Agency Profile: Independent Spirit Soaring

The Partners Group

Bellevue, Washington
Founded: 1980
Employees: 104

After merging with like-minded strategic partner The Baldwin Resource Group, local agency The Partners Group went a step further in 2011 when it became a founding agency in Collaboration Centric Solutions (C2Solutions), a national independent aggregator cooperative of six large firms—all among the top 100 brokers in America.

According to agency president and CEO Rod Cruickshank, 52, the firms’ collective volume is now equivalent to that of the fifth-largest U.S. independent agency.

Mike Gano, 61, managing partner of the commercial division, notes the firm’s three major divisions: employee benefits; private client services, including personal lines, all life products and wealth management; and commercial risk management.

MIKE GANO, MANAGING PARTNER, COMMERCIAL DIVISION

“Our affiliation with the other C2Solutions firms gives us access to other technologies, resources and expertise, allowing us to excel in the space with national brokers. Our clients value the regional relationship, not just technically, but because we’re involved in their communities. So it’s a very relationship-oriented, responsive structure complemented by the expertise you find in large broker firms.”

ROD CRUICKSHANK, PRESIDENT & CEO

“We needed to get bigger and have more strategic distribution. Each of our partner firms is capable of innovating, operating and winning on its own, without relying on a larger organization. When we come together, the potential is unparalleled. There’s no other design like it with that amount of independent power.”