Finding the perfect professional niche often requires trying many other options first. In the case of Mary E. Gilham, she started out working as an agent selling life insurance for Allstate Insurance Company, working with various other well-known agencies and providing a full array of client services, including life insurance, investments, and retirement solutions. In the end, it was selling health insurance that permanently captured her interest as a primary focus.
Ms. Gilham is the owner, chief executive offer, business development manager, and insurance agent at Gilham Insurance Services, LLC, in North Olmsted, Ohio. Her business specializes in offering group health coverage to small and large businesses, as well as individuals and families. Life insurance is another major focus of her business. She also has expertise in assisting clients with Medicare Supplement, Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans. Ms. Gilham is licensed to sell multiple plans from Connecticut to California and several other states in between. Her professional certifications include the completion of Series 77 and Series 66, and licenses in life, health, annuity, property, and casualty.
With more than 30 years of industry experience and her business thriving for 17-plus years, Ms. Gilham takes pride in working with colleagues to provide clients with personalized attention to find the best selections for their insurance needs. In addition to reviewing each customer’s main insurance coverages, the business provides group and individual accident, cancer, vision, and dental policies along with a suite of other services to consider.
Prior to starting Gilham Insurance Services, LLC, in 2006, Ms. Gilham worked nearby as an internal wholesaler at Victory Capital Management/Key from 1999 to 2004. Her earlier foundation in the industry was as director of insurance and a purchasing agent at PremierBank & Trust from 1994 to 1999. This invaluable experience gave her oversight of the insurance coverage for the bank, including its headquarters, operations, and all its branches. In preparation for future entrepreneurship, Ms. Gilham graduated, magna cum laude, with a Bachelor of Business Administration from Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio.
Ms. Gilham attributes her professional success to hard work and having an excellent role model who was the chief executive officer at one of the companies where she previously worked. She was most grateful for her mentor’s positive attitude and his always being very appreciative and extremely hard-working. Ms. Gilham most fondly recalled that he would not ask anyone to do anything that he would not do himself.
Other key factors Ms. Gilham believes contribute to her daily achievements are being competitive, determined, honest, understanding, and straightforward. She identifies the most important lessons that have enhanced her professional growth as always being willing to try to learn, and that no matter what the job is, it’s never beneath or above you. She reinforces this point by declaring if you learn it, it can never be taken away and you’ll never know when it will benefit you.
Looking toward the future, Ms. Gilham would like to expand Gilham Insurance Services, LLC, internationally within the next five years. Her membership and participation in BNI, the world’s largest business referral organization, may be helpful in this effort. When she’s not busy building her brand to leave a legacy, working, networking, consulting, and promoting her business, Ms. Gilham, the mother to a son, spends time with family and friends and enjoys various outdoor activities.
