"It seems like yesterday and I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've been involved in."

So says Glenn Titterton as he reflects on his 43-year career in Bermuda's local insurance industry. When he steps down as CEO of the BF&M Insurance Group to retire the end of this month he can look back on a list of achievements that give him a lot of satisfaction.

He leaves an organisation that, among other things, grew as a stand-alone, successful entity despite high-profile and contentious liquidation proceedings at a sister company, has recently been rated 'A' by US rating agency A.M. Best, and was the first local insurer to launch an online facility for insurance quotes and transactions.

"We were also the first Bermudian company to be an Investor in People, which is something we're very proud of," says Mr. Titterton, 60. "It's been driven by our staff and we have great people; management and staff made a real commitment to the programme."

The organisation has grown considerably of course since he joined aged 17 after graduating "with a good clutch of 'O' levels" from Saltus Grammar School in December 1961. "I had worked at Bermuda Fire and Marine the previous summer but I really hadn't formed any idea about a starting a career in insurance," says Mr. Titterton.

"But I needed a job and fortunately they offered me one so I accepted. After a couple of years I felt that I should probably get more education, in business training as well as insurance. Again fortunately for me, the company offered to contribute towards my higher education as long as I returned to work there.

By then I'd developed a liking for the industry so I had no trouble accepting those terms."

He soon left for business school in England, attending the former London School of Foreign Trade and the Chartered Insurance Institute and things went well, up to a point.

"Until I sat three exams for the ACII (Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute) and failed all three!" says Mr. Titterton. "I'd like to say it was because I sat the exams at Alexandra Palace and I was so awe-struck by the surroundings I was distracted but that's not the excuse. I simply hadn't prepared enough and I didn't think the exams would be hard. It was a good lesson, made me realise what I really needed to do to get through."

And it was a lesson he took to heart, eventually not only earning his ACII designation with flying colours (and being one of the first few Bermudians at the time to do so) but also becoming a Chartered Insurer. He rose through the ranks steadily through a series of positions in different parts of the company. By 1985 he was manager, domestic operations, he was then appointed a senior vice president in 1990 and the following year he became president and CEO of the BF&M Insurance Group which encompasses BF&M Limited and its subsidiaries. On the personal front and in parallel with his professional accomplishments, after they were married in July 1968 he and his wife Susan raised two children, Deborah and Gregory.

Mr. Titterton has witnessed many changes in the company as well as the industry overall during the course of his career and he has also been instrumental in making some of them happen.

"We've gone from the huge and expensive mechanical calculators that were just being introduced when I joined, to the digital age where we're all carrying communications devices on our belts," he says. "And one of the biggest changes is the fact that 43 years ago almost all the merchants in Hamilton had some form of insurance agency. They got them originally to cover the goods they were going to sell but then that branched out to houses and so on," he says. "Most of those agencies are gone now; in fact we took over quite a lot of them. What we have now in the domestic market are four solid companies in a highly competitive marketplace that we can all be proud of.

"Another important change is the creation of the Bermuda Insurance Institute (BII) to help develop a pool of Bermudians with the requisite qualifications to participate in the industry," he adds. As a former president of the BII, and its predecessor the Bermuda Insurance Diploma Institute, Mr. Titterton helped drive this major initiative to develop home-grown, qualified talent to meet industry needs.

"So (for example) when captives took off we had Bermudians who were qualified or getting qualified and able to take advantage of the opportunities that were springing up in the industry," he says.

"There are still a lot of opportunities and our transition in terms of people (considering the industry) has been amazing; now the BII and BFIS (Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies) can't keep up with the demand."

He adds that the development of Bermuda's international business sector has also been among the most significant changes for the jurisdiction.

"The development in international business over the past 20 years in particular has become so important to our economy," he says.

"But I think many Bermudians still don't really see that properly, they don't really understand that our economy is totally dependent on international business.

"And people sometimes forget that the sector benefits local businesses considerably across a range of services and suppliers, including the local insurance companies."

His experience has spanned both the local and international business sectors through active involvement in a variety of representative and trade organisations, via leadership and executive positions or memberships.

He is still a member of the Insurance Advisory Committee and has served as chairman or as a member on bodies such as the Bermuda International Business Association, the Insurance Executive Council and the Bermuda Independent Underwriters Association.

In terms of milestones during his career, he cites the demise of Bermuda Fire and Marine Insurance, and dealing with the controversy surrounding the situation, as a major event and a considerable challenge. "That was clearly a most challenging period; when I was asked to be CEO I thought about it for a long time because the situation had already begun and I knew there were a lot of difficulties associated with it," Mr. Titterton says. "The company was basically writing international business that it didn't understand and out of all proportion to its size.

"It relied too heavily on other parties overseas without having enough checks and balances.

"I could have walked away and gone to an international company.

"But I like a challenge and I like to win - that has always motivated me."

When he became CEO his hands were full with the fallout from the case immediately.

"When I came into the picture in 1991 (the company) was already in run-off, it then went into liquidation because the reinsurers it had contracts with stopped paying claims," he says.

"I took the job and on the one hand had to deal with the liquidation and its related bad publicity and on the other had to run, with the help of good management and staff, a local operation. The challenge was not to let the adverse publicity to destroy the local company."

After a high-profile court case that went on for over seven months and "an almost daily battering on the front page of The Royal Gazette" the matter was settled out of court in December 1999.

While the legal wrangling went on Mr. Titterton says he learned another lesson that enabled him and his team to manage the fallout in a way that would protect the local company's customer base.

"I cut short a business trip to come back here after getting an urgent call about the first rush of bad publicity," he says.

"I walked into our building literally carrying my suitcase and saw long lines of customers filling the reception area.

"I thought they might all be there to move their business elsewhere.

"But in fact they were just conducting normal transactions, renewals and so on. I really saw then what we had to do, which was to focus on our customers, answer their questions honestly and provide excellent service.

"We went through a real battering but in the end we kept our customer base and developed a very strong customer culture. It was a good lesson for all of us."

He adds that the publicity surrounding the case was obviously not helpful from a jurisdictional perspective: "It clearly wasn't what anyone who was promoting the jurisdiction wanted. But in my discussions with people in the industry at the time there was a tremendous level of understanding - in the professional, not sympathetic sense - about the issues in such a situation. The basic feeling was that Bermuda needed to sit tight and get through this period, because there were other similar issues and cases happening at the time. It wasn't good for Bermuda but in the end both our company and the jurisdiction survived."

He says that in the past four years he and his management team have been able to move the company forward productively: "In 2000 we began having fun because instead of having our time consumed by things that weren't in our job description we were really focused on developing our business."

He is clearly pleased with the results and happily looks back on what has been a very successful career.

"A successful career doesn't necessarily have everything to do with climbing the hierarchy, but having one interesting project after another," he says. "What kept me at BF&M for so long was that every time I thought of leaving I got involved in something really interesting."

And his advice to those coming up through the workforce today?

"People generally, and Bermudians in particular, need to be a little more patient," he says. "People coming back from university with qualifications expect things to happen more quickly than they sometimes can.

"You also need to be agile and flexible. Businesses are changing so rapidly, the people who are not going to succeed are the ones who are too narrowly focused. And keep up with technology; one of the biggest problems is that we're used to talking about 'haves' and 'have nots' in financial terms. I'm concerned that we have those groups in terms of technology. If people don't have those skills and aren't computer literate they won't be able to take up jobs that ultimately help them to bridge that financial gap."

He is now more than ready to enter what he calls "a lifestyle change".

"I'm not going into retirement - the thought of going off to grow roses doesn't sit well with me at all!" he says.

"I shall be keeping busy with board directorships at other companies, including Butterfield Bank, and I'll still be doing a fair amount of community service activities, mainly through Rotary.

" But my wife has plans for lots more travel and I'm going to work on my golf game too as that has been sacrificed over the past few years. I'll be spending more time with my family of course, including our four grandchildren, so there'll be some time for fun and I'm looking forward to it.

"And I've agreed to serve as chairman of the company; anything more I can do for the company I'm delighted to do.

"It's a non-executive position though, so the first thing I have to do is get out of here and let the new executive team run the business!"