The head of one of the US's leading insurance colleges said it is preparing Bermudians for leadership - and is helping the Island grow its own chief executives of the future.

Ellen Thrower, President Emerita at the College of Insurance at St. John's University, who has been in Bermuda with a team of professionals from the school to promote the college, said that the level of commitment given by Bermuda businesses to their people was second to none in the world.

"We are preparing Bermudians for leadership," said Dr. Thrower. "We will have done our jobs well if when we retire in 15 to 20 years there are Bermudians that we have trained in the top rungs of the insurance industry."

The school, which moved from being a small private college to merging with the larger St. John's, has seen a decline in the number of Bermudians in its halls in the past two years, but hopes to boost numbers once again by the visit.

Last night the group announced new scholarship programmes for Bermudians worth $750,000 to attend the college - a move that will enable between three and six young people to attend the school for several years.

"Attendance has dipped a little over the last two years I think for a couple of reasons - first the merger and shortly following the merger was September 11 and we had a lot of difficulties.

"We had to evacuate for a semester and the campus was closed and it caused some difficulty for all students, not just Bermudians and it did have a downward impact on enrolment."

She also said that as a result of the merger with St.John's which has 18,000 students there were some transition issues.

"It had less than a positive impact on Bermudian students," she said. "We believe they are going to be stronger than ever now.

"It is a big reason for being here.

"We have seven people in school. We are here to recruit, to talk about new programmes and we are going to focus a lot more attention on the high schools because we can provide scholarships, personalised attention, internships and jobs.

"We think that was temporary, short term and there have been a lot of changes and we have really got the integration together now ." Dr. Thrower said that even with the dip, 55 Bermudians have graduated from the school in the past nine years and these were working their way up the corporate ladder.

Dr. Thrower is on the Island as part of a seven-strong team promoting the school and looking for support among the business community.

Dr. Thrower, who became president of the college in 1988 and June of 2001, when the College of Insurance merged with St. John's, became the director of the newly named school of risk management.

She said:"We come regularly to Bermuda, we have close partnerships with a number of companies here and we have been recruiting students here for more than 20 years.

"And we are here to thank not only the supporters who have been so generous to us over the years but also to thank our alums - we have a lot of alums here - for their continuing support and to tell them how proud we are of them.

"We are also here to welcome some new students who are coming to St. Johns in the fall and to see meet with their families."

Dr. Thrower said that the announcement of a new scholarship programme was the main reason for the visit.

"It is three quarters of a million dollars directed at Bermudian students," she said. "And we will be presenting the first four scholarships to students while we are here."

The presentations were due to be made last night at the School of Risk Management's Evening with Friends dinner at Coral Beach.

Partner Re is donating $600,000 as part of the Herbert Haag Scholarship Programme in conjunction with their tenth anniversary.

XL Capital has donated $50,000 and $90,000 from the Bernard Beauvais Jr Scholarship Fund, which is an existing fund from the school which is now being directed towards Bermudians.