By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
Sentry Insurance is celebrating its 100th birthday in 2004.
The company kicked off its celebration Monday, Jan. 5, as Sentry Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dale Schuh and other executives served cake to employees at the home office on Stevens Point's north side.
Sentry's impact on the city has been immense through the years. The company is one of the area's major employers with more than 2,200 local employees and provides a major tax source for local government. In fact, Sentry used to represent about 10 to 15 percent of the property taxes paid in Stevens Point.
Sentry employees have also been active in the community, encouraged by their employer to serve on community and governmental organizations.
Sentry Insurance was founded in 1904 by members of the Wisconsin Retail Hardware Association, which today is known as the Midwest Hardware Association.
The company was started by hardware store owners as they banded together to tackle problems such as mail order competition, rivalry among local competitors, discrimination by jobbers and the high rate of fire insurance.
The insurance was a key problem because hardware stores, although much of their merchandise was of a non-combustible nature, were charged expensive rates because of small quantities of paint, linseed oil and turpentine kept on the premises.
The company formally began on April 4, 1904, in an office in Berlin, Wis., as the Hardware Dealers Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Wisconsin.
The company prospered from the start and in 1910 moved to larger quarters in Berlin.
In 1911, Peter .J. "P.J." Jacobs of the Gross & Jacobs hardware store on Main Street in Stevens Point (the site of the Charles M. White Public Library) was elected secretary of the insurance firm.
Because Jacobs lived in Stevens Point, the office force of the small insurance company moved here the following year, occupying an office in the block where Sentry's Strongs Avenue office is now located. The move was a simple operation since the company only had four employees, P.J. Jacobs, Mason J. "Pat" O'Brien, Roy Austin and Lorraine Marvin.
By the time of the move, the Hardware Association was also looking at additional insurance needs. Workmen's compensation insurance became mandatory in Wisconsin in 1911 and an association member inquired about organizing a casualty company.
Jacobs presented the suggestion to the association on July 9, 1913, and the casualty company was granted a license to operate by Aug. 15, 1914, under the name Wisconsin Hardware Limited Mutual Liability Co. Carl N. Jacobs, P.J.'s son, served as underwriter, accountant and collector for the new company, selling workmen's compensation, general liability and glass coverages.
By 1916, the casualty company had started to include auto insurance coverage, and in 1918, Carl Jacobs was elected assistant secretary of the casualty company, which changed its name in 1920 to Hardware Mutual Casualty Co.
The company also began to expand nationwide, securing licenses for Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.
Because of the increased business and added personnel, the casualty company moved to the second floor of the old Majestic (now the Fox) Theater building on Main Street on Aug. 1, 1920.
Shortly after that move, construction began on a new building at the corner of Strongs Avenue and Clark Streets to house the fire company on the first floor and the casualty company on the second, with room to grow on the third.
P.J. Jacobs, noted for his love of flowers and sharing their beauty with others, included a provision in the building plans for large urns on the outside of the building so flowers would be in bloom during the entire summer season. Those urns remain today.
On July 22, 1922, the new office building was completed, which is the first unit of the present Sentry building, the northern section.
That year the casualty company also opened its first branch office in Milwaukee, adding the Minneapolis, Minn., office in 1923 and the Chicago, Ill., and Indianapolis, Ind., offices in 1925.
The fire company also expanded, opening branch offices in Atlanta, Ga., Boston, Mass., Dallas, Texas, Newark, N.J., and San Francisco, Calif.
The casualty company was licensed in 46 states by 1928 and space was again becoming a problem.
On July 1, 1929, construction began on a new addition on the south side of the building, moving the entrance of the initial part of the building to the center of the new structure. This enlarged "home office" was put into use in July 1930, and the auditorium in the building was constructed in 1937 as a conference room.
On April 17, 1936, P.J. Jacobs died, and L.A. Mingenbach was elected president of the fire company to succeed him.
Carl Jacobs, who had been president of the casualty company since April 1930, was also elected president of the fire company on April 18, 1945, bringing both companies under single leadership.
A steady increase in business since 1930 once again led to space problems so the company started construction of a new annex building on Minnesota Avenue and Dixon Street in August 1948 to house the supply, archives, multilithing and manual units. That work was completed in June 1949.
The company continued to grow and in 1953 construction started on two new buildings, one on Dixon Street adjacent to the annex building for the Wisconsin District, and the other an apartment-dormitory building on Strongs Avenue across from the County-City Building. That apartment building was sold to Portage County and torn down two years ago.
The company had become known as Hardware Mutuals by 1958 when it established Sentry Life Insurance Co. as a wholly-owned subsidiary, and by 1963 the whole company became known as Sentry Insurance.
Carl Jacobs' son, James P. Jacobs, succeeded him as president in 1962, and then John Joanis, who joined the company as an attorney just after World War II, became the president and chief executive officer in 1968, adding chairman of the board to his titles in 1972.
Under Joanis the company continued to grow and expanded, going international and entering different fields, such as computer software, communications, oil and gas exploration, window and door manufacturing and commuter airlines. The company later divested itself of those assets to concentrate on insurance.
From 1967 to 1972, the board of directors pressured Sentry to move from Stevens Point, but Joanis, who had been born and raised in northern Wisconsin, supported Stevens Point, pointing out that the local offices were more efficient and effective than the offices in other parts of the country.
As a result, Sentry began purchasing land on the north side of Stevens Point, where the headquarters is now situated. The building had a pricetag of $63 million placed upon it by an assessment in 1977 when the company moved in. The world-class golf course and indoor recreation center, known as SentryWorld, was completed in 1982 for more than $10 million.
Joanis turned the reins as company president over to former Wisconsin governor and University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point chancellor Lee Sherman Dreyfus in 1983, but Dreyfus stepped down shortly afterward and Joanis resumed control until his death in 1987. He was followed by Larry Ballard and now Schuh.
Today Sentry is one of the nation's leading insurance companies with assets of $7 billion and a policyholder surplus of $2 billion. More than 3,800 Sentry employees nationwide assist business and consumer customers with financial protection for their families, possessions and businesses.