by BRIAN COOPER
TH executive editor

Lori Thielen acquired a taste for business as a young girl in her hometown, Bellevue, Iowa.

Over the years, she progressed from odd jobs for her father's business to senior executive at Dubuque's fastest-growing employer, CIGNA Retirement and Investment Services.

And she is still in her 30s.

Thielen discussed with the Telegraph Herald her management philosophy, CIGNA and its role in the community. Highlights of that conversation follow.

TH:How did you start to move toward the accounting and then the business end of things?
LT:Actually, I think it was because of the business that my father ran (Welsch Oil and LP, in Bellevue, Iowa). The office was always in the house. So many times you'd see him working in the office on numbers. It drew my interest. What does it take to run a business? What do you do? How do you interact with people to make sure that you're successful?

Lori Thielen Occupation: Vice President, Client Services of CIGNA Retirement and Investment Services, Dubuque. Age: 37. Family: Daughter of LaVonne Welsch and the late Greg Welsch. Husband Ron. Daughter Alexandria, 11. Son Zach, 8. Education: Graduate of Marquette High School, Bellevue, Iowa. Loras College, bachelor of arts in accounting, 1987. Pursuing a master's degree in executive business administration at the University of Iowa. Community leadership: United Way executive committee; Greater Dubuque Development Corp. executive committee; Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce board; Dubuque Racing Association board.

As one of the chores, we always had to help with statements every month. Printing them off the printer. Every once in a while, you'd get to do the footnoting at the bottom to make sure everything totaled. I think it was growing up in that environment.

TH:You had a pretty easy decision making a career choice?
LT:Pretty easy decision. Growing up, getting into the bookkeeping piece of it in high school was very interesting to me. Then off to Loras College. I knew going in I wanted to get an accounting degree. I got into public accounting for a couple of years. Then CIGNA put an ad in the paper that they were going to open up a service center in Dubuque, Iowa. I thought it would be fun to get in on the ground floor and see what it was going to take, how far it was going to go.

TH:It was in a trailer over here.
LT:It really was the ground floor. It felt like you sat on the ground. Yeah, there were trailers linked together. That was cold in the wintertime.

TH:You were one of the trailer originals?
LT:Yes. One of the first 20. In January of 1990.

TH:Do the people who worked in the trailer have any special sort of nickname, for the charter employees here?
LT:No, we don't, but it's interesting. Those of us who were in the trailer, if you mention the trailer, we all just laugh a little bit and almost kind of shudder because it was so cold. But it was a unique experience. It really was the coming together. That really was like an entrepreneurialship. It was the ability to go in and say, "OK, they're transplanting Dave Marini (the charter senior executive). They're transplanting a couple of people to help get us started, but after that, it's going to be ours." There was so much involvement at the associate level. You could be involved in day-to-day decisions. You were involved in building quality programs, which is difficult to do at our over 600 now, but that is a very, very important thread that we try to continue to focus on, is make sure there's involvement with the associates.

TH:A lot of people in Dubuque, I'd venture to say, see you go from the trailer to a building to, now, this beautiful new big building. But I think a lot of people probably don't know exactly what's going on inside. Describe what activities and services you provide from this particular facility.
LT:We provide to over 3,000 plan sponsors or companies and the people who work for those companies record-keeping administration for defined contributions, defined benefit and non-qualified plans ...

TH:That would be basically retirement ...
LT:Retirement planning. So many companies of any size will offer a 401(k) plan. What we do here is we make sure that we service the client, the company, making sure that their 401(k) contributions come in. If they have individuals who want to take loans, if they have individuals who retire, we make sure all that paperwork occurs, that those checks go out, that the money comes in and gets invested. And we make sure that we maintain those relationships both at the company level and at the participant level. Many times today, the company is busy running the company. The benefit for the retirement side needs to be serviced somewhere else and they're looking for their vendor to do that, and we do that here. So, individuals from all of the country call us and say, "You know, I'm thinking about taking a loan. Can you help me? Is this a good decision or not?" And we have individuals on the phone day-in and day-out helping individuals make sound decisions so that they have financial security at retirement.

TH:What does the acronym CIGNA stand for?
LT:It's actually two companies that came together. Connecticut General Life Insurance, and Insurance Company of North America. So they took the letters and put them together and it's CIGNA.

TH:The growth - 20 people to 600 people in, what, a dozen years?
LT:Yeah, in a dozen years. And probably almost doubled our size in the last three years.

TH:What's ahead? Are you looking to be stable for now, or are you still looking for that type of growth?
LT:Right now, we're holding stable. I think no one can predict the future and I think the economy has a lot to do with the ability -or the lack of ability - to predict today. It's a tough economy and we see a lot of struggle in the business economics. Actually, CIGNA Retirement and Investment Services is gaining market share. We're faring well. But the prediction is tough because of the economy.

TH:When the company was expanding, when the first new building opened, it was said that the top brass could have chosen other markets. Why Dubuque, Iowa? Did they talk to you about that?
LT:Oh, you bet. I think that's so critical. There's a couple of things. One thing that CIGNA needed to do is they wanted to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. If you looked at us compared to our competitors 12, 13 years ago, we really didn't have an identity that could set us apart. Many of our competitors were going after the price: "We're going to be low price. We're going to give you in-the-box service. This is what it's going to be." Some of our competitors were going after technology: "We have a lot of money. We're going to keep building the technology faster, faster than anyone else." CIGNA said, "We want to build on the stature of service. That's our ground center, what we're going to build off of." So when they did that, they were really looking to build a center of excellence from a service perspective. With that in mind, they opened up Dubuque. I think they were testing the waters. The first draw to Dubuque was the educated and available work force. We have some strong colleges around here that offer a lot of business expertise, so you have the educated and available work force. The culture was that caring culture, that work-life balance, that family, along with strong work ethic. Nothing's more surprising than when individuals, typically from the east, come out to visit and when we say that meetings start at 8, they're there at 8, the room is full. I think it's just the culture of the work ethic to be on time. And then the balance. At the close of the day, then we go home and spend time with the family as well. Really, the third reason was the financial partnership between the city, the state and the company. The city and the state couldn't have done a better job at the right time of saying, "We will help you from an economic development funding perspective for you to sustain and grow locally." Very, very key.

TH:You referred to center of excellence. What would be some examples of what you feel represent excellence in terms of the quality of service?
LT:I think from our perspective, it's not tangible. It's a feeling. It's the feeling people get. It's hard for us to describe locally because we will have people from all over the country come in. When they leave, they say, "This building has a feeling. This organization has a feeling about it." And I think it's that feeling of caring. When you talk about people who are in smaller communities and how you take care of your community, that comes through when you're interacting. When you get to do that face-to-face, equally as much as when you're on the phone. A little bit more difficult from the phone, but it does come through. The other piece of it is we're ground in matrix around is service delivery. We give ourselves a daily score. We call it our Wellness Score. How well are we doing on a number of matrix behind the scenes? And each day, management looks at that and says, "We're got a good score, We've got a good score," then, "Something changed. The score today went from 98 to 96. What's causing that?" We're rigorous about our matrix and making sure our service delivery is there. We do it on the phone with our participants. We want to have 80 percent of our calls answered in 20 seconds. We do it through surveys. We survey every 35th caller into the participant call center. We survey our plan sponsors on 11 different transactions a year. We monitor our availability for our plan sponsors.

TH:Have the corporate accounting scandals - Enron and the like - affected your industry? The pension, benefits administration aspect?
LT:The awareness has impacted the industry. Many of the individuals who were left at the end of some of those corporate scandals were left with nothing. Not only did they not have a job, they may not have much in a retirement plan as well. So it really has put some focus on making sure that you're educating your associates to make sure that participants are balancing their risks along with the life stage that they're in and then their financial situation today and their financial goals. That's where we come in. We're talking to plan sponsors. "Can we be out with you more frequently? Because you probably have a very nervous work force. We can partner with you from a retirement perspective to help calm and to help educate and to help ensure people are comfortable." They may be doing all the right things, but many, we understand, are putting their head in the sand and just hoping that the economy turns around. That's not the approach we'd like to see them take.

TH:Is this still a good time for people to put money aside for their retirement?
LT:It definitely is. I would encourage people to, what we like to call, is "match the max." Many companies give matching percentages. Make sure that you're matching to the max. You're contributing enough to get 100 percent of that match that's available. Even when it's difficult, contribute a little bit more. People work so hard, and they're working even harder now. You want to make sure that they can play hard at retirement. I know it's difficult.

TH:How would you describe your management style?
LT:There are two pieces that I think of. One is, one person can't be the expert and can't know it all, so it's an inclusive management style. It's seeking the expertise across-the-board when making important decisions. It's delegating the ability to make the decisions to someone else who does have the expertise. I feel that I'm only one person and I can't know everything, and I know I don't. I would call it inclusive. Then there's the coaching and mentoring element of it. It's making sure you're delegating at the right time. That you give people the empowerment to make the right decisions and then coach them if there's a learning opportunity in there. It really is polishing the gems. I think that everyone comes to work wanting to do a great job, and it's finding out what they're good at and helping them get there, working through that people development.

TH:Has your management style evolved or changed, either as you gain more experience personally and professionally and also as the organization has grown?
LT:Definitely. I think my management style, being inclusive, has been something I'm most comfortable with because of the sophistication of the pension industry, and really almost any business now. One person won't know every facet of the industry. So that's been the same, but it's drawn upon now thinking of it for more of a P and L (profit and loss) perspective. Bringing that into place, versus an implementation. Typically, many times prior, I would be in roles where the decision was made. The decision that I was to make was how to implement it to be successful. Now it's more of the strategic decisions and it's making sure that you have a broader scope of inclusion, who are you talking to.

TH:More big picture?
LT:More big picture. And then more diligence around what do we think it's going to get us. Because I think many times you can make a decision but if you don't have a goal set - I'm a firm believer that what gets measured gets done.

TH:Are there times you just have this temptation to micromanage, to just go in and "fix" it?
LT:Actually, I tend to do that, not because I think someone else can't, but because when you touch things at a very high level, you don't get that little endorphin that you get to check off that you personally did it. So your personal accomplishments are less personal. They're more through other people. So every once in awhile, you get that, "I just want to run that project all the way to the end so that I can say I was there." But typically, you're kicking it off, you're watching it halfway through and once you know you're in sound, you get updates. But it's not like you're churning, you're in the middle of the meetings, you're really part of the whole all the way through. So that's probably what I miss the most.

TH:If you're going to get angry or upset about something that goes on around here, what do you think it's likely to be or involve?
LT:I think it's likely, my disappointment would come from people, one, not thinking that we would do something about it if they brought it up. And two, people not wanting to be involved in the solution. I think that it takes everybody to be successful and if people get frustrated or don't understand or have an idea and don't think they can bring it up, that's where I say you're wrong. We need to hear about it. If you have an idea, we need to hear about it. You can't do them all and I think that's probably what keeps me awake at night, is keeping the balance between the people, the people development, the clients and their needs, and then the business strategies along with being a wife, a mom, a student and a friend. Somewhere in the mix. But I think that's what I get most disappointed with is people who, maybe you hear through an exit interview or maybe you have the opportunity someday to bump into someone you haven't seen in a while in the hallway and you say, "How're you doing?" "Well, I'm really frustrated. I think we have this workflow that could be better." "What are you doing about it?" "Well, you know ..."

TH: "... We know you wouldn't do anything about it anyway, so why bring it up?"
LT:Right, exactly. If that's happening, if they are bumping into situations - "I have shared ideas and they're not going anywhere" - then I need to know about it, or their next level manager. Someone needs to know about it.

TH:What would you say have been the biggest obstacles facing this operation over the last few years?
LT:I think the change in image. When we started 13 years ago, I would say we were a processing center. That processing center was behind the scenes. We didn't talk to clients. We interacted with associates across the country who talked to the clients. We didn't talk directly to participants. I don't think anyone in the industry did. So we were really just what I would call the processing center. We are now on the front end. We have prospects who come in. Yesterday, for the last two days, we've had our sales team for one of our market segments here. So it's no longer thinking small, it's thinking broad. And it's no longer being seen as a processing center in the community but being seen as a business center of excellence, which includes sophistication around investments, around technology, around the pension industry. So, I think that shift from back office, which could almost mirror manufacturing, to we need IT expertise, we need people who are Series 67 licensed, we need the principal license. We need people who want to be ground in the pension industry for time to come because it's a complex industry and it takes you time to get to know the ins and outs. That shift has been difficult for us. But it has been witnessed as we first started to set some of our technology expertise here. It took us a year to land the director of technology because we weren't seen in the market place as the place to go if you wanted to have an IT background and career. So that shift has been the most difficult.

TH:What about CIGNA's involvement in the community? Is that something that the company is encouraging?
LT:Strongly encourage. Actually, we had a very strong United Way campaign this year. We just were informed that we were the top team for March of Dimes and we were the top team for the American Heart Walk. We were busy working on the Relay for Life. We just exceeded our goal for the American Red Cross; we now have enough blood-givers that we have two days of them in our lunchroom. We did 161 pints of blood. So, there are various ways that we're interacting with the community. We have individuals involved in Habitat for Humanity. Individuals involved in the United Way, March of Dimes, the Chamber, the GDDC. The people here are extending their caring. Inside the organization, we have a fundraising committee. And the fundraising committee, their new campaign right now is to sell the cookie dough and the pizza kits. They make money off of that and it goes into the fundraising bucket. Then employees can request that the committee review their request to support a local event or a local charity in the community. From a corporate level, we wish we had more to give financially, but in light of that, the people understand and they're willing to help us help themselves fill that gap is they feel it's that important.

TH:It sounds like folks have some fun doing that, too. TL:Yes, they do. We have fun. And I think that's important. I think we work hard and we try to play hard locally as well.

TH:We talked earlier about the community leadership and your involvement in the Fly Dubuque campaign. How important is local air service to an operation like CIGNA?
LT:I think it is critical. It's critical for us to be able to get our associates from around the country here and to get our prospects and our clients here. I think that it's critical for the community. We are on the verge of a wonderful time in comparison. I was here in the years where people said, "The last one out of Dubuque, turn the lights out." We're on the verge of opening a very large and wonderful conference center. Along with the river museum. I just think it's phenomenal. We're on the cusp of all of that and I think the survival, specifically the conference center, is going to rely on air travel.

TH:Has the organization had to do anything differently with the loss of Northwest Airlink in mid-May?
LT:No. Actually, it just has changed our schedules a little bit. Where we might have been able to make a quicker jaunt out somewhere, we may have to stay an extra night in order to get there, but that's doable. Nothing immediately; no dramatic changes.

TH:More of a long-term concern.
LT:Yeah, more of a long-term concern. The viability of the airport, I think, is really critical. Hopefully, as the Masterpiece of the Mississippi continues to develop down there and the museum and the conference center take off, we're not finished. We're on the edge of more. I think that "more" needs to make sure that there's air travel in and out.

TH:If there was something you could change - we're talking about the job now - about your job or how things run around here, what might that be?
LT:The one thing I would change would be the ability for the people to see the empowerment and to grab it. I think that that's what I feel's important and I don't think I get to say that enough to individuals and I don't know that they feel it. I think it takes all of us to make a stronger, better company. I don't know that that message is clear enough and that they really believe it.

TH:Well, it's counter to what a lot of people perceive about work and supervisors.
LT:And decision making. You bet. I grew up where the parents made the decisions and that's just the background that you grow up in. I think many times people believe that the management makes the decisions, that they can be part of that. But I think some of that is also the environment. People are busy, so there's less creativity time or creative time to be able to step back and just say, "We could do this differently." Then if they have the idea, now it's going to take time to implement the idea, so there's probably other factors in there as well.

Copyright: Copyright 2003 Telegraph Herald