Three longtime insurance professionals will be the latest inductees into the Robert E. Musto Tennessee Insurance Hall of Fame at Middle Tennessee State University.

The inductees into the 2019 class are Julie Mix McPeak of Nashville, Mary Frances Miller of Nashville and William “Dick” Williams of Crossville.

Dr. Dave Wood

An induction ceremony will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Conference Center in Murfreesboro.

“We are proud to induct these three exemplary individuals this year,” said Dave Wood, holder of the Tommy T. Martin Chair of Insurance in MTSU’s Jones College of Business. “We are especially glad to add an actuary and a regulator to the Insurance Hall of Fame, reflecting the broad spectrum of opportunities this industry encompasses.”

With this year’s class, the Insurance Hall of Fame will have inducted 71 members since its inception.

Julie McPeak

• McPeak, former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, joined the Nashville location of the global law firm Greenberg Traurig earlier this year, focusing on insurance law and insurance regulation issues. McPeak has more than 25 years of legal and administrative experience in state government and was the first woman to serve as chief insurance regulator in more than one state, having also served as the executive director of the Kentucky Office of Insurance. In 2018, she served as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and has served on the NAIC’s Executive Committee since 2013 in a variety of leadership roles.

Mary Frances Miller

• Miller is a founder and senior consulting actuary at Select Actuarial Services in Nashville. She has been an active contributor to the actuarial profession since achieving her fellowship in the Casualty Actuarial Society in 1988. Among accomplishments in her 30-year career, she has served as president of both the Casualty Actuarial Society and the American Academy of Actuaries and served on the Board of Directors of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries. She currently serves on the board of the Tennessee Captive Insurance Association. Her international work includes a six-year term as chair of the International Actuarial Association’s Education Committee and volunteer service with Actuaries Without Borders.

Dick Williams

• Williams has been president/CEO of The Plateau Group Inc. in Crossville and its two insurance subsidiaries, Plateau Insurance Co. and Plateau Casualty Insurance Co., since 1990. Before that, he was executive vice president/marketing for these companies and was one of the founders at the company’s inception in 1981. His entire business career has been in banking or insurance. He has served on Tennessee’s governor-appointed Credit Life Advisory Committee since its inception in 1990 and currently serves as chairman of that committee. He has been a director of Consumer Credit Insurance Association, a national industry association, since 1991, having served three terms as chairman, including consecutive terms from 1999-2001.

This year’s induction ceremony is open to the general public, with a $40 per person donation to the Insurance Hall of Fame, MTSU Foundation. For more information, please email Sarah Glass, executive aide, at sarah.glass@mtsu.edu.

About the Insurance Hall of Fame

The Robert E. Musto Tennessee Insurance Hall of Fame, created on the MTSU campus in 1999, honors entrepreneurs who created insurance companies and the agents and company employees who have made a difference in their companies and their communities, significantly affected the lives of many people and advanced the role of insurance in society.

The Hall of Fame is named for the late Robert E. Musto, longtime vice president of the National Life and Accident Insurance Company. All of the inductees are listed here: http://www.mtsu.edu/martinchair/inductees.php

MTSU offers a degree in Risk Management & Insurance through the Department of Economics and Finance within the Jones College.

— Jimmy Hart (Jimmy.Hart@mtsu.edu)