See the future

An important ingredient was missing when CBIZ Inc. insurance executives held two marathon dinner meetings earlier this year with longtime Sarasota insurance executive Keith Mercier and his two top colleagues. No one talked about insurance.

The CBIZ officials, including Mike Callaway, president of the insurance unit, were wooing Mercier, his brother Matthew Mercier and their business partner, Patrick Wright, to leave Clearwater-based Bouchard Insurance. The Mercier-led team had built the Sarasota office of Bouchard into a $6 million book of business over a decade, essentially going from worst to first among Bouchard satellite offices. The core of the business was commercial insurance for a variety of industries, from construction to hospitality.

One dinner, at Capital Grille at the Mall at University Town Center in north Sarasota, lasted five hours. Another dinner, at Crab & Fin on St. Armands Circle, was nearly as long. “All we talked about was philosophy and culture and families,” says Keith Mercier. “We didn't talk about insurance.”