The record speaks for itself, a single-page resume of understatement and overachievement demonstrating 40 years of Larry Arth engaged in business and his hometown.
RICHARD PIERSOL/Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, July 26, 2008 7:00 pm
The record speaks for itself, a single-page resume of understatement and overachievement demonstrating 40 years of Larry Arth engaged in business and his hometown.
No bragging, just facts about one of Lincoln’s native leaders, retiring this week.
Professionally, from his 1968 hiring as a mortgage loan assistant at the old Bankers Life Nebraska, he worked his way through successors to become chairman of the board of UNIFI Cos., a mutual holding company he and his teams built organically and by mergers from his leadership of Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.
When Arth wasn’t on the job, he was at his other job, dedicating time to causes ranging from the Girl Scouts to the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce, from Catholic Social Services and Friendship Home to the 2015 Vision group.
The list prompts the question of how he found and managed the time, energy and wherewithal to do it all.
His successors, JoAnn Martin at Ameritas and John Jacobs at UNIFI, have answers that illuminate Arth’s skills and his career.
Sacrifice had a lot to do with it, said Jacobs, who didn’t know Arth well until his Ohio company, Union Central Life, and Arth’s started talking about making a deal four years ago.
“You don’t have the kind of career and community involvement Larry had working eight hours day,” said Jacobs.
Another way to get it done is good work habits. You can get a lot more accomplished if you don’t dither.
“Larry has a philosophy of only handling things once,” Martin said. “He gets all the information, makes a decision and moves on. So many of us have trouble with time management because we revisit things. … He will not look back.”
During Arth’s career and for the latest 20 years under his leadership, Ameritas has gone beyond life insurance, adjusting to opportunities to new laws that allowed formation of a mutual company that holds other enterprises that grew into a variety of financial services, banking, public finance, investments, dental, disability and vision insurance.
Counterparts at other companies recognize him as a savvy competitor.
“Larry is highly regarded in our industry,” said Tom Henning, chairman of Assurity Life in Lincoln. “He’s known as a leader and visionary, and under his leadership Ameritas is considered one of the best run life/health companies in the country.
“He’s one smart investment guy,” Henning said. “Under his guidance that business has done extremely well. I’m very high on him.”
“He comes from a long line of good management at Ameritas that goes back to George Cook, Neal Tyner, Harry Seward, and Larry,” Henning said.
The vision Arth brought to bear took advantage of laws allowing the formation of the mutual holding company, which created opportunity for the creation of more financial power, distribution and versatility — the mergers with Acacia, which brought along the highly regarded Calvert Mutual Funds, and Union Central Life.
Simply put, the mutual holding company allowed its insurance companies to maintain their identity, heritage and locations as they combined assets, resources and people to create more value for the policyholders, the owners, said Jacobs.
But then somebody has to manage things after getting them assembled.
Arth often did that by asking the right questions.
“He often knew the answer,” Martin said, “but he would ask you very direct questions to help educate you and get you there.
“You need to be extremely well prepared,” she said. “He will cut to the one question that is the essence of the decision. If he asks the question several times, you might not be on the right track.”
Arth’s analytical skills are a part of his reputation: he was, after all, a cryptologist in the Navy.
But colleagues are just as likely to credit his “gut instincts.”
Arth’s bond to those colleagues is his word, which is golden, they say.
“How we succeed is by building a team that trusts each other and makes the right decisions,” said Martin. “That’s how you really build a business.”
It’s not unique to have an analytical mind nor to be committed to ethical behavior, Jacobs said, but Arth has also been a seeker.
“He could look out ahead and imagine what could be,” Jacobs said. “It was a unique blend. There was a bit of dreamer in him, too.”
People tend to think of the insurance industry as conservative ballast, but, in fact, Arth used that vision, took risks and tried new things.
“Larry just had an ability, which is rare, to make people feel their job was keeping the company running and doing it well, and at the same time, to actually push for a huge amount of change,” Martin said. “This is nothing like the organization it was when he took over as president in 1988.”
Twenty years later, the result is obvious: From $1 billion in assets and 700 employees 20 years ago, to $18 billion in assets, 2,700 associates nationwide, 1,300 in Nebraska, 1,100 in Lincoln.
On its own, Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. is almost twice as large in assets, $6.4 billion, as Lincoln Benefit Life, the next biggest insurer domiciled here.
“We focused on ways to grow, and while you’re growing, you need to manage to the bottom line,” said Martin. “Larry always said, ‘You can’t cut expenses to prosperity.’”
Reach Richard Piersol at 473-7241 or at dpiersol@journalstar.com.