Brenda Powell Wells has spent over 30 years studying and teaching risk management and insurance. She presently serves as the director of the East Carolina University (ECU) Risk Management and Insurance Program, where she is the Robert F. Bird Distinguished Professor of Risk Management and Insurance.

During her career she has taught numerous risk and insurance courses. She has also supervised countless internships and independent study projects. Brenda has a long history of forming, supporting, and mentoring student organizations and has a wide range of experience in public relations and fundraising.

Brenda has published articles in Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Insurance Regulation, Journal of Insurance Issues, and others. Her publication in Journal of Insurance Issues on marijuana legalization and its impact on property-casualty insurance is considered the seminal paper in this field.

Joe Pangaro is a trial attorney at Duane Morris, LLP, an AMLaw 100 Firm, and one of the largest and most sophisticated firms in the country to have a dedicated cannabis practice. Joe has worked on cannabis-related legal matters involving issues such as intellectual property disputes, regulatory analysis, and due diligence for corporate investments into and acquisitions of cannabis-related businesses.

Joe is a member of the firm’s Commercial, Securities, and Antitrust litigation group, as well as the nationally recognized cannabis practice group, and he is a magna cum laude graduate of Temple Law School.

John Donahue joined Topa Insurance Group with over 25 years of experience in personal and commercial lines insurance. During his career, John has run insurance operations that have designed and underwrote personal and commercial lines property and casualty products to be distributed through a wide range of models including captive agents, independent agents and brokers, direct operations as well as wholesalers. John graduated from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. He is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter.

Beth Medvedev is an Underwriting Manager with James River Insurance Company and is responsible for their Life Sciences division. Within the division, Ms. Medvedev leads a team underwriting General, Products and Professional Liability coverages for commercial insureds involved in a variety of medical related activities. Within her scope of responsibility is oversight of their book of cannabis-related business including both medical and recreational marijuana dispensaries, laboratories, cultivation, infused-products manufacturing, as well as CBD operations. Ms. Medvedev earned a BA from the University of Richmond in Economics and Russian and holds several insurance designations including CPCU and RPLU.

Kyle Hales is a Principal & Consulting Actuary with Perr & Knight. He leads a team of consulting actuaries focused on pricing, reserving and product development work for numerous commercial and personal lines products.

His commercial lines rate making experience includes pricing and product development for various types of medical and non-medical professional liability insurance including hospitals, physicians, allied healthcare professionals, architects & engineers, accountants and lawyers.

Blaine Sherwin is Assistant Vice President with Woodruff-Sawyer. His primary area of expertise is Property and Casualty, where he maintains an emphasis on the cannabis companies and those adjacently servicing the industry. Blaine works closely with his clientele to provide guidance on risk mitigation, regulatory/compliance, and risk management solutions, insurance being one such solution. Blaine holds his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from California State University, Chico.

Greg Fanoe is a consulting actuary with more than 10 years of experience. He has been at the forefront of Merlinos & Associates’ work developing rates for insurance company programs focused on the cannabis industry, as well as providing rate development and feasibility studies for entities looking to insure their cannabis-related exposures via alternative risk transfer mechanisms such as captive insurance companies. Mr. Fanoe has extensive insurance ratemaking and reserving experience for various lines of business.

Max Meade is a Cannabis Insurance Advisor for Brown & Brown Insurance, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation. He has helped cannabis ventures across the US procure proper insurance and navigate the complex regulatory landscape surrounding the marijuana industry. Max’s clientele includes dispensaries, cultivators, consultants, ancillary services providers, and more.

Max Meade is a Cannabis Insurance Advisor for Brown & Brown Insurance, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation. He has helped cannabis ventures across the US procure proper insurance and navigate the complex regulatory landscape surrounding the marijuana industry. Max’s clientele includes dispensaries, cultivators, consultants, ancillary services providers, and more.

Chris Boden CIC, CLCS, TRIP is a 15-year insurance professional, owned & managed a retail agency for 12+ years, and sold his respected agency to Acrisure in Fall 2016. In December 2018, he made the move from retail to wholesale insurance to expand Crouse and Associates Cannabis Practice Group nationally. He’s built a reputation in the adult use & medicinal cannabis industry as a leading expert in available insurance coverages, partnering with carriers to develop programs, and the constantly evolving cannabis market.

He lives in Northern California with his wife and 2 kids. When not working he enjoys spending his free time with family, fishing & golfing.

Matt Porter, a commercial broker, oversees the Cannabis Insurance Professionals, a division of Brown & Brown. Specializing in cultivators and vertically integrated operations, the division has the largest record setting crop insurance payouts that were the first in the Industry.

Jeffrey Samuels is the Cannabis and Hemp Practice leader at Embroker, an insurance and technology platform based in SF, Chicago, Boston, and NYC, who has raised over $40M in venture funding to drastically improve the way high-growth businesses engage with insurance products. Jeffrey holds a property and casualty insurance license in all 50 states as well as a Commercial Lines Coverage Specialist (CLCS) designation. He is also the Vice President of Business Development at Hillview, a next-generation cannabis and hemp company based in Lincoln Park, NJ. Since its inaugural year in 2017, Jeffrey has been a board member with NCIA’s Risk Management and Insurance Committee where he is still active today.

Jerrad is the principal agent at the Burrows Insurance Agency in Claremore, OK. In 2010 he joined the agency to continue to develop out the agencies niche governmental insurance programs, lessors risk, and general commercial book of business. Working in different industries Jerrad was able to obtain a vast knowledge of many different complex risks. He used this knowledge and level of service to develop Mariprotect of Oklahoma. Mariprotect insures the largest proportion of cannabis risks in the state.

Charles is the Senior Vice President of Commercial Programs at CannGen Insurance Services, and is tasked with oversight of the P&C underwriting operation, program development and direction, and carrier/broker relations. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration/Finance from California Lutheran University, and an MBA from the Graziadio School of Business & Management at Pepperdine University.

Patrick is the Director of Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance. As such, he sees himself as the Senior Brand Promoter of the Academy. His goal is to help the industry to see the Academy the way he sees it, as a valued partner in the training and development of insurance professionals.

He started his insurance career as a commercial underwriter for an MGA that wrote fire departments, ambulance companies, home medical equipment dealers, and other niche markets. It was there that he also started his journey in insurance education. He designed and implemented a new underwriter training program.

From there, he moved to one of the largest Florida-based property insurers to become an underwriter trainer. While there, his role expanded beyond classroom and online training to become a learning consultant. He spent time with his customers to determine their learning needs and develop a plan to meet those needs.

Kieran J. O’Rourke manages Cannasure’s Program division and guides the company’s development of future cannabis and hemp programs. He has over 30 years of impressive commercial underwriting, product and program development experience in the insurance industry. Prior to joining Cannasure, Kieran was Assistant Vice President of Property Underwriting of AmTrust Financial Services, Inc (AFSI). Kieran’s career experience spans P&C underwriting, MGA underwriting for alternative energy products and alternative market product development, oversight of research and product development and directing regional commercial insurance sales for a Fortune 500 carrier.

Laura Kersey, Executive Director—Regulatory & Legislative Analysis in the Regulatory Division of NCCI, is responsible for managing the Regulatory & Legislative Analysis Department, which monitors all workers compensation-related legislation and regulations around the country. She also researches and writes about trending and emerging workers compensation issues around the country.

She earned her JD from George Washington University Law School and her BA in psychology from the University of Tennessee.

Michael J. Progar is a partner with Doherty & Progar LLC, where for nearly 40 years, he has represented the interests of insurance companies and their insureds. He has tried more than 50 jury trials to verdict as lead counsel.

Mr. Progar regularly presents seminars and publishes articles for insurance claims representatives on insurance coverage, bad faith and unfair claims practices, insurance fraud, claims handling, and alternative dispute resolution.

He is admitted to practice in the states of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. He is a member of the Defense Research Institute, Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, Wisconsin Defense Counsel, the State Bar of Wisconsin, and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Mr. Progar practices primarily in the areas of employment law, insurance coverage, fraud, excess liability, and bad faith. He is admitted to practice in the states of Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois.

Adam leads new market strategy and public affairs for Columbia Care,which operates one of the largest portfolios (14 U.S. states/jurisdictions + the EU) of highly regulated, licensed medical cannabis product development, research, manufacturing and dispensing operations in the United States.

Adam is an industry leader and serves as the Chairperson of the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association, Chairperson of the Virginia Medical Cannabis Coalition, and serves on the Board of the national Cannabis Trade Federation.

Adam earned an MBA from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and received his B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Colorado State University.