Gary Franke is the Director of Business Development at Cross NW and connects us with businesses that will benefit from our services. We know that people need to know what you do to be successful. That is why he is our COMUF – Chief of Making us Famous. Gary interacts with many different people discussing our services and how we help our clients and their businesses.
Gary grew up in Pullman in a family with a long history of business owners. He cut his teeth selling bubble gum in 5th grade on the playground. From an early age he consistently sold the most candy bars for camp, magazines in middle school and high school football fundraising campaigns.
At Washington State University Gary quickly found that the finance & risk management industry was his calling. After WSU Gary got his MBA from Seattle University with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship to help develop a more “rounded” business skillset. His out of the box thinking has enabled Gary to embrace his creative personality to successfully stay two steps ahead of his competition.
MOTTO
In Business you need to constantly be pushing the envelope of innovation; Make Small Changes, Fail Often, Adjust Quickly and you will succeed. Continually working to find ways to differentiate what you do from your competitors.
EXPERTISE
After college Gary worked for WaMu in Operational Risk Management and Marsh McLennan selling Insurance; Directors & Officers, Employment Practices Liability, Processional Liability, Fiduciary, and Special Risk.
In the summer of 2008 he started his own Insurance Brokerage, Achieve Alpha Insurance, and is an expert at Health Insurance (the WA Exchange). Gary now works with the Cross NW team to empower business owners to grow and sell their business.
AFTER HOURS
Gary lives in downtown Bellevue and can find him surfing from coffee shop to coffee shop continually reading a book. He is usually about half way through five at a time. His latest book is on procrastination, yet will get back to that one tomorrow.
His passion is to enjoy the sun on the water in the summer, skiing in the winter and enjoying the great outdoors hiking and camping.
WSU – BS – Risk and Financial Management
MBA – Seattle University
Six Sigma Green Belt