MyWHaT

(NOTE: Part of the goal with MyWHaT is to 1) have lots of comments (thank you) and, 2) occasionally have guest writers. Today, in a little break from recent hoopla, I introduce to you, Chester. Chester is the cantankerous but intelligent hippie alter ego of a local who wears a suit to work, looks as straight edged as possible, and has to work with many of the people he’d like to “roast”. MyWHaT is happy to give a venue)

Hagerty Insurance: It’s about the cars, stupid

The Hagerty swagger was in full force late last month at the Traverse City Chamber dinner at the Grand Traverse Resort. McKeel Hagerty, the company’s President was touted as the key-note speaker, with the promise of teaching small businesses owners how to go forward with the challenges of the new economy.

Living in the past, Connery and the Aston Martin DB5.

His solution was a long drawn out presentation that resembled more of a self-promoting pep rally than a well intentioned key-note speech. Hagerty twice mentioned what he thought was our country’s zenith, the glory days of post WW II, when the car was king, and interstate highways created alleged suburban bliss (along with the metropolitan sprawl attitude we still find ourselves dealing with, even here in Traverse City).

Maybe it was most disappointing that the Hagerty company visibly does little to support alternative transportation (sorry, parking garages for your own employees don’t count) and is beholden to maintain the car guy culture that still lusts over 1960’s muscle cars like a gangly adolescent.

A scary thought for a company that to its credit employs 400 people and plans to hire several hundred more in the next decade.

The multi-media presentation featured Hagerty’s maligned version of history, which of course emphasized America’s love affair with the automobile. If you love cars, think that you are James Bond, or just wanted to wax poetic over the golden age of the internal combustion engine, then this big show was for you.

The night’s message offered little advice for those of us struggling with our own businesses for moving into the future, and even less for those that would like more alternatives for commuting and saving on fuel and transportation costs.

Hagerty probably doesn’t get that part, because in many ways the Hagerty swagger and all, is still living in the past.

—By Chester

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Or, maybe Chester, the Hagerty president is trying to compete with the man-himself, Bono. Just last month he called for a Return of the Automobile as a Sexual Object. For a related critique of that superstars love affair with the car, you might enjoy Jeremy Holmes’ Enough With the Fetishization, it’s Just a Car article at Ride Solutions.

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