By Bill Penn

Special to the Westlake Picayune

It started with a couple of straight back chairs and some hot coffee with a lot of enthused conversation stirred in. It was evident within minutes that Oscar “Pete” Peterson is a focused, passionate and disciplined man.

With a voice made for radio and smile to win the trust of his clients, Peterson displays the same passion for business and the insurance industry that he had during his baseball and football playing years decades ago. Today, serving as group insurance employee benefits consultant with the William Gammon Insurance Agency, this 19-year Davenport Ranch resident has an unlikely career trail.

That career started with a post-college baseball coaching position with the Austin school district. Peterson then decided on throwing a change-up pitch, transforming himself into one of the leading group insurance consultants in Texas.

“I’m a rare thing, an Austin native,” he said. “I’m old Austin, back before the Interregional, when there were 50,000 to 60,000 people living here. I grew up in Austin schools, from Robert E. Lee Elementary to University Junior High to Austin High when it was the only high school around.”

Peterson graduated from Austin High School in 1954 and went on to Seguin to play baseball and football on a full scholarship at Texas Lutheran University. His power on the mound and overall sports knowledge quickly manifested into a coaching position at Porter Junior High School, where he won 28 consecutive basketball games his first season.

In 1960, the recently constructed McCallum High School needed a head baseball coach and an assistant football coach to work with the ends and secondary defensive backfield. School administrators wanted Peterson. He taught high school classes and spent nine years at the helm, leading the McCallum Knights. Sitting in a coffee shop 40 some odd years later, Peterson still remembers all the jersey numbers.

Coffee is now getting cold from an appropriate lack of attention, but Peterson doesn’t notice. His lust for life is engaging. Life in baseball and football and life in the insurance business are much the same in his eyes. From being a Texas Longhorn baseball team batboy during the 1950 baseball season to working with some of the best sports coaches in Austin, Peterson learned that a focused passion for what you are doing always brings positive results. He lives his life remembering the important things he learned from his own childhood coaches, lessons he took to his coaching career and later to the business world.

“Those lessons I learned from my coaches have stayed with me,” he said. “I felt their passion. They taught me that anything worth doing has to be done right. Quality is no accident. And you have to enjoy what you are doing.”

Peterson met Patsy, his best friend and wife for the last 48 years, while he was coaching at McCallum. She came to the school as a student teacher, finishing up her degree at the University of Texas. He remembers spending a lot of time in her English class, offering to help the fledgling teacher. She remembers the first time she saw him – a drop-dead gorgeous man in a baby blue shirt and a blond flat top.

Patsy became an integral part of Peterson’s life. They traveled to and from football and baseball games. They chaperoned school dances. They married the Friday after she graduated from UT, honeymooned over the weekend and she got her first teaching job in Austin the following Monday. Nearly 50 years later, the couple still does almost everything together.

In 1970, Peterson decided he wanted to create a life for his family that a coaching salary couldn’t provide. Recruited by Blue Cross, he entered the insurance business, a path Peterson would follow for the next 41 years.

“In those days, every insurance company recruited coaches,” he said. “We were self starters, we knew how to sell. I utilized the discipline and energies that I learned in coaching and teaching and applied those to my business.”

With the launching of Pete Peterson and Associates in 1989, he actively focused on quality and delivery of group insurance service to employers. He sold the company to William Gammon Insurance in 2003, adding group insurance coverage to the company’s focus.

Peterson believes innovation is key to keeping ahead of the competition in the dramatically changing world of insurance. He has kept ahead of the game by forming a team of family and friends, inviting son-in-law Todd Gilmour to join the company in 1995. Glimour added technology advances and helped lead the company to web-based service.

“I’m an old coach,” he said. “I got to have a game plan. Game plan is important. Game plan is everything.”

Peterson’s game plan for the future is simple. He wants to help establish long-term care as a component of group insurance for Gammon. He wants to enjoy his life with Patsy, traveling and playing golf. And he wants quality time with his daughter, Pam Gilmour, and his two granddaughters, Grace, 10, and Blake, 5.

“I appreciate life more today than ever before,” he said. “Life is now.”