DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997                TAG: 9703290582

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Interview

                                            LENGTH:  120 lines

Q&A JACK WOLCOTT SENIOR VP AND GENERAL MANAGER OF USAA'S MID-ATLANTIC REGION

Jack Wolcott got the word in May 1989, shortly after USAA had decided to open a a regional headquarters in Norfolk.

The San Antonio-based insurance company wanted the facility up and running by January 1990.

For Wolcott, that meant building an office, persuading some veteran USAA employees to relocate from other cities and hiring additional employees in Norfolk. It proved to be the biggest challenge of his nine-year career with USAA.

``In my previous jobs, I had always taken over a smoothly running organization from someone else,'' said Wolcott, senior vice president and general manager of USAA's mid-Atlantic region. ``To build one from scratch was overwhelming.''

Organized in 1922 to provide auto insurance to Army officers, USAA has evolved into a provider of several financial services to military officers, retired officers and members of their families. In addition to selling insurance, USAA has banking services and its own group of mutual funds. The organization has 3 million members, including 44,000 in Hampton Roads.

Most of the 815 employees at USAA's regional office in Norfolk handle inquires and insurance claims from members in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Delaware.

Wolcott, an Air Force Academy graduate and retired Air Force colonel, is leaving the company Monday on a medical retirement for a chronic back ailment. He spoke last week with staff writer Tom Shean about his work and about USAA's expansion.

Why are you retiring?

I'm 57 years old and would like to have stayed until I'm 65. This is the best job a person could have, but I'm going to retire on Monday and look for a miracle cure for my back. If I can do that in six months, the company will take me back in the San Antonio office. If that doesn't work, I intend to get involved with troubled nonprofit organizations, trying to turn them around. I'm not going to hibernate.

What prompted you to go to work for USAA?

I had been a USAA member since 1960, just before I graduated from the Air Force Academy, so I was familiar with its service. I had been running an aviation department of an oil company in Midland, Texas, when I sent a resume to USAA. I went down to the San Antonio headquarters for a day of interviews and the employees there were upbeat and talking that morning. They were still happy and talking that evening, after working on the phone for 10 hours. I thought, ``This would be a great place to work.''

How did you develop an interest in nonprofit groups?

When I arrived here in 1990, I was asked to join 50 or 60 boards. I joined one organization that turned out to have financial difficulties. I was on the board for one meeting when they passed the hat for contributions to make the payroll. We were in serious trouble. I brought in a consultant and paid him for a week to look around and make some recommendations. We needed a number of changes, including changes to the board. Now we're financially healthy and strongly in the black.

Why did USAA choose Norfolk for its mid-Atlantic regional headquarters?

One factor was the area's large military population. Another was a location where city leaders got along with military leaders. We didn't want to come into a situation where they were throwing rocks at each other. The quality of life here - the climate, the beaches, the arts - also was a factor. The biggest factor was the quality of the work force. A consultant's study indicated that there were a lot of college graduates but not that many jobs for them.

What was the toughest part of putting everything in place for a regional headquarters?

When we opened on Jan. 15, 1990, we started with 150 people. Seventy-five had been hire locally and 75 who had come from USAA offices in Reston, Va., and San Antonio. My major challenge was to instill USAA's culture and demonstrate how dedicated we are to serving our members.

Did USAA have any misgivings about locating in Norfolk?

Absolutely not. The quality of the work force we were able to attract was even higher than we anticipated and the work ethic was stronger than we expected.

What kind of training do you provide employees in the Norfolk office?

We train them hard for eight weeks using role simulators on the other end of the phone. We spend an additional week training them for their insurance licenses. That's nine weeks of training before they ever talk to a USAA customer. When they do talk to customers, we monitor their calls and talk to them afterward about the quality of handling the call.

You're a retired military officer and the chief executives of USAA have been retired officers. How much of a military structure does USAA have?

The myth is that USAA is chock full of retired officers, but only 20 percent of our executive management group is retired military. The 10 people who report to me are civilians who are experts in their particular fields. I would say that we're not structured like the military. We're a Fortune 500 company and structured like one.

USAA provides several employee benefits not commonly available from other employers, such as a four-day work week, a child-development center and a fitness center. How can USAA afford the cost of these benefits in a highly competitive business like insurance?

These allow you to attract and keep a higher quality employee, which provides you with greater efficiency. It reduces your turnover among employees, which can be very expensive. We have the lowest attrition rate of employees among insurance companies.

What's the most serious problem that the Norfolk office has encountered?

The first real test came last summer when we had two hurricanes, Bertha and Fran, strike the North Carolina coast back to back. We had response teams in place before the hurricanes hit, and in each case, we wrote our first check within hours of the storm passing overhead. We had people working 12 hours a day, seven days a week for months.

For decades, USAA has provided insurance only to military officers, retired officers and their families. When will it offer membership to enlisted personnel?

We will do it in a very controlled fashion. We're only taking active duty personnel to begin with. USAA has six regions, and each has begun with one state. So far, we've taken one state, Delaware. It's a good test for us because it's small. We'll take another state this summer, and next year we'll take two or three more. Our goal is to be the insurer of all the military.

Will this expansion affect the insurance of military officers who already belong to USAA?

The officers will be insured in one company and enlisted in another. We will underwrite them the same way. We already insure enlisted personnel who are sons and daughters of members, and they've done very well. KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY INSURANCE

INTERVIEW

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu