Anyone who's a regular reader of our magazine–most recentlyin the January 2011 cover story, “Avoidthe retirement steamroller with young recruits“–knows we'reinvested in promoting insurance as a viable career path for thenext generations.

And we're not alone. For years now, we've been highlighting theefforts of everyone from trade association young agent groups,carriers and everyone in between to attract, promote and retain GenYers.

Unfortunately, all these great efforts, considered individually,might just be as effective as chipping away at a mountain with atoothpick.

For more than 60 years, the GriffithFoundation has been promoting the study and teaching ofrisk management and insurance. In 1990, the Griffith InsuranceEducation Foundation began focusing on national insurance educationprograms by working with academics and funding insurance and riskmanagement programs at colleges and providing scholarships forstudents. Today the group even works on the K-12 level to educatekids about insurance as part of a broader financial literacymovement.

But even this worthy group has recognized that its best efforts,considered alone, aren't as effective as a coordinated plan wouldbe.

That's why the Foundation is hosting “A Collaborative Effortto Engage the Next Generation,” an insurance education andcareer summit, September 26 to 28 at the University of Georgiain Atlanta. Foundation Director Jason Terrell wants the event to dofor insurance what coordinated recruiting efforts have donefor accounting and other industries: create a set of bestpractices to educate and attract young people to the industry.

The meeting has four goals:

1. To provide a unified voice for industry on engaging thenext generation
2. To create a common blueprint to move forward on educationand recruitment
3. To coordinate an education initiative
4. To leverage existing resources toward this effort

The Foundation is currently reaching out to CEOs in theproperty-casualty, life-health and trade association world and sofar has gotten commitment from State Farm, Geico, Aflac, New YorkLife and others, Terrell said.

Although the event will feature traditional summit events,including keynotes by Bob Hartwig of III, its main purpose isfor participants to brainstorm solutions to the problemof our industry's aging workforce.

The effort takes nothing away from the good work alreadyhappening in the industry, Terrell stressed. He pointed to RIMS'engagement of high school and college students, Big I'sInVESTprogram, and the myriad of carrier internship programs.But all these efforts would have more heft if they werecoordinated: for example, the Foundation has been discussingthe feasibility of a central industry database for internshipsand job openings, perhaps leveraged from a similar database used byInVEST, Terrell said.

A central concept is to enhance the industry's image. “Theaccounting industry has rebranded itself over the last 10 years, ashave teachers. Insurance needs to do the same,” he said.

James R.Jones, executive director of the Katie School of Insurance &Financial Services at Illinois State University and a bloggerat PropertyCasualty360.com, is on the front lines of K-12 outreach,agrees.

“Before you can educate people, you have to change the imageby getting past the idea that we're just product pushersinstead of solution providers. It helps to address the imageitself, and the earlier you can address it, the better.”

Jones said the industry's biggest challenge in attracting youngrecruits isn't a lack of trying, but perhaps of too many differentefforts. “Every association and industry organization sees the needto engage the next generation. We have a lot of resources, but manyare going in different directions. We need to pull in the samedirection and determine strengths.”

For more information about the Insurance Education and CareerSummit, contact Jason Terrell at 614-880-9870 or go to www.griffithfoundation.org/summit.