In the company of family
Jim Tunick enhances an inspirational story
Maura Curley
He’s a seasoned CEO, community leader, and philanthropist. He’s also a musician, former guitarist in a professional band, and previous head of a recording company in New York City.
Jim Tunick isn’t your average insurance executive.
“ I really didn’t think it was my destiny,” he observes, sitting behind a big desk in his impressive office overlooking the St. Thomas waterfront.
Tunick, president of Theodore Tunick and Company, the oldest insurance agency on the island, is referring to his reluctance to join the business his father founded in St. Thomas forty-seven years ago.
Back in 1962 the younger Tunick was a sophomore at Brown University, majoring in American literature and creative writing. After ten years of work in advertising and the arts, it may have been the thought of enhancing an inspirational story, which finally brought him to the family business.
Tunick is philosophic, as he talks about the ancestry of immigration, ambition and toil, which has shaped his life.
He never knew his paternal grandfather, whom he describes as “ an underground newspaper guy.” He immigrated from Russia, worked in the sweatshops of Brooklyn, and died at age 37. Tunick’s father Theodore grew up in Brooklyn, among eight siblings, and began folding policies in the mail room of an insurance company at the age of 12. By the time he was 17 years old he was selling life insurance and supporting his mother and five sisters. Eventually he started his own company and moved his family to Long Island.
Tunick says his maternal grandfather, who also came from Russia, introduced his parents who first traveled to St. Thomas in 1950 for the opening of the Virgin Islands Hotel. They loved the island, and kept coming back for vacation every year. In 1962 his parents made the Virgin Islands their new home.
Tunick observes that his father, after working so hard from such a young age, planned to semi-retire in St. Thomas. But the slower pace and climate agreed with him and he became reenergized.
He was the only one on the island in the early 1960’s with well-honed insurance skills.
“Nobody was a s knowledgeable as he was about the insurance industry or had the national contacts he had,” recalls Tunick, observing that the islands were just beginning to boom.
Jim Tunick visited St. Thomas for the first time during his Christmas break from his studies at Brown.
After graduating in 1964 he chose a career in advertising, working for the venerable Grey Advertising in New York.
Tunick, who plays piano, drums and guitar, met musician Sherman Kelly at the agency, and decided to pursue music full time. He began playing rhythm guitar in a band called Chin.
Coincidentally enough Chin’s manager had booked the band for an extended gig in St. Thomas at a nightclub called the Grass Shack. The band also performed in other locations in the region.
In the late 1960’s Chin was the first electronically amplified band to ever perform in Tortola.
Tunick expanded his music career by opening JT Sound Studio in New York City, which worked with notables like Bob Dylan and Jon Sebastian’s The Lovin’ Spoonful. But he says it was difficult to compete with the conglomerates, though he asserts his studio “had the atmosphere.”
In the early 1970 Tunick’s father told him the business in St. Thomas had become too much for him. Jim Tunick decided to move to the Virgin Islands in 1972 and join the company.
Back then it has just four employees including father and son. Tunick says his early years in insurance were the some of the toughest but also rewarding.
Theodore Tunick passed away in 1986, and in the ensuing years the younger Tunick continued to build the business, and his reputation as a well-respected leader.
He’s served as president of the Rotary Foundation and was president of the Virgin Islands Insurance Association in 1989, when the island was devastated by Hurricane Hugo. After the storm many insurance companies closed their doors and left the island. But Tunick got on the radio every day, instructing people how to file claims.
He recalls walking from the company’s office to a temporary processing center he had set up, “carrying a shopping bag full of checks.”
He says “It was an incredible time to be president of the insurance association."
In an effort to get carriers to once again underwrite in the islands Tunick made made three trips abroad. He finally persuaded Lloyd's of London to insure in the Virgin Islands.
Theodore Tunick is now part of Marshall and Sterling, making it an employee owned enterprise.
Today Jim Tunick continues to love music, play folk tunes on his guitar, and enjoy life with his wife Becky aboard their boat.
He also contributes to numerous non-profit organizations, is a dedicated Democrat, and a well-known supporter of the arts.
It appears he has the best of both worlds. His success in insurance didn't oversahdow his commitment to the humanities or his love of music.
In February Jim Tunick and his Rotary Cllub are sponsoring a benefit concert by the band Orleans at Reichhold Center for the Arts.
Tunicks's old friend Sherman Kelly, whom he met more than four decades ago, writes songs, sings and plays keyboard with the band.
Theodore Tunick and Company operates from the Tunick Building, which Tunick masterminded in 2000. The new building, which makes him proud, rises majestically on a hill overlooking the harbor. It’s an architectural gem with a plaque in the lobby, dedicated to his father and grandfather.
And though there is no next generation of Tunick poised to succeed him at the helm, Jim Tunick remains in the company of 36 employees, whom he says,” feel like family.”
Maura Curley is publisher of virginvoices.com.
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Click Here to Add a Comment"Great story! Proves we never know what destiny has in mind for us. The universe seems to have a plan of its own. Tunick should sleep well, knowing he's honored his father and grandfather. " - Dave Chambers (2009-11-13)