Growing up on a potato farm near Raft River, Idaho, Jay first learned the value of hard work. As a result, he has great respect for those who keep food on our shelves. But he also quickly learned that farming was not the life for him!

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Before leaving home in 1997, he developed a love for Star Trek in its various incarnations. For him, science fiction is about the technological marvels humans can produce through their creative innovation and resilience. And Jay believes that Star Trek is "one of the few narratives that provides an optimistic view of the future that is also somewhat believable." Two Star Trek ideals he loves are (1) that people may one day be able to voluntarily contribute to society for personal enrichment and the betterment of everyone instead of merely to make ends meet, and (2) that the nations of Earth will come together to form a united global democratic society.

 

During high school, he wrote a handful of freelance scripts for Star Trek and found an agent registered with the Writers’ Guild to offer them to Paramount Pictures. Star Trek was unique in Hollywood, in that it had an open script-submission policy. Sadly, that policy was reversed before he finished honing his writing skills—so that dream did not come to fruition.

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For the first 14 years after leaving home, Jay pursued his dream of teaching physics at a university, and eventually obtained a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University (LSU). His doctoral dissertation focused on astrophysics—namely, computational techniques for simulating fluid flows and relativistic effects inside neutron stars. During graduate school, he met and married Amber Van Slyke, and they had boy-girl twins. Amber was working on an undergraduate degree in climatology at the time, but she struggled with extremely acute morning sickness and had to abandon her school plans. Jay held various part-time jobs throughout his seven years of graduate studies, but during the last year, he had to start teaching high school full-time in order keep paying the bills. He established an AP physics program for Louisiana’s highest performing school—Zachary High School. And he and Amber had their third (and final) child, a boy.

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Unfortunately, by the time he completed the Ph.D., the recession that began in 2008 was in full swing, and the job market in academics was extremely poor. He spent his second year teaching high school trying to find a more permanent job that he would fully enjoy. Career prospects were daunting. After learning about the actuarial profession, Jay realized it was a good fit and that it provided much better job security than academics, so he started taking actuarial exams. Initially, the plan was to teach a third year of high school before transitioning to an actuarial career, but after achieving a perfect score on the first exam between school years, he and Amber decided to make a change immediately.

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While he wanted to return closer to his native Idaho home, he knew that most actuarial positions were at big companies in big cities. He figured if he was lucky, he might be able to find something in Salt Lake. It seemed unreal when he heard from a family friend (who happened to be on the board of Idaho Farm Bureau) that there might be an opportunity for him in Pocatello.

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After writing some letters, he got an exploratory call from David Acevedo and arranged for a series of interviews. The “interview” with Randy Nordquist was far from what Jay expected. There were no questions about qualifications or aspirations. Just a quick “Come look over my shoulder,” followed by a four-hour tutorial on geocoding and insurance basics. He remembers being quite hungry by the time he got out of there!

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Jay was initially hired in November 2011 to develop predictive analytics and to provide new pricing insights for the company. He worked closely with Sandy Richardson over the next several years to gain access to the company’s historical premium, exposure, and loss information. Many of the insights that were derived from multivariate analyses of this data lead to refinement of our personal lines pricing structure. He also worked with Steve Weighall and Randall Brown to establish the company’s first by-peril rating for homeowners’ insurance.

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In January 2017, he finally passed his seventh actuarial exam and become an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society. That summer, he gave a presentation on geocoding, geographic diversification, and spatial analysis at the Farm Bureau Actuarial Conference in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He has since published a peer-reviewed article in the Actuarial journal Variance on determining appropriate diversification discounts.

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Last year, he had the "tremendous pleasure" of joining the Data Wizards team and beginning the work to provide the Actuarial Department with needed data from the new Guidewire systems. "This was an enriching experience in which I was able to develop a rapport with many new colleagues," Jay says. It was also during this time that he completed the required work to become a Certified Specialist in Predictive Analytics (CSPA).

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Since his promotion to Actuarial Director earlier this year, he has worked closely with stakeholders throughout the company to make broad changes to our personal lines rating structure—changes that are designed specifically to increase transparency, personalize the rating experience, and help improve the company’s loss ratio. These improvements will not all happen overnight, but will undergo a phased rollout over the next 3-4 years. Jay says similar improvements will likely come to commercial lines, as well, over the next several years.

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Jay’s excited about what the future may hold for Farm Bureau. He believes we have an opportunity to be industry leaders by being the first carrier (or, at least, among the first) to implement several (automated) novel rating techniques: stratified Bayesian experience rating, policy-level premium stability, spatial analysis, continuously varying fire protection classifications, and complete transparency on discounts and surcharges.

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