on the UW-Eau Claire campus with a slight sense of impending doom. Insurance sounded excruciatingly boring. To top it off, I’d been used to setting my own schedule and getting a lot of satisfaction from my interplay with our patrons; a job in insurance made me feel that I was beginning my forced march into servitude as a cubicle monkey. I’m not a huge fan of boredom, forced marches, or servitude, so was somewhat underwhelmed when informed that my two interviews had netted a position. Allow me to be the first person to state that I sometimes make mistakes. I was NOT bored. My first day on the job threw me into play with folks on the phone. Every call, every visit was different. Even though I knew effectively nothing about insurance, I was able to help people by understanding that most of the folks that I talked to weren’t looking for reams and reams of product knowledge – they were looking for a relationship. Simple conversations I held with potential customers were enough to soothe them before handing them off to a licensed member of the office to cement that relationship. By the end of the summer, I was tired of the handoff. I therefore surprised myself by getting my property / casualty and life / health insurance licenses… and staying on with State Farm beyond the life of my internship. A decade and a half later, I continue to work happily in a State Farm office I run with my wife, and have now added the knowledge and licensing necessary to provide and service over 100 products we have to solve problems. I have the satisfaction and self-fulfillment that comes with neighbors happy about my service. I hope to be able to add a new paragraph to this autobiography in the near future, detailing how our visions to further benefit our community have been brought to fruition!