My full-time-off-the-farm job is being a Marketing Manager for The Home Agency. This is a family owned business that started in Elwood, NE. My parents are now sole owners of the ever expanding agency and I am proud to have worked there full-time since April 2008 and part-time since I was in elementary school.
I first started out cleaning the small three room office, then I moved up to office work (i.e. filing, auditing crop insurance policies and doing mailings, aka the “fun stuff”). Then during college I started doing a little more part-time work and in 2008 I was ready to switch jobs and start working for my dad. That’s when I became a Marketing Manager. My main job is to create and publish a quarterly magazine that we send out to our insureds. If you click here it will take you to the most recent issue of the magazine that we just mailed out to our customers last week. Every issue has a note from the President (my dad), crop insurance updates and articles on cattle insurance and property and casualty insurance. We also like to include some other interesting articles that pertain to things other than crop insurance. I tried to take as many pictures as I can for the magazine, which I really enjoy also!
This most recent issue was our 13th issue! It has come along way from our first issue that was only 12 pages long to the 32 page issue that it is now!
Please go to The Home Agency’s website by clicking here, to see what The Home Agency all has to offer and also to see all the locations.
Below is a short history on The Home Agency:
The Home Agency started in 1974 by Barney Owens. The original owners included Barney Owens, Carlton Clark, Cloyd Clark, Fred Krauss, and George Krauss. The original office location was at the corner of Highway 23 and Calvert Avenue in Elwood, NE in the Home Bank building and was managed by Barney Owens who sold personal, commercial and some crop insurance.
In 1984 the insurance agency moved from the bank to the west portion of the old Leggott building which was located just up the street on Highway 23 in Elwood, NE. Deb Arends was hired on as an agent in September 1984.
Barney Owens retired in 1986 and the business was combined as Home Co, Inc. dba The Home Agency. Jim Baldonado became the manager in February of 1986 and about a year or so later became a shareholder.
In April of 1987 Tilden Insurance Agency, owned by Bob Tilden, merged with The Home Agency and took on just The Home Agency name.
In 1986 Jim began selling crop, life and health insurance along with property casualty insurance. In 1988 the agency moved to a new location on the northwest corner of Smith Avenue (Highway 283) and Rush Street in Elwood, NE. In 1989 The Home Agency moved into the new FSA office building just across the street. In 1990 Dan Tinlin joined the company and an office opened in Gothenburg, NE with Dan and Janet Haas.
In 1993 Jim, Carlton and Dan bought out all the other shareholders and in 1998 it was just Jim and Dan as co-owners and then in 1999 Jim became the sole owner of The Home Agency.
In 1997 The Home Agency bought the old Green Lantern Restaurant at 210 Smith Avenue in Elwood, NE and remodeled it for the new office location. They are still at that location today and more than doubled the office in size in 2000.
The Home Agency under the leadership of Jim Baldonado has grown from two employees to around 35 employees in 16 different office locations in Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and Iowa. They are one of the largest writers of crop insurance in the nation with between 5,000-6,000 clients and are recognized as a leader in all areas of insurance in our area.
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