Episode 26: Meet URMIA’s Two Newest Board Members

Newly elected URMIA board members Keesha Trim, director of risk management & insurance at the University of Richmond, and Tim Wiseman, chief risk officer at the University of Wyoming, share their very different paths into higher education risk management. They also discuss how they hope to contribute as board members to URMIA’s mission of supporting members to meet today’s demands and preparing for future challenges in higher education risk management.

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Transcript

Jenny: Greetings, everyone! Welcome to URMIAmatters. This is Jenny Whitington, URMIAs executive director, and I am here again with our latest podcast with two of our new board members. They were recently elected in our recent election, so congratulations to both Tim Wiseman from University of Wyoming and Keesha Trim from University of Richmond. They’re my guests today and first I’d like to throw it out to Tim to please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about how the history of Tim Wiseman, how you got into higher education risk management, and then more specifically how you got involved with URMIA. 

Tim: Hello, I’m pleased to be a part of this. My name is Tim Wiseman and I’m the Chief Risk Officer at the University of Wyoming. I’ve been here a little less than a year. Prior to that I was the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Enterprise Risk Management at East Carolina University back on the east coast in Greenville, North Carolina. I’ve made quite a move geographically and changed my climate and everything for positiveness. I’m enjoying it out here, different set of risks, and a little different culture. That’s been exciting. Prior to … I was in the military for a little over 25 years, took an army ROTC scholarship at the University of Arkansas and stayed in. I was going to stay in the minimum requirement for my scholarship but I really enjoyed the environment and I was working in actually finance corp officer, a very small branch in the army and worked in a somewhat business background and I got some great assignments which were challenging, and interesting locations, so I started moving around and stayed in, woke up about 25 years later and said, “what am I going to do for the rest of my life?” and I retired as a Colonel in 2009 and said you know what, I’ve been a risk manager for the greater part of military operations planning and training and various things that go on, that sounds like a pretty good bridge to go over into this career field of risk management. So I did some training and I took some courses and took some of my background with managerial and merge that into a contemporary thought on enterprise risk management. I was very interested in that new branch and then I joined the staff at East Carolina University as a program developer and implementer for enterprise risk management, spent 10 years there and then as I said I just recently relocated into Chief Risk Officer here in Wyoming, so that’s my story in a nutshell.

Jenny: That’s terrific. Tim, did you have a cowboy hat before you moved to Wyoming?

Tim: I did not, but I had an Indiana Jones sort of a hat and it was interesting, but I did break down and buy an actual summer color and lightweight rodeo or cowboy hat and I actually wore it to a rodeo in Cheyenne recently so I put it to use. One thing I did not mention is how I got involved, interested in URMIA. In the context of learning about the trade of risk management higher education, I was sort of looking for mentors early on and also some resources and quickly found myself gravitating towards URMIA and then our institution of course had a membership, joined in and really plugged into peers, networking and all the great references there, which aided me in steadying my foundational work, working in the enterprise risk management and also reaching out and having folks I could call, so that was a tremendous step for me and plugging into URMIA even in the earlier years of my higher ed… at the time.

Jenny: I didn’t look at your record before the podcast, but do you remember which was your first URMIA annual conference? 

Tim: I can't remember…. I can remember Phoenix, Arizona and a couple others back in… I think there was one before then, so I jumped right into former military fashion and got involved in creating some content for sessions either independently or on panels, mostly related to enterprise risk management program development, but I leveraged that URMIA membership, for everything it was worth and I enjoyed contributing as well, so 

Jenny: Great.

Tim: Several conferences, which include one or two regional pieces and I think a podcast or two in there along the way. 

Jenny: Yeah, for sure. It’s great to have you on the Board, so welcome. So, Keesha, you’re up next. I’ve known you for a long time as well. I’m not actually sure who I met first, Keesha or Tim, but I’ve known Keesha through at least two institutions yourself, so tell us the history of Keesha, how you got involved in higher education risk and URMIA.

Keesha: Ok, thank you Jenny. Glad to be here with you this morning, and I am the Director of Risk Management for the University of Richmond. I’ve been here for, going on six years now and before that I was at the University of North Texas where I was the Assistant Director of Insurance and Claims, and I got into higher ed risk management by accident and what I mean by that is I was a student at the University of North Texas, and like many students I needed a student job, or a student employment to have extra income and so it was the summertime and it was Texas, so I did not want an outdoor parking attendant job, so I was looking for an in the office job that I could find and I found one in the risk management office, and I did not know what risk management was, I just knew that I knew how to type and file and answer phones and so forth. I started working in risk management and I worked for the risk manager and the workers’ comp benefits coordinator, and so I just grew more and more in the field and I got more interested in it and probably about a year or so after I started working, my boss came to me and asked if I had ever thought about a career in risk management, and at the time I told him no I’m going to be a middle school math teacher, that’s my goal, that’s what I’m here for, I cannot change my major. And he kept pressing and I had a natural knack for it, for the insurance side and the risk management side, and so eventually he said I will get you trained, and so I was very fortunate to have him supporting me and willing to send me through the training, so I became a certified risk manager, a certified insurance counsellor, and eventually was offered that full time job at North Texas. So, started at middle school math teacher and ended up here, but it’s been a great journey.

Jenny: That’s terrific. I actually think there’s a theme of math within URMIA members. It’s a very informal study I’ve done, but I actually think there’s a fair amount of our members who are really good at math and they were drawn towards insurance because you have to be pretty good at math. You do claims and such. That’s a really nice story and I think, you know, that’s a great reminder for all of our members who do employ students, that they have a lot of influence on students and they can really help direct. I know here at Indiana University where URMIAs headquarters is, a similar story to the head of the risk management here, she started as a student and now she’s a head of the department herself, so I love that. Keesha, so you remember what your first URMIA conference was?

Keesha: Yes, it was 2008 Washington DC.

Jenny: Ahhhh, that was a good one.

Keesha: Yes it was. 

Jenny: Yeah, the hotel without the lobby. 

Keesha: Yes that is true. I remember walking around the construction.

Jenny: That was quite a story we were telling. It was memorable, for sure. It was a great conference. Ok, so we’re here today really to talk about the two of you and your vision for your term on the board, so your board service actually hasn’t started yet, but you will take the oath of office at the end of the last day of our virtual conference, I believe it’s September 29th. So your board term will start then, and I know you each had prepared kind of a candidate statement that the membership reviewed when they were making their vote, so I’d love to just talk about some of the goals you have, like personal goals for what you might accomplish during this board term, so Tim I’ll head to you first. What are your personal goals for your term on the board? 

Tim: I think, I really buy into the idea that we’re all lifelong or should be lifelong learners, so regardless of… I love hearing Keesha’s story too, and we’ve come to risk management from a lot of different origins, and so I think next to Keesha, myself too, I had to reverse engineer back to conventional risk management by getting my ARM and adding enterprise risk management. Adding the ERM emphasis in that to come with a whole collection of tools and an understanding, but everybody’s got a different story, so I think one of my goals to bring my perspective, which is a little different from everyone else, and to add to that to include some strategic management ideas from my senior military leadership experience and see if I can merge that in to the board collective. I really am interested in the uncertainty aspect of the.. That we find ourselves in. One of the reasons I wanted to get on the board and to continue what I think has been a great vision for URMIA to support its membership is to look over that next hill and figure out what does the environment and the landscape for risk management particularly in  higher education, but also in geneal, look like to the best degree we can predict or do some imaginative thinking about it so that we could backward plan from that vision, that idea and make sure that our educational pathways, our tools, considerations for the technical aspects of our members work, but also some things that might be emerging that require a little preparation so that we have our members arrive at the point to make the most impact rather than have a lag time of things changing rapidly and we’re trying to play catch-up. I think that’s probably the biggest thing I want to take to this board time is looking with a little more perspective out and in front and trying to work backwards on that to make sure that we are positioning our members at that time whether that be 5, 10, 15 years down the line to have the right skills, the confidence to meet those challenges as best as we can predict them. I think that’s our main emphasis and then my personal goals are not only to contribute, but also to learn a little bit more about this fine association and think about the different needs and the demographics of our membership. Everything from diversity and inclusion, but also just the varying degrees of everything from pure claims work, and the bread and butter insurance work to do things like enterprise risk management, strategic risk management and you know how we can cross level and get a general understanding to everyone regardless of what they’re working in at the moment.

Jenny: Wow, I think that is a great, very thoughtful answer and these times are so interesting and so challenging and I think those are great goals for us as an organization to try to get ahead and predict what our members will need and it’s never been, in my 15 years at URMIA, we’ve never been in this situation before. Your military experience and just your leadership will really help us get there, Tim. I think that sounds really awesome, look forward to being a part of that with you. So, Keesha, let’s talk about you. Why did you want to run for the board, and what are your goals? 

Keesha: I’ve been involved with URMIA since 2008, I’ve been active in participating at conferences, volunteering also with doing the session earlier this year online, the webinar. So this was just the next step for me. I, too, wanted to learn more about the inner workings of URMIA. I’ve been on the outside and seen the results in things that the board does for the general membership, but now I wanted to see the inner workings, and that was one of my personal goals and one of the reasons I wanted to run for the board, and then also just to give back to the organization because it’s been such a great tool and I’ve gotten so much from it, from not only the risk management side, but also from the friendships and the connections at other institutions throughout the years, and so I just wanted to give back to the organization as well. I also feel we are in a, like Tim said, these unprecedented times, and what’s coming and just looking at how quickly we were even able to shift from an in person conference to this awesome virtual conference that is going on this month. It just shows that the transitions we have to make as an organization at a moment’s notice and so, where are headed from here. We know where we’ve been, but where are we going and just to be a part of that and to lend my voice and my experience to it to help drive us and get us there, that’s my personal goal.

Jenny: Yeah, that’s excellent. So I know you guys each have worked for different institutions, and I think that’s really important for the board as well. I mean it’s part of the design of the governance structure. We have new board members every three years or six years and it’s really great to have a deeper demographic of different schools, privates, publics, religious, because I think our membership is getting larger everyday. We actually have more individual members today than we ever have, which I think is phenomenal during this crisis that’s going on among higher education, that it just goes to show you that our membership is valuable, and that people really need the things that we are offering. So, I love to hear your goals and it’s been great, you know, having you participate, Keesha, in all these years, I know you help support the regional conferences over the years and I believe you’re a constant URMIAcares volunteer. Have you done URMIAcares a few times? 

Keesha: Yes, I have done URMIAcares a few times, but the thing I like doing the most is working the registration desk. Every conference I have to do the registration desk. I enjoy it. 

Jenny: Do you just enjoy talking to everybody and greeting them? 

Keesha: Yes, talking, seeing everyone, you get to meet them as they come up and greet them. You also get to learn about the back, the things in the background. Once again you get to see how the magic is made. So I do work at the front desk.

Jenny: We will welcome you back with open arms when we are in person again, and Tim, I know you’ve done a lot of things for URMIA over the years. Let’s talk a little about the prima ERM experience, because you’ve been a part of that faculty from when it kicked off. Will you speak to that for the members? I don’t know if we’ve ever really spoken about that on the podcast. 

Tim: Sure. The Public Risk Management association, or PRIMA, really has a focus on public sector risk management, and there was a clear synergy there between URMIAs goals, particularly given a pretty large percentage of URMIA members at institutions that are public, so you have kind of a natural overlap, not 100% but I guess it’s been, Jenny, maybe 7, 8 years back or somewhere there about … was launched to create a workshop and a corresponding curriculum that would help prepare public sector, public entity risk managers and risk managers in higher education to better understand enterprise risk management in particular, and some other emerging best practices because it was really picking up some steam in a lot of conversation time in institutions in our case. We’re looking for what’s the path to leveraging an ERM program initiative to produce value. URMIA and PRIMA got together and they just decided to bring some expertise in. I was a part of the earlier faculty team there, of that effort as the higher education risk manager and we put together modules and we began refining those for both an introductory workshop as well as a more advanced, multiple day course. It’s had some changes over time, but when you go out, take the show on the road and offer those workshops in different regions at cities at host hotels and we have public sector risk managers .. in higher education. That has been great, the material was developed using the ISO 31000 standard. Some great things about that is although we talked about other things like those standards.. To enlighten risk managers about where they could go to, some credible foundational pieces that we help them tailor their approach to ERM, and it was hands on. The case study kind of works. So that was a great thing for me, I was able to contribute to that effort, still am a .. faculty team. They’ve had to take a little pause because of COVID19, but they’ll hopefully restart those workshops next calendar year as we see how this emerges. So, again, another opportunity, great partnership there, and that material is phenomenal for those who have been able to take advantage of those workshops.

Jenny: Yeah, and why don’t we talk a tiny bit about the higher education round table. I know we just had that successful precon event having to do with the conference, but will you speak to the round table a little bit? 

Tim: I sure will. One of the great, I think we’ve really matured a lot in URMIA 

Jenny: Definitely. 

Tim: The community groups and the networks that we have, I call them kind of affinity groups, but with the core of a certain interest, in the case that you’re talking about, Jenny, the ERM roundtable started off with kind of a limited membership and following, and has really grown in terms of participation, and that started with just a periodic, monthly, or every couple months, telephone conference call by some that were interested in just sharing best practices and doing that and then URMIA took over the hosting of that, brought it in the fold ad really stepped it up in terms of the technology support so that now it’s a forum that not only has the listserv ability  to post issues separately related to ERM and share best practices with … periodic conference calls with invited guest speakers and sometimes speakers from internal, within the group. Again, tremendously valuable experience and I recently just came off a co host that has worked with URMIA staff to make sure that those conference calls in particular, but also share our benefit of membership, so that’s been a really enjoyable, especially rewardable for me but also I just love the interaction and the sharing of ideas.

Jenny: Yeah, and if anybody’s interested in the ERM roundtable, we do have an application that you can get through the events calendar. All those meetings are scheduled, they’re scheduled on our events calendar and you can find the application there. It just asks you a few questions, you have to be a member of URMIA, obviously, to participate in them but they’re a great, great resource and thanks to Tim for co-leading that effort, it’s been a great experience. So, do you guys have any closing thoughts for today? Any thoughts about the virtual conference, Keesha, that you want to share? 

Keesha: Oh, yes. I’m enjoying the virtual conference. As I stated earlier, I think it was put together very well and getting that box in the mail was the highlight of my day. The box with all the goodies, so that was a very nice and the sessions have been so informative and even though we are all are scattered everywhere across the country and the world attending, you still feel a sense of community through the networking sessions and the roundtable sessions so it’s been a great experience despite us doing it from our offices at our homes.

Jenny: Yeah, thanks Keesha, and how about you, TIm? Have any closing comments today? 

Tim: I think Keesha summed it up quite well. The cookie, the extra cookie that came separately, that was like a “holy smokes” that chaser, unexpected. It was great, but it was really therapeutic, I mean, to have that something you could touch even though we’ve been isolated  and you had that stuff in there. I thought… I’m using my coffee mug right here. Great effort to try to, as closely as we could, mirror the usual connections that’s so important to our annual conferences.

Keesha: Yes 

Jenny: Thank you so much to you both for being my guests today on URMIAmatters, and that’s going to be a wrap.