ROOTS, RESILIENCE, AND RELATIONSHIPS: MEET KAIA ' s NEW PRESIDENT, DAVE VOGEL
A CAREER BUILT ON RELATIONSHIPS, RESILIENCE, AND A DEEP LOVE FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHANNEL by Valerie Gardner, KAIA
If you had told Dave Vogel back in 1993— fresh out of Fort Hays State University with a master ' s degree in business, selling newspaper ads for the High Plains Journal— that he ' d one day be President of the Kansas Association of Independent Agents, he might have gotten a good laugh out of it. But that ' s exactly where a winding, experience-rich career path has led him, and KAIA members couldn ' t be in better hands. Dave grew up just east of Dodge City in the small community of Wright, Kansas, on a family farm. There wasn ' t much room for him to stay on that farm – a fact that turned out to be a gift in disguise. " Farming was never going to be in the cards for me," he jokes, " but I always figured I ' d end up in agribusiness one way or the other." That instinct proved prophetic.
A SALES CAREER IN PRINT— AND THEN INSURANCE
After earning his degree, Dave spent roughly eight years in the publishing world— first selling advertising for the High Plains Journal, then moving to Feist Publications, an independent phone directory company where he sold Yellow Pages. " People used to read newspapers and use phone books," he chuckles. It was good, foundational sales training, even if both industries have since changed dramatically.
In 2002, Dave made the leap into insurance, joining Federated Insurance as a Marketing Representative in Wichita. The timing was, to put it mildly,
4 KANSAS INSURANCE AGENT & BROKER