William John Salladin II, a former insurance executive who headed All Risks Ltd. for more than three decades, died Friday of prostate cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 67.
Mr. Salladin, the son of an insurance executive and a homemaker, was born in Proctor, Vt. The family moved to Rumson, N.J., and then to Towson in 1957.
After graduating from Towson High School in 1961, Mr. Salladin attended the University of Maryland, College Park.
An animal lover, Mr. Salladin was 14 when he began working for a Towson veterinarian and had planned on studying to become a veterinarian.
Instead, he went to work for his father in 1967, who had established All Risks Ltd. in the old Chamber of Commerce Building in downtown Baltimore.
"Bill's approach to entering into new lines of insurance and crafting deals was sometimes seen as risky by his father, who had a more conservative approach to the business," said a son-in-law, Dr. Mark D. Baganz, a neuroradiologist and pediatric radiologist.
When his father died unexpectedly in 1972, Mr. Salladin, then 29, took over operation of the business.
At the time he joined the firm, it had a handful of employees in a two-room office.
"Bill Salladin's skills as a tough but fair negotiator and his intuition about new opportunities led to the company's rapid growth," Dr. Baganz said.
As computers became commonplace in the workplace during the 1970s, this "created an insurance company dilemma in calculating residual value of leased office equipment," Dr. Baganz said.
"Bill saw an opportunity. He flew to London and went to Lloyd's, the oldest insuring institution in the world," he said. "Lloyd's operated under a code of utmost good faith. Reputation is the main currency that brokers trade in, and Bill's reputation at Lloyd's was gold-plated."
Dr. Baganz said that insurers would sign on to risks submitted "simply because his name was behind them."
In conjunction with Lloyd's underwriters, Mr. Salladin fashioned an insurance policy that addressed the residual value of the leased computers.
"He brought this product to market and it was a runaway success, and the profits generated by this one product eclipsed the income of the remainder of the agency," Dr. Baganz said.
Mr. Salladin used the proceeds to develop many other new insurance products, and his company became the "nation's largest privately held wholesale insurance brokerage."
Gifted with an engaging personality, a strong work ethic and a capacity for friendship, Mr. Salladin was able to turn "strangers into friends and adversaries into allies," Dr. Baganz said.
Though demanding as a boss, Mr. Salladin had a reputation for kindness and generosity. He made it a point to know each of his employees personally along with their spouses and children.
When employees had personal or financial problems, Mr. Salladin stepped in and offered assistance from what they called the "Bank of Bill."
"Bill always had an open-door policy with his employees, Bonnie Huber, who has worked for All Risks Ltd. since 1972, wrote in an e-mail. "He made it clear I could tell him anything, could turn to him for friendship and support. He made his employees believe that if we stuck together through the rough times and worked toward a common goal, we would succeed. And he was right."
Nick Cortezi, now CEO of All Risks Ltd., was a Johns Hopkins University student when he went to work there in 1987.
"He hired me and put me in the file room, and Bill had me work every desk on the way up. Every vacancy became my job," Mr. Cortezi said. "He was remarkable in so many ways. He was an employer who cared deeply for those who worked for him and the company, so in return they trusted him and gave him 150 percent."
"He didn't care about rank or status. He was not a pretentious man," Mr. Cortezi said. "He engendered an enormous amount of trust and had a reputation for integrity."
He described Mr. Salladin as an "unflappable" and ebullient individual who "always saw success on the horizon."
Mr. Salladin continued to be an adviser after selling the business, which is now located in Hunt Valley, in 2005.
The longtime Cockeysville resident remained active in the business world, and was involved with the AutoSpa Car Wash in Cockeysville and Klamath Boat Co. in Vallejo, Calif.
Mr. Salladin was an avid power boater in the Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco and the Caribbean.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Baltimore Country Club's Five Farms, 11500 Mays Chapel Road, in Lutherville.
Surviving are his wife of 21 years, the former Lora Sundra; two daughters, Laura Elizabeth Salladin of Edgewater and Lisa Salladin Childs of Monkton; his mother, Mary Salladin of Lutherville; a sister, Judith Grewel of Phoenix, Baltimore County; a stepson, Steven Sundra of Linwood, N.J.; a stepdaughter, Loralee Sundra of Los Angeles; and six grandchildren. An earlier marriage to the former Barbara Cox ended in divorce.