Young Agent Scholarship Winner: ‘I Had Pie-in-the-Sky Aspirations’

Many young agents set their sights on a career in insurance because it’s been a family profession for generations. But Emily Koleno chose to study insurance out of curiosity.

When it was time to choose a major at Washington State, the recipient of this year’s Maurice Herndon Scholarship to attend the Big “I” Legislative Conference “selected finance because it was something I knew very little about,” Koleno says, reflecting on mornings she spent reading the stock report section of the newspaper, perplexed. “It made no sense to me.”

Within the finance major, Koleno chose insurance as an emphasis. “I didn’t know fellow finance majors who were focusing on insurance,” she recalls. “I thought that was one way to take a different path. And it too was something I didn’t know anything about.”

Koleno grew up with hopes to move from her small town of Selah, Washington to a big city. To her, insurance held that promise: “I had pie-in-the-sky aspirations to make a big difference and work in a cool, fast-paced office. I thought, ‘Even though I’m not good at math, I’m going to work hard and figure it out.’ And I did.”

In addition to becoming operations manager at Associated Insurance Services in Boise, Idaho, Koleno served as chair of the community engagement team of Boise Young Professionals in 2015, leading 14 volunteer and three civic events that donated more than 800 volunteer hours to the community. She is also actively committed to Idaho Young Agents, which includes planning an annual junior golf tournament and attending board meetings and conventions.

“I was raised in a family that really valued community service,” says Koleno, whose high school’s motto, ‘Enter to learn. Leave to serve,’ also helped instill altruism as one of her core ideals. “That was a very deeply seeded value of mine.”

Insurance turned out to be the perfect outlet for that passion. “The beautiful thing about my job now is it enables me to use that value. It promotes my agency and it helps me personally because I feel like my job is fulfilling when I’m making a difference,” Koleno explains. “We can really make a difference in people’s lives by making sure a business can come back after a big loss, for example. Insurance is really personal to the business owner or the individual.”

Presented each year to one young agent who is a first-time attendee to the Big “I” Legislative Conference, the Maurice Herndon Scholarship allows the recipient to attend the conference free of charge. Its namesake refers to the former head of the 1949 Big “I” Washington, D.C. office, who built the association’s government affairs and grassroots operations.

Koleno’s visit to Washington, D.C. for the Big “I” Legislative Conference will be her first time in the nation’s capital. True to form, she’s looking forward to learning about topics with which she’s unfamiliar, like health insurance. “It’s a hot topic for all small business owners that I work with, and it’s a hot topic within our office for those who do personal health insurance,” she says.

Long term, Koleno hopes to add a CRM and MBA to her current CIC credentials, and even aspires to lead her current agency. “We’re an up-and-comer in Idaho,” she says. “We’re only 11 years old, and we’ve grown by huge leaps. I’d like to see us become one of the biggest in the state, and I’d like to help lead that charge.”

She’s also looking forward to more engagement with the Big “I.” “It’s important to invest in our industry and support our colleagues,” Koleno says. “All of us supporting each other will help raise the professionalism and good work that we can all do collectively.”

Jordan Reabold is IA assistant editor.