Ron Hahs looks back at more than five and a half decades in the insurance, financial planning field

Ron Hahs thought it was just a summer job, something to occupy his time before starting his teaching career.

Now, more than a half-century later, Hahs is the senior financial adviser at The Hahs Group in Cape Girardeau, a multigenerational insurance and financial planning agency affiliated with Northwestern Mutual.

Hahs marked his 56th anniversary with Northwestern Mutual and The Hahs Group earlier this month and, with a degree of reluctance, admits he probably has more seniority in the financial planning field than anyone else in the area.

"I guess you could say that," he said. "I don't seek that kind of notoriety, but I guess you could say there isn't anyone else in financial services here who has done it for that many years."

A career detour

Northwestern Mutual financial adviser Ron Hahs dictates case notes into a digital transcription system while working at his office Thursday in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

"To be blunt, I kind of got into this by accident," Hahs said with a laugh when asked what led him to a career in financial services and insurance. He said his career path dates back to his years at Southeast Missouri State College, as it was then known.

"When I graduated from SEMO, which was in May of 1964, I had signed a contract to teach that fall at Jackson High School, where I was going to teach math and speech, and coach debate," he said.

"For several summers before that, I worked for what was then Missouri Utilities (now known as Ameren Missouri) on a tree-trimming, brush-cutting crew. It was a good paying summer job and I just assumed I would do that again that summer before teaching in the fall, but then I found out they weren't going to let anybody in the (tree-trimming) program if you already finished your degree."

Rather than spend the summer between college graduation and his first teaching position without a job, Hahs accepted a summer job offer from his uncle.

"My uncle, Luther Hahs, was the district manager for Northwestern Mutual and said, 'You come work for me this summer and I'll guarantee you at least as much as you'd earn at the utility company,' and I said, 'Good deal!'" Hahs said. At the time, he was 21 years old.

"I just assumed I'd do a lot of filing and running errands, but the second day I was there, he had me applying for an insurance license, then he had me going to training in St. Louis and then to the big national company meeting in Milwaukee that July," he remembers. "Let's face it, I was smitten!"

After fulfilling his one-year obligation to teach in the Jackson school system, Hahs became a full-time Northwestern Mutual agent in 1965.

New technologies, products and services

In the five and a half decades since, Hahs has witnessed many changes in the way business gets done.

"Business has changed enormously over that period of time," he said. "When I started, it was before computers, before calculators, before copy machines, before FedEx, before the internet and before email. We sent our correspondence by typing on a manual typewriter using carbon paper or, if we had to send out a lot of things, it'd be on a mimeograph machine."

There was no such thing as a "quick turnaround" for client presentations.

"If we wanted to generate an illustration (a ledger detailing the premiums a customer might pay and a policy's value over time), we would fill out, by hand, a requisition, put it in the mail and send it to our home office in Milwaukee," Hahs said. "Then, in about 10 days, we'd get an illustration in the mail, and if it was wrong, or if we needed another one, we'd have to start the whole process over again."

Not only has business technology evolved since the mid-1960s, but so, too, has the scope of services offered through the Hahs agency.

"In 1964, the only product we sold was life insurance," Hahs recalled. "Then, in 1969, we added disability income insurance, and about the same time we added annuities. Then in the 1980s, we became a full financial services firm with the addition of other products such as long-term care insurance and all types of financial advising."

The 'essence' hasn't changed

But while technology and products have changed over the years, Hahs said "the essence of what we do" hasn't changed. "We're still called to be servants and to help people with their plans and their goals and their dreams," he said.

"One of the phrases I learned early on is that our purpose (as insurance and financial advisers) is to try to help people make sure they're going to be OK if they die too soon or live too long," he said. "Another phrase that stuck with me as time went by, which is similar, is we deliver cash when it's needed most and we make sure dreams don't die with the dreamer."

When it comes to financial planning, Hahs admitted he and his associates don't know all the answers.

"But we think we know the right questions. It's really a process of asking questions, finding out what people's goals and plans and dreams are -- personally, professionally and financially -- and then trying to help them figure out whether we can help them meet those goals with some kind of program or product we might offer," he said. "Those basic concepts really haven't changed."

Over his 56 years in the insurance business, Hahs can't say exactly how many individuals and families he's worked with, including the great-grandchildren of some of his original clients.

"Not counting the investment side of the business, in the insurance world, they keep a count of our sales and refer to it as 'lives.' They tell me I've sold right at 5,000 lives over the years," he said. That averages almost two policies a week and nearly 100 policies a year throughout his career.

Hahs said Northwestern Mutual would track the number of consecutive weeks he and other agents wrote at least one policy.

"There was a period of time that only ended about four years ago when I had 42 years of consecutive weekly production," he said. "Even when I hear myself say that, it sounds amazing, especially during 34 of those years I was the managing director of the Cape office, which meant I was also involved in recruiting and mentoring and training."

He also spent many years teaching principles of insurance in Southeast's College of Business, from which the agency was able to recruit several interns.

"There's no question some of our best and brightest full-time financial advisers came through our internship program," he said.

The Hahs Group itself can trace its roots back to 1948 when Luther Hahs started working with Northwestern Mutual then became a district manager for the company in 1954. David Hahs, Luther's son, joined the firm in 1972 and Clay Hahs, David's son, has been with the agency for around a dozen years, which is about the length of time Ron's assistant, Crystal Goodwin, has been part of the organization.

"She would like me to keep working until she can retire," Hahs said with a laugh. "She's been a real blessing."

Now, at age 77, Hahs said he's "not quite ready" for retirement.

"I think maybe a few more years, health permitting," he said. "You have to like working with and serving people. It's all been good and very gratifying. I feel blessed and very fortunate."

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