|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
ZURICH CLASSIC OF NEW ORLEANSApril 23, 2014Ben CraneTim FinchemMike FoleyZach RosenburgAVONDALE, LOUISIANA THE MODERATOR: I want to welcome Mike Foley, CEO of North American Commercial and North America regional chair for Zurich Insurance Group; Zach Rosenburg, co‑founder and CEO of the St.Bernard Project; Tim Finchem, commissioner the PGA TOUR; and Ben Crane, PGA TOUR golfer, Zurich Golf ambassador and supporter of the St.Bernard Project. To start off, Zurich is going to have a major announcement and we'll get going right now with Mr.Foley. MIKE FOLEY: I appreciate everyone coming out today. On behalf of all my colleagues from the Zurich Insurance Group, I appreciate your attention and focus on this topic. We're very excited. We're here at our 10th anniversary of the Zurich Classic, and this week is all about the Zurich Classic, which is fantastic. It's brought us to New Orleans. We came to New Orleans in 2005 in the spring, then of course everyone knows that Katrina hit in the fall. We had a decision to make then of how do we move forward, and we said the decision was clear, we were committed to the tournament, we were committed to New Orleans, we wanted to see the swing come back to New Orleans, and so we were very proud that we were the first major sporting event back into New Orleans in the spring of 2006. That really cemented a relationship with Zurich and New Orleans, and as part of that, in 2009 we started to work with the St.Bernard Project, and SBP has been rebuilding New Orleans, and then when Joplin hit Missouri, you moved there and we went with you to support that, and also in Staten Island. So what we started to see is that there was a relationship that started in New Orleans out of the tragedy of Katrina and learnings that came out of New Orleans and it started to move to other communities. Across those communities we stepped back and said Zurich is a global insurer, we have 55,000 people, we're in more than 200 countries, we're the fourth largest commercial insurer in the U.S., how do we do something bigger than New Orleans and the tournament which is how it all started. So we're announcing a $3 million grant from our Z Zurich Foundation to the St.Bernard Project over the next three years, but really what took us so long to formulate that was that it wasn't just about the money. The money is critically important to get your disaster resilience and recovery lab up and running, and I'll ask to you to talk about that in a minute, Zach, but also we were kind of thinking about how to get our people connected. So we realized that over this time we've had more than 850 Zurich employees and customers and brokers doing builds with SBP. So there's money, but there's also time and talent, and that's the part that actually when we think about our Zurich commitment to our customers, our shareholders, our people and the communities in which we live and work is so important to us. We're really excited today to announce that we're going to do this three‑year project with you and are looking forward to great things to come from that. Zach, maybe you can talk about it. ZACH ROSENBURG: Thank you very much. This investment from Zurich means the world not only to our current clients in Joplin, Staten Island, Rockaway, New Jersey, and New Orleans, but more so what we are thrilled about this investment into St.Bernard Project's disaster resilience and recovery lab is we're going to make sure two things: One, before disaster strikes Americans understand and mitigate risk. We want less work to do after disasters. I mean, if you think about it, when folks don't have a clear, prompt and predictable path to recovery, American citizens question the value of their humanity and they question the value of their citizenship. At the same time St.Bernard Project is committed through this investment to make sure that after a disaster we are training other organizations to utilize the model that was built over the last eight and a half years. In America, the fact is our model of post‑disaster recovery is less than optimally efficient. Disasters are happening more frequently. They're hitting a greater and more diverse part of our country, and they're more severe. At the same time, when there is a delayed recovery there is an incredible human toll. I think all of us at some point have‑‑ when we're trying to be in the moment, whether we're with family or friends or at dinner or at work, we know what it's like not to be fully present, when there's something in the back of our head and it's hard to focus. That's what it's like for our clients and for American citizens who don't have a prompt, efficient, predictable path to recovery, who don't know when they're going to move home. They can't fully be present with their children. It's hard to be optimal at work. And for me what really strikes me is the seniors who are supposed to be in their golden years instead spend time questioning when am I going to get home. What means so much about this Zurich investment is Zurich is not only investing their dollars and the dollars are fantastic and it's going to let us staff up and hit 10 communities a year to make sure that they're understanding and mitigating risk and making sure that after disaster happens, organizations, ostensible competitors, have access to best practices and trainings to expedite recovery, but what really makes the difference from this investment is that Zurich is investing their cents, not just dollars but cents. If you think about, I make this analogy in baseball with a five‑tool athlete, but in golf Zurich has all parts of the game. They're great off the tee, so incredibly charitable and generous financially. Brute labor, over 800 Zurich employees building houses, so that's irons. But the short game is there, as well. Zurich has best in class talented risk engineers, HR folks, finance folks, marketing people, all of whom are investing to make sure that our model is thoughtful and optimally efficient, so this partnership with Zurich really means the world. Thank you, Mike, and thank you, Zurich. To the commissioner. TIM FINCHEM: Thank you, Zach. Before I comment about today's announcement, let me just on behalf of our players thank Zurich and all of our friends here in New Orleans for hosting us again this year. The players love being here in New Orleans. This is a great week for the PGA TOUR, and we look forward to a great week of golf. First of all, let me compliment and congratulate both Zach and Zurich for this announcement today. Zurich's generosity and commitment and focus with this announcement is a great example of the way they think and the way they go about their business. But it's another step really in what they started 10 years ago, which was working with the golf tournament, trying to make it as good as it can be, bringing their energy to moving it in that direction, and at the same time they focused on the quality of the golf tournament, they also were pushing on how can the golf tournament better impact as we go forward the issues that face New Orleans, particularly in the aftermath of Katrina. And to that end, they've done a great job. They are great partners, both here and to the Farmers in San Diego, and we are blessed with their partnership. It is a great example of what can happen when a committed company provides the leadership to take a PGA TOUR event to the next level. With that, I'd also like to ‑ I don't think it was referenced earlier ‑ mention that Zurich has extended for the next five years with us, so we look forward to a continuation of the growth of the tournament and the growth of the charitable impact. With us today is Ben Crane, and I'd just like to say a couple things about Ben. It's appropriate that he's here. He's an ambassador for Zurich. Ben is a very successful player on the PGA TOUR. He's won four times. He's a perennial top player. More importantly, however, he is a real role model for our players. He's the kind of player you'd like to see all of our players be, the way he handles himself, the way he creates excitement, especially for our younger fans, in a lot of things he does. But in addition to that, his and his wife Heather's charitable focus lends itself to this persona that he has that we ask all our players to emulate, a focus on charity and giving back. He has been involved in a variety of activities across the TOUR with Heather to that regard, and I want to welcome him to this press conference and ask him to make a comment from his perspective. BEN CRANE: Thank you, Commissioner Finchem. It's an honor to be affiliated with Zurich and to be able to be a part of the giving back. Zurich not only does an incredible job of giving stability to our country and to people who invest with Zurich but also does an incredible job of giving back in this community and putting really their dollars and cents into taking people who have been estranged from their homes, from their lives, who didn't think they would ever live in New Orleans again and giving them their life back. What a privilege it is to‑‑ I came here before St.Bernard Project was kind of up and going right after the storm, and I was involved with some local churches and communities with trying to make a difference, of gutting houses, of getting people to just take the first step. But we really didn't know what we were doing other than we saw some people who needed some help and we acted on it, and that was incredibly rewarding. But what St.Bernard Project has done is they're hiring volunteers with a trained staff and they're saying, hey, if you choose to volunteer, we're going to spend a short period of time training you, you're going to be part of a team, this is what we're trying to accomplish, this is very organized, and it's the most impressive lean operation I've ever seen, and then I was able to be a part of a St.Bernard Project team who was able to come in and have maximum impact with the time that people spent. And so it goes with Zurich. The performance out of what they're putting in is just absolutely amazing. Thrilled to be here and then to be playing in this tournament. What a privilege and honor, just thankful to be here. MIKE FOLEY: As an example of getting people out and being productive, on Friday we're going to have over 100 executives go out and work on some homes. I guarantee you none of us are very skilled at this labor, but somehow you guys get us to be quite effective in a day, and we leave at the end of the day sweaty but rewarded with seeing tangible progress, which you can't always do in a lot of things in the world, so that's part of the connection that is so important to us because we can see how we made a little difference, and you guys do that every day all the time, so it's amazing. ZACH ROSENBURG: St.Bernard Project has some core values, and one of them is we believe one thing that unites human beings is an innate desire to fix or to solve or to help. We've seen after Katrina where we've had over 60,000 volunteers, very few of whom either are from Louisiana or have family members here, yet we've had folks from all over this country come and invest in New Orleans. So there's two things that are important: One, it's essential for organizations to be able to harness this innate desire to fix and solve and help with a very structured, thoughtful, business‑minded volunteer approach, and I think St.Bernard Project does a good job with that. We can always do better. Our core ethos is something we call constructive discontent, so we're always trying to improve. The second thing that I also think is important, though, is that out of New Orleans, there has to be lessons learned. This country has, not only through the St.Bernard Project, we're a small piece, but America really rallied around New Orleans. I think in a way that maybe the country doesn't take enough pride. And it's important now for New Orleans to give back to the rest of the country. We've learned things. Disaster recovery is now more efficient, but again, disasters are happening all throughout this country, and St.Bernard Project with Zurich's support is going to be able to pay back the rest of the country to make sure that, A, before disasters happen, communities understand and mitigate risk, but B, when they do happen, communities can recover in a prompt, efficient and predictable way using lessons learned and best practices. MIKE FOLEY: I would just say Zurich is a proud sponsor of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. We're excited that we're committed for another five years and also that we're able to expand the connection that we got through this tournament and through these relationships to a much broader footprint across the U.S., so we're very excited. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|