Extraordinary Volunteer

Super Membership Recruiter Still Pushing Hard After 25 Years

Tom Palmeri may have recruited and renewed more members for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) than anyone else – living or dead.

He’s been at it for 25 years – since joining NAIFA at age 22 when he first started selling life insurance. Over the years, he has led efforts that won five national membership growth championships (Platinum Awards) for Long Island affiliates of the state association.

During the mid 90s, while Palmeri was membership chair and later its youngest president, what was then the Suffolk Association Life Underwriters not only led the entire nation in membership growth for three years, but won two “5-star” tributes as the best of more than 500 other locals in all areas of association management. For all this, Palmeri was among those who received the Association’s highest tribute, the Rudolph Steggemann Award.

Palmeri later moved up to the New York State Association board where he was quickly tapped to spearhead member recruiting state-wide. After eight years of in that capacity, he was elected state president in 2003. Subsequently, he’s been membership chair for either the state, or Long Island, or both – as he is this year. He is pushing hard, as he always does, to reach his goal in the waning weeks of the 2009-10 campaign, which ends June 30.

Why does Tom Palmeri keep doing the one job in association management that nobody wants? What is it that turns him on to membership?

“At my very first NAIFA meeting -- I was 22 and just out of college – the speaker talked about buy-sell agreements,” he said. “That night, I went out and wrote a buy-sell agreement for a father-and-son business. And that was just the beginning. This association has helped me make a living . . and got me involved with first class people -- the top people in the business. They taught me that my first job was to help people. They inspired me to do membership.”

He then rattled off a list of names that sounded like a Hall of Fame of Suffolk County and Long Island life insurance professionals.

“I can say without equivocation that if it were not for the friends I made through NAIFA, I would not have lasted in this industry. They helped me both in business and to become a better person overall,” he said.

Turning to the current political environment, Palmeri described why a large NAIFA membership is critical to fighting for the Association’s “advisor/consumer” agenda in Washington and the state capitols.

“If you make your living in an industry, you need to help protect that industry.” he said. “If life insurance agents don’t survive, neither will the industry.”

Besides his membership responsibilities, Palmeri is co-chair in New York State for NAIFA’s Leadership In Life Institute (LILI) program, which is based on The Seven Habits Of Effective People. It trains the Association’s future leaders and will graduate 35 students this year.

Even with all this, Palmeri maintains a thriving business practice. Since 2007, he has been associated with the Forest Hills Financial Group (a Guardian Life Agency) and has qualified for the Guardian Leaders Conference as well as the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT).

Palmeri speaks of “taking a breather” from volunteer leadership after 25 years, saying: “There are plenty of quality people out there who, if they understood the issues we’re dealing with, would come forward and want to serve.”

But in the next breath he says

“I have no problem helping my successors, for I’m a membership person. I know what it takes to run a membership campaign. You have to get 20 to 25 dedicated people to help you.”

Then he tells how he looks forward to helping his friend, Herman Werner, who will be the NAIFA-NYS president in 2011-12.
Werner is delighted.

“When you look at what Tom Palmeri has done for this association, all you can say is WOW, “ Werner told FA. “You have to be grateful for that kind of dedication.”

FA