How the Sausage is Made: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of NASBP Surety School!

Summer is winding down and our NASBP Fall Meetings will soon be upon us. As President, I have the privilege to teach ethics to the NASBP William J. Angell Surety School Contract Level II classes. I’ve taught Level II in the past, but this is my first opportunity to be an overall observer of the NASBP Surety School. For those of you who think you might be interested in Building Better, you might enjoy a glimpse into how the sausage is made! It’s an extraordinary operation by dedicated and talented people.

As you may be aware, the NASBP School was started in 1973 under the direction of Vince Como (NASBP Past President now deceased). Currently the School is presented twice a year, and the Winter Session of the NASBP School is typically held in Dallas or Houston in January. The location of the Summer Session of the School is held in different cities. Last year’s Summer School was in Reston, Virginia, and next year it’s in Cleveland, Ohio. The make-up of the classes is usually about a 50/50 split between NASBP producers and affiliates. This Summer’s Faculty consisted of 24 agents and underwriters from the NASBP Professional Development Committee and a bankruptcy attorney from our NASBP Attorney Advisory Council. The Professional Development Committee has designed and customized the curriculums over the years to fit each Session’s presenters’ experiences and current events.

Dedicated Faculty
The NASBP School faculty includes people like Jim Lareau, who has taught for 33 years. Maggie Weber, Ryan Williams, Corey Fayette, Micael Lischer, and Stephanie Greer audited the classes this summer to learn how to teach the curriculum and how classes are delivered. Auditors assist in teaching the topics until they’re comfortable doing it themselves. Most classes are taught by an agent/underwriter pair so that students receive both perspectives. Some instructors, like John Sheppard from CA Shea, teach one day on a specific topic. Others, like Michael Baxter and Nathan Wonder, Chair and Vice Chair of the Professional Development Committee, and some of the Level II Contract faculty teach the entire week. All of the faculty spend time brushing up on the class curriculum before they arrive at the School. They’re all juggling their day jobs and family responsibilities around the classes to teach their colleagues and competitors how to do their jobs well. Not all instructors teach at every School Session. However, it’s a rewarding experience that they support when they can.

Enrolled Students
This Summer Session’s enrollment was a slightly more on the affiliate side. The School recorded 136 students attending from across the U.S., Guam, Canada, and Ireland. Students’ surety industry tenure ranges from a month to 10 or more years. There are agents and underwriters who want to learn more about the nuances of our industry. Some are focused on their specialty of contract or commercial. Others attend to see the other side. For example, there are account managers looking to sharpen their skills to support their company and clients. There are reinsurers who want to take a deeper dive into surety underwriting. All of these students have a common goal of obtaining a better understanding of surety and furthering their career in the industry.

A Quality NASBP Educational Experience
The logistics of the School are coordinated and supported on-site by the incomparable team of Kat Shamapande and Bethany Jones. They both arrived in Denver on Saturday to set up and ensure everything runs smoothly. Each School Session has curve balls. Most are easy bumps in the road to address. For example, someone may get sick or enjoy their free time a little too much or something is lost and needs to be replaced. Sometimes a handout has a misprint and needs to be replaced in 30 minutes, so it is ready for use during the class.

Some issues are more challenging. This Summer, the presenter for the international module of the Commercial Level II class had a family emergency and could not attend. The connection was made that Andrew Grey, who was coming to teach the reinsurance module, is married to Leticia Roma Salgueiro, an agent who specializes in international surety. After a quick call and a much-appreciated approval from WTW for her to drop everything to join Andrew at the School, the crisis was averted! Leticia and Andrew, our first husband/wife faculty tag team, were able to review the lesson plan, add their experience for color, and present an excellent three hours on the joys and pitfalls of issuing a bond in another country. A similar issue arose when an airline cancelled another instructor’s flight the morning of the class she was going to teach. Nick Newton, who has taught both Commercial and Contract classes for ten years, was able to adjust his schedule and seamlessly step into that roll within 15 minutes notice! Kat, Bethany, and the faculty deal with these sudden issues like ducks—they look like they’re just gliding along, but under the surface they’re paddling like crazy. It’s a team effort where everyone supports each other to make the students’ experience the best it can possibly be.

Throughout the week, the faculty work together to review the lesson plans, update, and adjust them on the fly, as needed. For example, on Thursday night the presenters for the two sessions of Contract Level II met to assign roles for the final case study of the week on Friday. The case study reflects a true-to-life scenario that all surety professionals experience and one where there is a last-minute opportunity to write a bond for a high-profile prospect. The assignment ties together all the lessons the students learned from their week of classes. Students break up into teams and go through a tight, twisty tale that walks them through the approval (or not as the case may be) of a bond as the underwriter. They get a feeling of the pressure of a last-minute bond request and understand how to boil down the “nice to have” information and the “gotta have” information. What information falls into which category varies from team to team. Conditions of the approval or reasoning for the declination can vary wildly. It’s always interesting to see the “light bulbs turn on” as the students do the assignment using lessons they have been learning all week at the School.

Most Outstanding Pupils
As each class wraps up, the students vote by secret ballot for the Most Outstanding Pupil. The MOP is the individual who stood out for their contribution to the class and helped their peers learn the “gray areas” of surety. The prize is a football signifying they’re a team player. It is signed by all the participants, including faculty, in the class. Faculty doesn’t vote, but sometimes they have a good idea of who’s going to win. Other times it’s a horse race, but it’s rarely a surprise. See related article in this issue of Pipeline with photos of MOPs.

Each School Session has its own flow and character. The students and faculty network and mix during breaks and before and after classes, sharing meals or enjoying local attractions. These side interactions are where a lot of learning takes place and life-long connections are made. The best example of the quality of the students’ experience is one from this most recent Summer Session where about half of a previous Commercial Level I class coordinated with each other to come to Denver to attend the next level of classes at the School.

The NASBP Surety School is well regarded in our industry and classes sell out quickly. No other learning environment has producers and underwriters sharing a classroom experience where they gain an understanding of each other’s perspective through the underwriting process. The 2026 Winter School Session will be NASBP’s largest School Session to date with two classes each of Contract Level I and II and one each of the Commercial Level I and II. One of the largest barriers to expanding our offerings is building out the faculty to support the different classes. If you’re interested in giving back, have a desire to share your experience in surety with the next generation, and want to spend time with a great group of people, please reach out to Kat (kshampande@nasbp.org) to volunteer. It’s a truly exceptional experience.

A Heartfelt “Thank You” to NASBP Volunteers
Teaching at the NASBP Surety School is a team sport. Denver was Jim Lareau’s last School as he has retired from teaching at the NASBP Surety School. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his extraordinary dedication. The NASBP School faculty support each other to provide the best experience possible for the students. I couldn’t highlight them all, but I have listed them below. They all deserve our thanks and recognition for Building Better. Thank you!

NASBP Volunteer Denver School Faculty: 
Chris Alexander, Arch Insurance Group, Inc.
Robin Amstutz, Risk Strategies
Michael Baxter, LA Surety Solutions – A Division of Alliant Insurance Services
Robert Coon, Scott Insurance
Stefan Engelhardt, CAC Specialty
Corey Fayette, Cory, Tucker & Larrowe, Inc.
Stephanie Geer, UFG Insurance
Andrew Grey, Gallagher Re
Jim Lareau, NASBP Retired Surety Professional
Daniel Lewis, Allianz Trade
Micael Lischer, IMA, Inc.
Chris Lydick, IMA, Inc.
Chad Martin, TIS Insurance Services, Inc.
Dawn Nevill, Arch Insurance Group, Inc.
Nick Newton, AssuredPartners of Minnesota LLC, now a Gallagher company
Chris O’Hagan, OneDigital
Billy Painter, Alliant Insurance Services, Inc.
Alana Parrazzo, Jennings Haug Keleher McLeod
Leticia Roma Salgueiro, WTW
John Sheppard, C.A. Shea & Company, Inc.
Jason Vonhaz, Amerisure Surety
Rachel Walsh, Liberty Mutual Surety
Maggie Weber, Markel Surety
Ryan Williams, UFG Insurance
Nathan Wonder, CAC Specialty

Robert Coon is Vice President – Surety at Scott Insurance in Greensboro, NC. He can be reached at rcoon@scottins.com or 336.510.0072.