Roger McCarty: Light Up a Room

"I think everybody would recognize that Roger's enthusiasm was contagious," says his nephew Bill McCarty, president at Brokers International. "Roger could literally be in a room of insurance agents where somebody else was the speaker, and if the meeting wasn't going right because the agents didn't like what the speaker had to say, Roger would jump up and take control of a meeting that you thought was going south, and all of a sudden it turned into a positive meeting because of Roger's enthusiasm. Everybody else caught that enthusiasm and said, 'Well, gee, the way Roger spun it, it sounded pretty good.' He was a hell of a promoter and probably the most enthusiastic guy I've ever known."

Longtime friend Mark Heitz, executive vice president of sales and distribution for Aviva USA, also recalls how McCarty's enthusiasm would spread across an entire room and says he was just as engaging in one-on-one situations. "He always made the person he was talking to feel like they were the most important person at that particular moment, and in some cases, the only person in the room," Heitz says. "He just had that knack, because he was so genuine. It wasn't an act — that's how he was. He just made you feel good and that what you were doing was important and you were contributing to the overall cause and the overall good."

If you have any stories you would like to share about Roger McCarty, please feel free to do so using the comment tool below. And stay tuned for that feature on McCarty's legacy.