Meeting Information

Kent E. Anthony has been President of First Group Insurance of Sterling, Kansas since 1981. He began his insurance career in 1977 as an agent with Kansas Farm Bureau Insurance. Kent has a degree in Business Administration from Northwestern Oklahoma State University and has been a CIC since 1985. Kent is also a Certified Financial Planner licensee, as well as having the Chartered Mutual Fund Counselor and the Registered Financial Consultant designations.

In 1985 under Kent's management, First Group Insurance was honored by Allied Life for being their company's top life insurance producing property and casualty agency for the year. In 1992 the Kansas PIA awarded First Group Insurance their "Agency of the Year" award for a class two size agency. Kent was also named the Kansas "Agent of Merit" award winner for 2005 by the Kansas Insurance Associations 1752 club. In 2011 Kent was awarded the Kansas Outstanding Agent of the Year award by the Kansas Association of Independent Agents.

Kent has served on the board of directors for the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents and chaired their Technical Affairs committee as well as their Education committee. He also is a past board member for the Associate Board of Professional Review for The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

Currently, Kent has been appointed by the Kansas Insurance Commissioner to serve on the Kansas Automobile Assigned Claims Board of Governors and the Kansas Automobile Insurance Plan Board of Governors. Kent recently completed serving for 6 years as a board member and chair for three years on the National Technical Affairs Committee for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America.

Professionally, Kent has also been a contributing expert in magazine articles for Mutual Fund Magazine, The Journal for Financial Planning, Financial Planning Magazine, and Bloomberg Wealth Manager dealing with commercial insurance, annuities, and mutual fund topics.

In addition to being on the National Faculty teaching CIC and CISR courses, Kent also teaches the Best Practices E&O class and does expert witness work.

Bobby Shomo is President of Shomo-Madsen Insurance which is headquartered in central Iowa. Shomo-Madsen Insurance is a Best Practices Agency recipient for six years running and represents approximately 16 Insurance Companies with an agency mix of roughly 45% Personal Lines, 25% Commercial Lines, 20% Municipalities and 10% Life and Health. The agency has five locations and 25 employees with their main office in Marshalltown, Iowa. They continue to pursue growth through both acquisition and organic growth and are scheduled to close their next agency purchase on October 30th, 2020. Bobby is involved in the agency on a full-time basis as a managing partner, a producer specializing in schools and municipalities and the Human Resources manager. Prior to purchasing his first agency, Bobby spent six years on the company side primarily in casualty claims with rotations in underwriting and loss control. His MBA was earned with concentrations in Finance and Accounting and he received his CIC designation in 2012.

Bobby has a passion for education as both a teacher and a student. His background brings a perspective from both the company and agency sides. In addition, his agency experience has developed from a relatively small, single owner shop with three employees and a handful of contracts to his current structure with a 50/50 partner, multiple locations and staff of twenty-five. Additionally, Shomo-Madsen Insurance has had to deal with three catastrophic weather-related events in 25 months. An EF-3 tornado in July of 2018 that hit main street; a major hail storm in May of 2019 and a Derecho (106 mph straight-line winds) in August of 2020. Bobby is currently working toward his CRM designation.