Jim Ash and Tim Ash — the brokerage general agency

founded 1971

Jim Ash built Ash Brokerage out of a layoff: as a boy he had helped in his father's hardware store, he served as a Marine, and he was laid off from an entry-level job at International Harvester during a strike — his later biographer dates the episode to 1965. On his first day as an insurance agent he delivered a $1,000 claim check, and the lesson stayed with him. He founded Ash Brokerage in Fort Wayne in 1971 — a Broker World award notice of December 2023 gives the founding as 1970, "with one part time employee," and the variant stands here beside the company's own 1971 — beginning with three employees in what is now the STAR Bank building. His son Tim Ash became chief executive in 1997 and grew the firm into the largest independently owned insurance brokerage general agency in the United States, with more than five hundred employees; a third generation, Jim's grandson Austin, is on the team. Jim Ash received the National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies' Douglas Mooers Award for Excellence, was Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern Indiana in 1999 and entered the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame in 2018; the trade calls him one of the founding fathers of the brokerage-general-agency community. He remains on the company's board. Tim Ash is credited in his company biography with helping to lead downtown Fort Wayne's revitalisation efforts. Integrity Marketing Group's acquisition of the firm, announced 4 May 2022, is the Business section's.

Sources:

1. Businesses — "Ash Brokerage" (the company's history: the 1971 start in the STAR Bank building and the 2022 acquisition).
2. Integrity Marketing Group, company profile of Jim and Tim Ash (March 2025) — the Marine service, the 1965 layoff dating, the claim check, Tim Ash's 1997 succession and the firm's standing; Broker World (December 2023) — the Douglas Mooers Award notice and the 1970 founding variant.