Bio of Jeff G.
email: jeff@insuranceonly.com

I am originally from the industrial town of Rockford, Illinois.  Rockford, then, was a factory town providing much of the die-and-tool services for much of the Midwest.  The factories also made locks, hinges, generators and all kinds of other stuff.  When I was 15, my family moved to suburban Denver and my life changed.  In Rockford, I was starting to hang around with a bit of a rough crowd and if I had stayed I probably would have ended up in the factory with everyone else.   

It was my first day at Bear Creek High School and the English teacher (and future mentor) asked how many students had attended which junior high schools (middle schools today).  Remarkably, every one of the 30 or so kids in the class was transplanted!  Everyone was new!  She said: “ Do you know what a fantastic opportunity you have?  You have no past!  You can be anyone you want to be!” 

I took her to heart.  I shucked my “bad boy” inclinations and started hanging around with a more academic circle of friends.  I hit the books and went from a “C” student to an “A” student.  I avoided the factory and went to Colorado State University, only the third one of all my 18 cousins to do so.  I was graduated with a degree in journalism in 1977 on the four-year plan. 

I waddled off to southern Colorado to work on the newspaper in Trinidad.  Boy, I could tell you stories…  I decided the newspaper business, at least in Trinidad, was not my cup.  After a year, I moved north to Evergreen, Colorado, worked construction and sent resumes.  Three months later, I was offered a job as a secretary at J. Walter Thompson in San Francisco.  My title was “Coordinator,” but what would you call a person whose job was answering the phones and typing letters? 

Thus began my advertising career.  Between 1978 and 1992 (14 years) I made intercity moves nine times for major advertising agencies:  San Francisco twice; Detroit twice; LA twice; Chicago; Portland and Philadelphia.  In that time, I worked with a number of Fortune 500 advertisers.  But by that time, I’d had enough:  Enough of the uncertainty, enough of the office politics and enough of all the moving.  I’d just find the dry cleaner and the post office and I’d be off again!  

I decided to move back home, and have lived in Evergreen for the past 12 years. 

Before joining InsuranceOnly, I worked as a free-lancer in the cable television industry.  Then I tried my hand at my own business and promptly lost every nickel I had.  I cut my teeth in direct-response life insurance business for four years at Life Quotes, an industry leader. 

I am now blessed to work with an organization that has vision, has an unique niche in the life insurance business and, most of all, an organization which views participants as family members and partners. 

A couple reasons I returned to Evergreen… It’s a small mountain town that (at the time) only had two stoplights (now there are seven!)…  And because Evergreen has several fertile community-theater organizations.  Since playing rock and roll in college, I always wanted to do theater but was never in one place long enough to get established…  Now, my moment of truth had come.  Over the last years, I performed in three musical comedies and one very dramatic Neil Simon part, as well as four concerts.  I’m currently inactive, but still looking for roles of interest. 

I live at the end of a one-lane dirt road.  I can’t see a man-made light from my house and the loudest noise I hear is the babbling of the creek at the bottom of the hill.  Quite a difference from Los Angeles…

- Jeff G.