Tony Mercurio grew up in Northeast Ohio and counts among his accomplishments playing on the offensive line — center and guard — for the University of Mount Union’s first NCAA championship football team in 1993.
The Lorain native graduated two years later from Mount Union in Alliance with a double major in business administration and economics. He recalls starting his first full-time job at Westfield Insurance driving a small Ford Festiva and wearing a $99 business suit.
The now 40-year-old has stayed in the insurance industry since then, along the way getting an M.B.A. from Cleveland State University. And he’s buying better clothes these days.
Mercurio is now among the senior executives at niche insurer National Interstate in Richfield. As of Jan. 1, he was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer while also serving as chief executive officer of National Interstate subsidiary Vanliner Insurance. National Interstate specializes in transportation-related insurance.
Mercurio’s first job with National Interstate came in 1996. The company then was basically a privately held startup operation.
“I got the feeling that a young person there would not be held back if they contributed right away,” Mercurio said. “I took a job on the sales side that largely was commission paid.”
Mercurio believes he became the 58th employee at National Interstate. At the end of 2012, the company, now publicly traded, had about 550 employees.
“Our revenues have grown as well,” Mercurio said. National Interstate ended 2012 with $573.5 million in gross premiums written.
Over the years, Mercurio took on different jobs and assumed greater responsibilities within the growing insurer.
“I had the opportunity to head up the marketing operations,” he said. “I transitioned away from sales.”
He was also tasked with repairing a struggling subsidiary in Atlanta, Ga. He and his wife moved to the South.
“It was a great experience,” Mercurio said. “I saw it as a watershed opportunity in my career. It went well. If it hadn’t, I would have needed to update my resume.”
He and the company started up an alternative insurance products division that does unique things compared to other insurers in terms of structure and relationships with brokers, Mercurio said. It is one of the fastest growing parts of National Interstate, he said.
When National Interstate went public in 2005, “it really put us on the map from not being a little insurance company any more,” Mercurio said.
And he continued to be promoted and assume greater responsibilities along the way. He and his family, which now includes two children, are in the process of relocating back to Northeast Ohio from St. Louis, where Mercurio was heading National Interstate’s Vanliner subsidiary that it bought in 2009.
Running Vanliner was great training for a chief operating officer, Mercurio said. In his new position, he is involved in more strategic thinking than tactical.
“What I’m trying to do is build out the company for the future,” Mercurio said. That includes identifying areas to grow and people to hire, he said. He’s now looking at plans for the company going into 2015 and beyond, he said.
He thinks National Interstate is one of the best places for people to work in Northeast Ohio with a strategically placed campus in Richfield.
“We’re growing,” he said. “We may not be a household name. We’re not a generalist. We’re a well performing company that prefers to hire our own. We recruit on local campuses, the Kent States, the Akrons, the Mount Unions, the John Carrolls.”
Mercurio said he is learning all the time.
“It’s OK to run scared,” he said. “It keeps you sharp as there’s just no room for complacency.”
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.