Stuart A. Robertson - Partnership With Milliman

Partnership With Milliman

Robertson joined Milliman in his two-room office at 914 Second Avenue in Seattle, bringing Northwestern Life along as a client. In one room, the two shared a phone and an enormous desk, with a top consisting of a five-foot-by-five-foot oak slab. The desk had “a full complement of drawers on either side,” Robertson later recalled. Milliman and Robertson were so busy that they “spent little time conversing other than to say ‘pass the telephone.’”

In addition to Northwestern Life, Robertson, who by this time had experience working for small insurance firms, was assigned to work for eight or nine such clients. However, just six months after coming to work with Milliman, Robertson found himself in a novel situation. Wendell Milliman had been offered a job with a large Eastern firm, New York Life Insurance Company, to become a vice president in charge of organizing and administrating the firm’s new group insurance department. While the pay—$25,000 per year—was good for 1950, it was the challenge that attracted him and he decided to go.

Milliman offered to sell Robertson the firm and, though Robertson had concerns that he had no backup capital of his own, he finally accepted. The terms included $1,000 up front and five yearly payments, which eventually amounted to $9,630. Five years later, however, Milliman made a surprise visit to Robertson, at which point he asked if he would like a partner—namely one Wendell Milliman.

Robertson readily agreed and soon they formed Milliman & Robertson; they were joined by new partner Tom Bleakney, whom Robertson had hired in Milliman’s absence. In 1957, the firm incorporated. By 1965, it had opened new offices in Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.;Honolulu; Salt Lake City; Chicago; and New York City. At that point, Milliman & Robertson was the second largest actuarial firm in the country.