Eric O'Neill, Luncheon Speaker

Eric O’Neill is a practicing attorney who specializes in counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations, investigations into economic espionage, internal investigations and security risk assessment consulting. Mr. O’Neill served as an operative for the F.B.I., where he conducted national security field operations against terrorists and foreign intelligence agents. His role in the investigation and capture of the most notorious spy in United States history, Robert Phillip Hanssen, became the subject of Universal Studio’s movie Breach, released to critical acclaim in 2007.

Mr. O’Neill has broad legal experience in the areas of homeland security, border protection, risk and liability mitigation for anti-terrorism technologies, national security and related matters and federal investigations of United States citizens and foreign nationals.  Mr. O’Neill has provided counsel and litigation services on a broad range of legal and investigative matters, including due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, procurement fraud, internal investigations of companies and employee corruption cases. Mr. O’Neill is an accomplished motivational and public speaker who lectures internationally about numerous topics including security issues, legal compliance, spying and Hollywood.

Louise C. "BeBe" Canter, CPCU, ARM.

Louise has over thirty-five years of experience in the insurance industry, specializing in Commercial Property & Casualty. She has been with USI, formerly Patterson/Smith Associates, for twenty-nine years. During that time, she has developed a large commercial book of accounts primarily in the areas of property management, non-profit trade associations, high tech firms, and social service agencies. Her expertise includes Directors  & Officers, Errors & Omissions, and Cyber Liability policies, as well as professional liability policies for complex accounts.

Louise served in 2003-04 as national President of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America. This culminated over 25 years of work within the association, on a local, state, and national level. She has chaired the Southern Agents Conference, the Southern Agents International Conference in Athens, Greece, and served as President and State National Director of the Metropolitan Washington Association of Independent Insurance Agents. She has been awarded the Metropolitan Washington’s Agent of the Year Award and received a Presidential Citation from the Insurance Agents & Brokers of America.

Louise has completed her Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter and Associate in Risk Management degrees. In addition, she has served on the board of the Washington chapter of CPCU.

Louise graduated from Fordham University with a B.A. in History. She is a life-long resident of Bethesda, Maryland.

JOSEPH S. CLABBY, President, ACE USA Regional Operations ACE USA

Joseph S. Clabby was appointed President, ACE USA Regional Operations, in October 2008. In this role he is responsible for driving distribution strategies on a national and regional basis as well as expanding ACE USA’s product and marketing presence at the local level. In addition, his responsibilities include day-to-day leadership of ACE USA’s regional executive management team.

With more than 20 years of experience in banking, brokerage and insurance underwriting, Mr. Clabby most recently served as President, ACE USA West, a position he held since January 2006.  Based in San Francisco, Mr. Clabby led ACE USA’s Western operations, and oversaw the regional operations and executive leadership in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas and Houston.  Mr. Clabby also previously served as Executive Vice President, Regional Operations, where he had responsibility for ACE USA’s field operations, which entailed driving distribution strategies with brokers on a national and regional basis as well as expanding ACE USA’s product and marketing approach at the local level.  He also had responsibility for day-to-day leadership of ACE USA’s regional executive management team.

Mr. Clabby also previously held the position of Senior Vice President, ACE Financial Solutions, responsible for leading the Structured Risk team.  In this role, he successfully managed new business production, drove the exploration of new product innovations, managed client service plans and collaborated with other ACE USA divisions to develop joint business opportunities.

Mr. Clabby, who joined ACE in 2001, holds a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University, a master’s degree from Montclair State University and an MBA from Pace University.

Douglas W. Pera

National Partner- Atlantic Region

Willis North America

Doug has been in the insurance industry since 1980.  He started in Memphis with a regional agency and then continued his career with Sedgwick and Marsh in Memphis until 2006.  During this time, he held various roles, including:

• Production
• Middle Market Practice Leader
• South Region Industry Practice Leader
• Client Executive Practice Leader

In 2006, he joined Aon and took responsibility for their Carolinas operations in the role of Resident Managing Director.  He was responsible for all growth and P&L management for North and South Carolina operations.

Doug joined Willis in April of 2009 as a National Partner responsible for the Atlantic Region.  His region includes Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Philadelphia.  

Doug graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1980 with a B.A. in Finance.

Lorna M. Parsons

Lorna Parsons is President and Chief Underwriting Officer of Victor O. Schinnerer & Company, Inc., one of the largest Underwriting Managers in the U.S.    She has worked in the insurance industry for over 30 years as both a broker and an underwriter.  She holds a B.A. in Architecture from Stanford University.  Lorna has been quoted in ENR, Business Insurance, Agent & Broker and many other industry publications.

Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart is the Director of Research and Development for the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI).  She is responsible for PERI’s E-Training that offers educational courses for nonprofit, governmental, and small business organizations and the Data Exchange Program, a web based data warehouse created to offer performance measurement and benchmarking tools for public entities.

 Prior to joining PERI Ms. Stewart was the Wrap-Up Manager for Aon Risk Services in Washington, DC and a Client Relationship Manager for Aon’s Government & Institutions Sector providing insurance products and services to non-profit and public sector clients.  She was a licensed Property & Casualty Insurance Broker in Virginia, Maryland, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.   Her past experience includes 25 years of successful management of three different public entity risk management programs located in the Commonwealth of Virginia; two of which were created from scratch under her direction.   She has been recognized nationally as an expert in public sector risk management.  Ms. Stewart was on Business Insurance’s Risk Manager of the Year, Honor Roll in 1991, received an Award of Merit, from ITT Hartford Insurance in 1996, and PRIMA’s Risk Manager of the Year in 2001. 

Ms. Stewart has a Master of Safety Science Management from the University of Southern California and a General Certification in Law Enforcement from the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Academy.  She holds three designations from the Insurance Institute of America: a Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters (CPCU), Associate in Risk Management, (ARM), and Risk Management for Public Entities (P).

Philip Rager, AIC.

Phillip M. Rager is the Senior Technical Training Specialist for the Harleysville Insurance, Flood Department located in Harleysville, Pennsylvania.  Phil teaches flood insurance to agents, producers and adjusters across the Untied States. He is certified as an Instructor in almost all of the required states.  He received his AIC designation in 2001 and his Flood Adjuster certification in 2005 and is currently working on his CPCU designation. 

He has 9 years experience in Flood Insurance and a total of 18 years in the Personal and Commercial lines.  Phil works hard making sure that the Harleysville agents and producers are aware of the many changes in the National Flood Insurance Program. 

Catherine Paladino Vice President, Chubb & Son Employment Practices Liability Product Manager Chubb Specialty Insurance

Cathy Padalino is vice president, Chubb & Son, and worldwide employment practices liability product manager for Chubb Specialty Insurance (CSI). In that role she is responsible for the CSI underwriting and marketing strategy, participating in research and development, and coordinating CSI’s loss prevention activities for employment practices liability (EPL) products.

Cathy has been a speaker on a number of industry panels including PLUS and RIMS, and frequently discusses employment coverage issues and loss prevention methods.

Cathy joined Chubb in 1988 in Chubb’s Midtown (New York) Branch. At Chubb, she has served as the Department of Financial Institutions’ EPL and fiduciary liability product manager, assistant venture capital product manager, team leader in the Midtown (New York City) Branch, and regional manager in Washington, D.C.  

Cathy is a graduate of William Smith College (New York).

Deanna M. Beacham, Esq.

Deanna is an Assistant Vice President and manages employment practices liability claims for Chubb’s Mid-Atlantic Zone.  She manages complex, high exposure, class and mass action employment claims, government initiated actions, and single plaintiff claims brought by highly-compensated executives.  Prior to joining Chubb in 1999, Deanna was in private practice in New Jersey where her practice focused on the defense of management in employment-related matters.  She began her legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Garrett E. Brown, Jr., United States District Judge, for the District of New Jersey.  Deanna graduated cum laude from Seton Hall Law School, where she served as an Articles Editor on the Seton Hall Law Review.  She has been a member of the Bar of the State of New Jersey since 1990.  

Stanley L. Lipshultz, J.D., CPCU

Stanley began his career in insurance as a claims adjuster and liability supervisor for the Insurance Company of North America (INA) in their Washington, D.C. service office from 1968 through 1970.  He was an insurance defense counsel from 1971 until 1998 with the law firm of Lipshultz and Hone, located in Silver Spring, MD, and remains “Of Counsel” to the firm.  He joined Interisk Limited of Newport Beach California in 1999 as an independent consultant and provides services in insurance litigation management and consulting, serves as an expert witness in disputes involving agents and brokers errors and omissions, claims handling, bad faith and insurance coverage issues.  Mr. Lipshultz also serves as a mediator and arbitrator in insurance related matters.  In 1989 he received the CPCU designation awarded by the American Institute for Property and Liability Underwriters.  He served on the CPCU Consulting, Litigation and Expert Witness Section (CLEWS) governing committee since its inception in 1993, has been the editor of the CLEWS newsletter, and its chairman. He was elected to a three-year term to the CPCU Society’s Board of Governors, and as a third year Governor was a member of the Society’s Executive and Audit Committees. He was named as the first chairman of the CPCU Society’s Diversity Committee serving from 2005 through 2008. He has also been a frequent speaker at the CPCU Annual Meeting and Seminars.  In January 1998 he was awarded the “Standard Setter Award by CPCU President, Anita Bourke. At the 2009 Annual Meeting and Seminars in Denver, he was awarded the George M. Gottheimer Award for outstanding contributions to insurance education.

Mr. Lipshultz is a frequent lecturer to insurance agents in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia on ethics and other insurance topics, including professional liability and errors and omissions.  He has been an instructor for the DC chapter of the Society of CPCU since 1992 and an instructor for the Independent Insurance Agents of Maryland since 1993.  In 1995 the Independent Insurance Agents of Maryland honored him with the President's Education Award.  Mr. Lipshultz has served as the vice-president, president-elect and two terms as President of the DC Chapter of the Society of CPCU.  He has served as chairman of Capital I Day since 2005. 

On behalf of the DC Chapter, Mr. Lipshultz established a scholarship fund for students enrolled in IIA/CPCU courses offered by the DC Chapter.

Mr. Lipshultz served as president of the D.C. based Polio Society from 1987 to 1991.  He is a past member of the Board of Directors of Disabled Sports, USA, and is the Legal Advisor to the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Boys & Girls Club.

He received his AB from Washington University in St. Louis and his J.D. degree from the Washington College of Law, the American University.

Norris Gearhart, CR.

Norris has been involved with disaster response, mitigation and repair for more then 24 years.  He holds numerous national and international certifications and professional designations.  He does technical consulting and has qualified as an expert for testimony in more then 25 legal disputes.  Norris has consulted on projects across the United States and Australia.

Norris has conducted continuing education as well as technical certification courses to industry professional both here and overseas.  He has served as a board member for the National Institute of Disaster Restoration and has been a presenter at three national conventions of the Association of Specialists in Cleaning and Restoration now the Restoration Industry Association.

He has worked in local and regional property claim management with Allstate Insurance Company and Travelers Insurance Company.  Norris owned and operated a disaster mitigation and restoration business in Frederick Maryland.

Norris served as an Army Reserve Officer in the Maryland Army National Guard for 15 years. His assignments include Headquarters Detachment Commander of the 29th Air Traffic Control Group and Detachment Commander of an Operational Detachment – A Team with the 20th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

He received a Business Administration degree with a minor in Behavior Science from National Louis University in Evanston Illinois.

Norris currently works for Paul Davis Restoration & Remodeling of Suburban Maryland and Washington D.C.