Research / Outreach Partner - 2003

College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources

Mountain West insurance named Corporate Partner of the Year

by Vicki Hamende,
Senior Editor
Office of Communications and Technology

The Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company has a history of supporting the College of Agriculture. The company’s most recent gift will bolster that support by allowing new and ongoing
programs to prosper.

In recognition of its generosity, the Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company has been named the college’s 2003 Corporate Partner of the Year.

Started in 1948 by the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, the company conducts business in Wyoming and Montana. “We’re the only property and casualty insurance company domiciled in the state of Wyoming,” says Sam Clark, the chief executive officer and executive vice president, a 1969 graduate of the University of Wyoming’s College of Agriculture.

"We are a major writer of all lines of property and casualty and life insurance in the two states,” adds Clark, who has been with the company for 34 years. “In Wyoming we write over 60 percent of the  farm and ranch business in the state.”

Several of the company’s board members are UW agriculture graduates. “We have always been very closely associated with the College of Agriculture and also its extension program.”

Karen Henry of Robertson, the president of both the Mountain West Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company and the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation boards of directors, says, “I think the entire board was excited about this gift. We feel that this is an excellent time to be working with the College of Agriculture.”

Henry’s family has ranched for five generations in the Bridger Valley, and both of her grandfathers were instrumental in starting the Farm Bureau in Wyoming. “UW extension was a big part of that,” she
says.

“It’s very important that we continue to work with the college because there are so many board members and employees who are graduates of UW or have their children going there,” Henry adds. “As a
land-grant university, it’s important for the college and the university to continue to support agriculture and to understand agriculture in Wyoming.”