[029] Musto Tennessee Insurance Hall of Fame to Induct Brooks July 30

Release date: July 27, 2010


News & Public Affairs contact: Randy Weiler,615-898-5616
or jweiler@mtsu.edu

Musto Tennessee Insurance Hall of Fame to Induct Brooks July 30


(MURFREESBORO) — Dan Brooks, a longtime member of the insurance profession, will be inducted into the Robert E. Musto Tennessee Insurance Hall of Fame Friday, July 30, in Murfreesboro.
The induction ceremony festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Conference Center, 1200 Conference Center Dr., adjacent to Interstate 24 and Medical Center Parkway, in Murfreesboro.
Brooks, who graduated from Marion County High School in Jasper and now lives in Rutledge, spent his entire career – 35 years of dedicated and loyal service – with State Farm. He retired in 2009. Twenty-seven of those years were spent in Tennessee, and covered all regions of the state.
“There is no way for us to know all the times that Dan has gone out of his way to help and counsel agents in the beginning of their career,” said Dr. Ken Hollman, chairholder of the Martin Chair of Insurance at MTSU. “None of us know exactly how many people are in the business today as a result of his support and guidance. What we do know is that in the states where he worked there have been a large number of agents who survived the early years, or a crisis in the later years, as a result of his concern and involvement with them at critical times.
“Conversations with employees and agents at State Farm and friends and associates in his church and community about Dan resonate with the word honest. They describe him as a fair, hard-working, reasonable, straight-forward and gentle man, but one who can be firm as a rock when need be.”
Brooks earned his B.S. degree from Austin Peay State University, where he played football and was an education and health major. He took master’s-level classes at MTSU, and attended leadership classes at the Darden School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia from 1996 until ’98. He became a Life Insurance and Market Research Association Leadership Institute Fellow in 2002.
Brooks’ career with State Farm began on July 1, 1975, when he opened an agency in Dunlap, Tenn., as a scratch (no existing policies) agent. Because of his outstanding sales skills, hard work and diligence, he soon became a leading producer in his agency district.
In October 1979, he was promoted to agency manager in Knoxville. He is one of the rare State Farm agency managers who started with no agents under his leadership. He recruited and trained 18 agents, 14 of whom remain active today. Two of them, Phil and Doug Nichols, are award-winning agents who rank among the best in the state and nation.
Brooks was promoted to agency director in Memphis in June 1991, providing leadership to 10 West Tennessee agency managers, and then was promoted to executive assistant in State Farm’s corporate headquarters in Monroe, La., in March 1995. He was named agency vice president in ’96, overseeing more than 300 agents in northern Louisiana and Arkansas.
When State Farm reorganized from a region to a zone structure in 2002, Brooks returned to Tennessee, where he led more than 400 agents. He was the leading vice president of agency in the Mid-America Zone (Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee) in 2008 and was in the top-10 companywide in Life Production and Life Travelers.
Brooks was a longtime member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisers and past board member of the Knoxville chapter. He has been a member of the General Agency Manager Association since the early 1980s, and served with distinction on the Martin Chair of Insurance Liaison Committee from 2002 until his retirement in 2009. He also served as a Tennessee Chamber of Commerce board member from 2006-09.
The Rutledge resident has an impressive array of civic, cultural and educational contributions and activities, including the Lions and Rotary clubs, and a strong supporter of APSU and MTSU. Before launching his insurance career, he was a highly successful football coach in Whitwell, Tenn.
Dan and Freda Brooks have been married 44 years. They have three children and four grandchildren.
Daughter Kristi Brooks-Erdman works as a claims automation and procedures specialist for State Farm. She and husband Lee are parents of Tyler, 10, and Ella, 6, Erdman. Son Daniel Brooks Jr. and wife Amber live in Knoxville and are parents of Trey, 14, and Lindsey, 12. Youngest daughter Ashley is a University of Tennessee senior.
The Brooks’ have been regular church members wherever they have lived. He has served in leadership positions, on boards, financial committees and been a choir member.
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Editor’s note: A high-resolution, black-and-white photo of Dan Brooks is available. Please contact Randy Weiler in the Office of News & Public Affairs by calling 615-898-5616 or e-mail jweiler@mtsu.edu.

With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.

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