“We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young.” —Lt. Gen Harold G. Moore
We witnessed America the Beautiful from her shimmering seashores to her fruited plains and purple mountains majesty. Only, it was always torn up when we got there. We came to set things straight—to identify damage and indemnify the affected. We rolled into chaos and rode out storms.
We were kings…of the road.
This is the Mid-America Catastrophe Services story from my perspective.
You never know which meeting will change your life.
I first met Zack Meadows and Stacy Story in 2011 at a dinner party hosted by Keith Craft, the man who was fast becoming one of my best friends in the world and my truest ally and compatriot in the world of insurance claims adjusting.
The force of their personalities was evident from the first handshake. They were genuine, warm, and confident. Zack and Stacy were leaders in the industry and trusted storm managers. Their paths had taken them as high and as far as they could go while working for someone else.
My first appointment to a desk adjusting gig took me to a building chock-full of adjusters. We were sitting two—and sometimes three—to a cubicle. I had the good fortune of being placed in Keith’s cubicle and to have him for my team lead. His bombastic personality and keen sense of comic timing was immediately evident. He loved a good practical joke and pulled off a couple of doozies early on.
Later, I would be the subject of his greatest gag ever. He and Stacy teamed to get me good. (This is a story for another time.)
More than a big personality and a comic, Keith is as knowledgeable an adjuster as I have come across.
About three months into the deployment, after the herd was thinned down and I was able to move to my own cubicle across the aisle from Keith, I looked up to see the company owner and a small group of leaders, including the two men who managed the building we were in, making their way towards Keith. Each had a countenance of stone and a forward lean to his gait, men on a solemn mission.
I was petrified.
Turned out, there was no reason to be. A claim had become a problem and threatened to be a bigger one if not addressed soon and handled right. It was the source of no small debate among themselves as to the proper interpretation of the loss per the policy. The main man, the owner of one of the industry’s leading firms, laid some papers on Keith’s desk and asked his opinion on the matter. These men bypassed multiple layers of management to come to Keith. I knew right then that I had someone I could lean on when I had questions.
Lean, I have. On Keith. On Stacy. On Zack.
Oh, Canada!
If you gave me 100 tries, I could not have guessed the next stop on my journey.
Months after meeting Zack and Stacy, when business had slowed to a crawl and the building housed but a skeleton crew, Keith was busted from team lead back to adjuster. Other less competent people retained their management roles. That did not sit well with him, so he checked himself out and joined Zack, Stacy, and others in Canada. A massive hailstorm had hit Calgary. There weren’t enough qualified Canadian adjusters to handle the volume of claims. They needed American help.
Keith called and asked me, “You ready to get out of there?”
Then, he put the storm manager on the phone and that man said, “Get your passport. We have work for you.”
My path to the presidency of Adjust U—though I could not have known it at the time—had just begun, and my role in the industry was beginning to take its first turn in the direction of leadership.
The only thing I knew at the time was that, after a year and a half in Mobile, Alabama, I was ready for a change. Change was coming, and with it a grand adventure.
Zack and Stacy put together a team to work under the flag of another firm. It was their first firm step in the direction that would lead to ownership of their own company and the ensuing disruption of an industry.
I didn’t know it until later, but I was a part of that team.
(I like to remind them, now that they are my bosses and the only men I answer to in the company, that back in Canada, I was a team lead and they were on my team. Of course, they didn’t need a team lead, then or now. But still…)
Calgary was perhaps the most fun I ever had on a storm, and I have had some real adventures in cool places and on big storms. We bonded over chicken wings—maybe the only truly edible fare in that part of Canada—and big dreams.
I met Mark Glass, then, too. We became roommates and fellow team leads. We spent long hours every day working side-by-side.
Mark is now part of the executive team of our firm and pure gold as a human and a friend. There were others who became friends and came along on the journey and many of them are still working with us (not for us, with us) today.
We would work as a team in Toronto the following year and then worked Hurricane Sandy on Long Island.
Time to make your move, boys!
After Sandy, Zack and Stacy made a move to secure ownership of Mid-America Catastrophe Services. The company was founded in 1980 and headquartered in Iowa. Zack and Stacy struck a deal with the owner and moved headquarters to Mobile.
It was an exciting time, a new beginning. I was there from the jump, helping them set up their website, writing the verbiage for it, forging our identity.
I said, “We are a company of adjusters, for adjusters.”
That became our motto early on. It was true. We knew from the top down what it meant to be a claims adjuster, to serve the insured, and to provide excellent service to our clients.
The trouble was that we only had one client and very little business there. They couldn’t afford me and I could not afford not to be afforded. So, I wandered off and launched a new career in the burgeoning Single Family Rental industry.
While I was establishing myself as a leader in the company where I worked, Zack and Stacy and the handful of team members with them were cultivating that one client relationship and running the roads from conference to conference and from company to company, forging new relationships.
Mid-America: Reborn for Greatness.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey blasted the Texas coastline.
Keith called. He had me on speaker phone. He and Zack were urging me to rejoin them.
The trouble was I was in my corner office, looking through my window at a glistening AT&T Stadium. More than occupying prime real estate, I was situated for a meteoric rise. I was riding a good wave that had real promise. I didn’t commit to returning, though my heart strings were pulled.
Then, Hurricane Irma slammed into Florida. This was big, almost Katerina big.
They called again.
Zack said, “You are already one of us. Look at the website. We never took down your picture.”
Keith said, “We aren’t hanging up until you say ‘yes.’”
I said yes.
We were no longer a one-client company. The phones were ringing. Insurance carriers needed reinforcements. Their resources were overwhelmed. We said yes to every opportunity and figured out on the fly how to meet the mounting obligations. We were adjusters. Adjusters adjust on the fly to changing circumstances and demands.
The landscape of independent adjusting firms shifted. Mid-America was not just on the map, we were re-drawing it.
How do you do, Adjust U?
The rapid influx of work highlighted the need for standardized, quality training “the Mid-America way.”
In 2019, I suggested we establish a school to train new adjusters coming into the industry, to teach them and support them in their journey, the way others had invested in us.
Zack and Stacy said, “Do it.”
“What are we gonna call it?” Asked Zack.
“Adjust U. That’s what we do; we adjust you so you can adjust claims,” was my answer.
Today, Mid-America services more than 70 clients and works claims in all 50 states. We have a roster of thousands of adjusters—men and women like us, riders on the storm, soldiers, servants, brothers and sisters in the cause.
We have trained thousands of adjusters, launched successful careers, supported those already in the industry, and established ourselves as the only five-star Google reviewed adjusting school in America.
We serve with empathy and urgency.
We are building bridges, not burning them.
What sets us apart?
I asked Zack and Stacy via text recently, “What is the one thing we do better than anyone else.”
Zack said, “I think we are great at all of it. The one thing we constantly hear is that we provide the best support to the adjuster.”
…by adjusters, for adjusters…
We were soldiers once, and young. We know what it means to sacrifice, to drive hundreds of miles just to charge into the teeth of the storm. We know how to live out of a suitcase, sleep in a vehicle, work 16-hour days, seven days per week.
We are Mid-America.
We are America herself— built on grit, determination, sacrifice, and commitment to a cause greater than ourselves. We are built on hard facts and warm handshakes. We have each other’s back and we don’t back down in the face of adversity. We rise to the occasion and on the occasion when the occasion gets the better of us, we dust ourselves off and rise again., bloodied but unbowed.
You can trust us.
