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If Jarrod Patterson looks familiar, you may have seen him singing on stage at Church of the Highlands. But during the weekdays, you’ll find him serving as Director, New Business Operations at Protective or spending time with his five children. Keep reading to learn more about Jarrod’s journey from music major to his current role and why he loves it.
The family is very active at Church of the Highlands, where Jarrod, who has a bachelor’s degree in music, plays in the worship ministry. For fun, he plays guitar and writes songs.
He’s been with Protective for almost five years now and loves it. Here’s his story.
Bham Now: How did you go from music to what you are doing now?
Patterson: “We moved from Birmingham to Nashville after getting married so my wife could run a housing program for a school. With my music degree, Nashville was a logical place to go. My goal was to get a job doing studio production and songwriting. Since we were expecting our first child, though, we needed benefits, which none of the things I was doing offered.
“I got a basic data entry level job and really enjoyed working in corporate America, which gave me opportunities to grow my skills and move up. While I was there, I got my MBA. One of my bosses, who had a background in Lean Six Sigma consulting and operations leadership, turned me on to that specialization.
“Eventually, I landed a job with UBS Financial Services as a process improvement consultant. In 2017, my wife and I wanted to come back to Birmingham to be closer to family. There were only a couple of companies that had postings for process improvement / Lean Six Sigma type of work, and Protective was one of those.”
Bham Now: What was special about Protective?
Patterson: “I didn’t know about Protective growing up. Now I see it as a sleeping giant—a steady and stable company that’s been around for 100+ years, headquartered here in Birmingham and really involved in the city and well respected in the community. I had a good experience with the interview and they offered me the position.”
Bham Now: Where did you start within the company and what is your current role?
Patterson: “I started as an internal business process improvement consultant. It was fun and I enjoyed that role a lot. I had the opportunity to work with lots of different people and organizations around the company. Building relationships through that role opened the door to serving as a director in our new business organization. Specifically, I lead our TeleLife Team, which does medical interviews over the phone with life insurance customers.”
Bham Now: You have advanced fairly quickly. What within the culture of Protective made that possible?
Patterson: “There’s a great collaborative culture here at Protective. Something I noticed right away when I joined the company is that everyone is genuinely interested in helping each other grow. Another part of that collaborative culture is that Protective invests in their employees, providing opportunities to figure out what their next steps are and ultimately take them. “
Bham Now: Let’s say someone’s looking for that job with benefits. They see Protective and don’t really know much about life insurance. What would you say to them?
Patterson: “I’m always interested in taking a peek under the hood and getting to know how things work. It seems relatively simple, like you apply for this product or service, pay the premiums, then you get it. But there are a lot of moving pieces and a lot of folks involved in making that happen. Also, given the climate we’re in for the last couple of years, life insurance is a really valuable service. 20-23-year-old Jarrod may not have really understood that.
“But certainly as soon as my wife and I got married, friends who were in the same stage of life encouraged us to get life insurance. We did when we were still pretty young newlyweds, but especially now, it’s something I’m thankful that we have.
You can easily tie life insurance, retirement and asset protection products to a greater purpose of serving people and helping to make sure they and their loved ones are protected.”
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