- November 23, 2024
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For Hayward Brown’s new CEO Charles Scrabis, everything has come full-circle.
Scrabis had grown up with the Brown family—in fact, Brown’s wife Ann was his school nurse when he attended St. Brendan Catholic School. Richard Brown, the former owner of the business, gave him his first opportunity in 2003 after Scrabis retired from the military after five years of service.
Scrabis has been in the insurance world since then.
“I’ve always had a dream to own my own agency,” Scrabis said.
On June 1, 2017, his dream became a reality as he and Wes Timko purchased Hayward Brown.
Everything happened at the right time, said Timko, who is now the agency’s new executive vice president. He and Scrabis have known each other for about 11 years, having worked together at the Mitchell Noel insurance agency for eight years. Last April, when Mitchell Noel was undergoing a change of ownership, Scrabis and Timko sat down and talked about their future plans.
Scrabis was heading back to Hayward Brown, with the plans of buying it, and he urged Timko to come with him.
“I said, ‘Heck man, let’s reunite’,” Scrabis said. “Let’s own our own agency. Let’s do this.”
A few days after Timko started at Hayward Brown, hurricane Matthew hit Florida. Shortly after, Brown had a stroke in California. Both events put officially buying the agency on hold, but both men were still running it.
Over a year later, the only thing that’s changed for Scrabis and Timko is that they formally own Hayward Brown.
“Now this is our baby,” Timko said. “It just means a little more.”
Scrabis said that when he first started, he and Brown had talked about a legacy plan in terms of how the agency would be passed on.
“We talked about that 14 years ago, believe it or not,” Scrabis said. “It just took 14 years to happen.”
He said there are no plans for immediate changes to the agency now that it’s theirs. Hayward Brown will continue to operate in the same way it always has, he said.
“For them to give me the opportunity, and Wes, to buy the agency was just a really big honor,” Scrabis said.
He and Timko wanted to formally thank the Browns for leaving the 81-year-old agency in their hands.
“To trust us with an 81-year-old company,” Timko said. “That’s such a statement.”
