The Life Management Institute’s annual Insurance Education Award, presented at the LOMA Annual Conference, honors an individual’s outstanding contributions to insurance education in general and the FLMI Program in particular. Dr. Edmond H. Curcuru presided over the restructuring of the FLMI Program 20 years ago.

Forty years ago, as a trainer for veteran’s counselors, Dr. Edmond H. Curcuru was exposed to two concepts that changed his life. The first was the idea of life insurance. As Curcuru told the 1987 LOMA Annual Conference Audience: "I thought there was no greater concept than life insurance. I was truly a missionary." The second was the realization the "if you want to learn something well, teach it!"

Curcuru has been preaching and teaching the good word on insurance ever since. His noteworthy accomplishments in insurance education, while serving as director of education and training with LOMA, inspired his selection as the sixth recipient of the Life Management Institute’s highest honor, the Insurance Education Award. The Insurance Education Award plaque was presented to Curcuru by the chairman of the Life Management Institute Council, D. Ian Fraser, FLMI, executive vice president and secretary, Canada Life, at LOMA’s Annual Conference in Montreal.

When Curcuru joined the LOMA staff as director of education and training in 1961, his mission was to rejuvenate the FLMI Program and develop an advanced management program for senior officers in the industry. His first step was to create the Life Management Institute Council, which served as a board of trustees for the FLMI Program. Working with these top executives, he totally revised the program.

At that time, the FLMI Program consisted of 13 examinations, and enrollments were disappointing. Curcuru’s revitalization strategy included reducing the number of examinations required to eight. He likened this procedure to "driving a Mack truck through the revered halls of a refined and distinguished parliament or legislature. It was a large mass to move; noisy, lots of fuming, fussing, smoke, and slow going. But when the dust settled, the foundation of the current fellowship program was born."

Curcuru was also responsible for developing LOMA’s Executive Development Program with the assistance of Lynn Merritt (now LOMA’s president), whom Curcuru hired in 1962. The program celebrated its 25^th anniversary this year. Curcuru characterized Merritt’s rise within LOMA as "meteoric" and said: "It has been a real pleasure working with him and watching as both LOMA and he has grown over the years."

A graduate of the United States Military Academy, Curcuru received his master’s and doctor’s degrees from Columbia University. The development of management educational programs has been Curcuru’s specialty throughout the years. In 1965, he developed and administered the Master of Business Administration Program at the University of Connecticut, Stamford. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Management at the Graduate School, University of Connecticut. His writings include cases published in The Process of Management, Prentice Hall, Strategy, Policy and Central Management, South-Western Publishing Company, and Cases for Administrative Action, Prentice Hall.

Curcuru commented that when Frank Rowland founded LOMA in 1924, it was "only 13 years after the well-known Frederick Taylor had developed scientific management. Management was now the name of the game." He told the Annual Conference audience that while securing a job with the insurance industry used to be synonymous with job security, "today, having and doing a job are not good enough. The pressures from without and within are moving us and demand the best." According to Curcuru, those determined to be successful within the insurance industry should:

1. Learn the fundamental and technical requirements of the job and the function of the industry;
2. Learn how to manage, if that is your goal;
3. Keep abreast and ahead of the industry; and
4. Share your ideas with others.

A good manager, Curcuru continued, must "recognize that there are two sets of goals that must be accomplished. These can be identified by asking two questions: what are you doing for your customers and your company and what are you doing for your people?

Curcuru complimented the "unsung" heros of the FLMI Program, those Life Management Institute council, committee, and staff members who have labored behind the scenes to make the program the success that it is today. He also acknowledged the contributions of previous LMI Insurance Education Award winners, such as Karl Kreder, who influenced Curcuru early in his career, Janice Greider, Bill Beadles, and Dean Carlson.

But Curcuru reserved his highest praise for those who have earned the FLMI designation: "I would like to congratulate you on your resolve to begin and complete the program. It has required long hours, stamina, persistence, and a personal commitment on your part. You have been responsible persons. You completed something you began. You carried out your commitment."