Crunch time for Bert Collins: North Carolina Mutual's CEO is shrewd. But can he inspire the innovations needed to keep his insurance firm competitive?

Black Enterprise, Nov, 1993 by Frank McCoy

Unfortunately, extraordinary sales, like that of NCM Capital, do not occur annually. While 1991 net income, buoyed by the sale, soared to $4.049 million, it fell back to $713,036 one year later.

With housekeeping done, Collins has set NCM's sights toward the creation of new insurance products and markets. His goal: to attract clients outside NCM's historic market niche of lower- and working-class customers. A study by the firm "found that the people who know North Carolina Mutual are the 35- to 55-year-olds," says Collins. "The 18- to 35-year-olds don't know a lot about us." It is that market of post-segregation, better educated, middle class consumers - as well as potential employees - which NCM must now bring into its fold.

"Bert is a highly intelligent person,"says Kennedy, who describes Collins as his protege. "He has all the academic qualifications, including an MBA in finance and a law degree. NCM is probably the best run company among black financial institutions." However, Kennedy adds, "he is more a CPA than a general manager."

That may be the old guard talking now that the new guard is holding the reins. Three years into the Collins regime, there are unmistakable signs that his quiet, systematic, determined approach is bringing results. "I used to consider myself an accountant," muses Collins. "I thought numbers were everything. I used to see through numbers; now I see through people."

If Collins has doubters, well then so did the tortoise in his race with the hare. Friends and colleagues describe him as the kind of guy who rolls up his sleeves and works beyond the call of duty to do what needs to be done. First he lays the foundation, then he builds on it. "If anybody had ever said I would become president 26 years ago," Collins reflects, "I wouldn't have believed them." There's something to be said for being a workhorse.

He has always been steadfast and determined. Encouraged by his mother and aunt to go to college, Collins left the 1,000 acres that his grandfather had bought to grow cotton in the 1800s, and set off for Huston-Tillotson College in Austin. After earning an MBA degree at the University of Detroit, he married the former Carolyn Porter. He started law classes while waiting to take his CPA exam in Detroit, and continued classes after starting to work for Motor City's only black CPA firm, Austin, Washington and Davenport. A friend took him to NCM on a casual visit during a vacation to Durham in 1967 and the company promptly recruited the personable, slightly built man. The 33-year-old Collins accepted the administrative assistant's job, becoming NCM's first resident CPA. His industriousness quickly gained him renown, even in a town already abounding in enterprising blacks. Determined to complete his law training, Collins took a class at eight in the morning before coming to work, then another one during his lunch hour. Gratefully, he remembers NCM allowed him to make up any work time lost by coming in on Saturdays. In 1970, he not only earned his law degree (at North Carolina Central), but also finished University of North Carolina's Young Executive Program in the same year. Fellow board member R. Edward Steward, executive director of UDI Community Development Corp., a nonprofit community organization, has known him since 1967. He admires Collins' grit in going to law school full-time while working full-time and being the father of three kids. "He even passed the bar on the first try," says Stewart. "That indicates strength."