Meet our members
1999 was a banner year for Larry when one of his son’s, his wife, and he, got their pilots licenses.
It was twenty five years earlier when Larry began taking lessons in Indiana from a neighbor who was a flight instructor. Just before Larry soloed, his neighbor sold his plane.
Larry spent a year and a half teaching high school biology. He was also the assistant wrestling coach. At one of the meets, an old friend was refereeing. He got reacquainted with him. He was the District Manager with State Farm and got Larry hooked up with State Farm. He found he was more interested in the commercial side of insurance which State Farm really didn’t have. After four and a half years he left and went to work for Meridian Mutual Insurance out of Indianapolis.
He eventually bought into a small insurance agency but when Connie became pregnant with Aaron she decided she wanted to quit her job as a Special Education teacher and be a stay at home mom. He knew he needed to make more money than the small agency could afford him so he went to work for Hawkeye Insurance Company where is was promoted to Regional Sales Manager.
He worked his way up eventually becoming the Assistant Vice President. He then got into Team Training which was big in the 80’s. He did that for several years becoming the V. P. of Human Resources in charge of training.
During that time the company merged several times. One of those mergers put him in Boston at the time of 9 – 11.
Even though he made it through seven separate mergers during his time in the land of insurance companies, he eventually got cut.
He went back to teaching as a substitute when a friend called him and told him there was a job in Fort Collins at Community First National Bank, now Bank of the West.
It didn’t take long for them to find out about the FNL Pilots Association where they instantly became members. It was at one of the monthly meetings that Larry volunteered to be on the Board where he has served for two years.
Although both he and Connie are currently not flying, they are looking to get back into it and participate in the pancake breakfasts and the $100.00 hamburgers soon.
