Robert J. Duke is Vice President and Legal Counsel for Markel Surety. Prior to joining Markel, Rob was Surety Legal Counsel for Euler Hermes North America. Previously, he was General Counsel for The Surety & Fidelity Association of America, the industry trade association for insurance companies that write surety bonds. 

Mr. Duke was in the surety and fidelity industry as a company underwriter and broker for 8 years before joining SFAA in 1999. Mr. Duke spent two years working in private law practice.

He has authored several articles on surety and fidelity topics.  

Mr. Duke graduated with a J.D. summa cum laude and first in class from Columbus School of Law, Catholic University in 2005. He graduated summa cum laude from Loyola College of Maryland in 1988 with a Bachelors in Business Administration and obtained a Masters in Business Administration from Loyola College in 1992.  

Ralph began his surety career with the Travelers in 1985 in Albany, New York. Subsequently he has served in both home office and field management positions for Travelers, Continental Insurance and Amwest Surety Insurance Company. In 2001, he returned to Travelers where he serves as a Regional Underwriting Officer for Construction Services of Travelers Bond and Specialty Insurance based in Hartford, Connecticut. He has underwriting responsibilities for Northeast Midwest territory as well as the Construction Services Express unit in Exton, Pennsylvania.

Ralph serves on the National Association of Surety Bond Producers’ (NASBP) Professional Development and Education Committee, Virtual Seminar Advisory Board, and the Emerging Contractor Committee. Ralph has been a faculty member for the NASBP’s William Angel Surety School since 1990 and involved with both the development and teaching of the Level II and Level III curriculum. In 2013, the NASBP awarded Ralph with the John J. Curtin Jr Presidents Award for his distinguished service to the surety industry.

Ralph also serves on the contract surety advisory board for the Minority Business Development Institute and assists the Surety and Fidelity Association of America with its initiatives in support of small and emerging contractor initiatives. He has served on the advisory committee for the Insurance Institute of America’s Associate in Surety and Fidelity Bonding designation program and is recognized by the Institute for contributing to the technical review of their AFSB 152 text book material.

Ralph is a cum laude graduate of Siena College. He received his Associate in Fidelity and Surety Bond designation in 1993.

Sam is the AVP of Surety Sales at Skillings Shaw & Associates.  Sam brings over 13 years of experience in the surety bond industry, specializing in managing complex bond portfolios, developing strategic partnerships, and driving growth through tailored solutions.  With a strong background in underwriting, client relationship management, and market analysis, Sam plays a key role in expanding the agency’s footprint across construction, commercial, and specialty bond markets. 

 Prior to his current role, Sam served as an Account Executive, working with contractors, developers, and businesses across a wide range of industries.  He worked closely with his clients to navigate complex underwriting requirements and secure the bonds they need to grow and operate with confidence.  Sam also started his career working with construction companies as a surety underwriter in Southern California.  

David Jean has over 25 years of experience in public accounting. He focuses primarily on financial accounting and consulting for construction, real estate, and manufacturing companies. David’s expertise is respected among New England’s construction community and endorsed nationally through his membership on The Certified Public Accountant Advisory Council, an exclusive, 8-member council formed to serve as the resource team for the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP).

In addition to providing traditional accounting and tax services, David provides specialized services such as overhead burden analyses, operational reviews, and benchmarking analyses. He regularly counsels our construction and real estate clients on industry best practices on matters such as strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, establishing and upgrading job costing systems, cost segregation, profit enhancement, and succession planning. David has written numerous articles and regularly develops and leads seminars on various industry-related tax and financial management issues. 

Colleen Clarke is Vice President, Surety, Roanoke Trade Services, Inc. She focuses on the review and analysis of CBP policy including new issues from the perspective of the surety underwriting group as well as the client services team. She manages the Roanoke Trade independent agent unit for U.S. Customs bonds. In 2008 Ms. Clarke was appointed to the 11th term of the Commercial Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) where she participates in several subcommittees. She serves as co-chair of the Surety Account Subcommittee within the Trade Support Network (TSN) and works closely with CBP as a representative on the Customs/Surety Executive Committee (C/SEC).

Michelle has been involved in the International Trade Segment of the Insurance Field since 1993 holding various roles throughout her career in both agency and company surety operations. From 2009 to 2019 Michelle served as Vice President of Surety for Navigators Management Company, Inc. (NMC). In April of 2019, Navigators became a Brand of The Hartford where Michelle managed the Customs and Logistics Surety Division until moving to her current role as Vice President of Customs Surety at Tokio Marine HCC in 2022

John Sheppard has been with C.A. Shea & Company, Inc. for over 22 years, and is currently the Vice President. He oversees the day to day operations of the bond department and is responsible for underwriting and dealing with Customs on both the local and executive levels.

Alana L. Porrazzo is a partner in the Phoenix, Arizona, office of Jennings Haug Keleher McLeod Waterfall LLP and licensed to practice in the state and federal courts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Louisiana. She is a co-chair of the FSLC Law Division Bankruptcy Subcommittee and a member of the Arizona State Bar Association Construction Section Executive counsel. Ms. Porrazzo’s practice emphasizes defending bond claims and bad faith allegations, litigating performance defaults, prosecuting subrogation and indemnity claims, and representing sureties in principal and indemnitor bankruptcies. She studied at Yale University (B.A., 2009) and Tulane University School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 2016).

CHAD L. SCHEXNAYDER is a partner in the Phoenix office of Jennings Haug Keleher McLeod Waterfall LLP. For more than 38 years, his practice has focused principally on the surety and construction industry, representing builders, public and private owners, design professionals, suppliers, sureties and insurers. He represents clients before agencies, mediators, arbitrators, and in state and federal courts, including U.S. bankruptcy courts, throughout the country. He is a Past Chair of the Fidelity and Surety Law Committee of the American Bar Association, Tort & Insurance Practice Section.  Mr. Schexnayder is an editor and author in numerous industry publications, including Surety Aspects of Bankruptcy Law and Practice, American Bar Association (2021) (ed.), and Chapter 145 in the New Appleman on Insurance Law Library Edition.  He has spoken before the American College of Construction Lawyers, Surety Claims Institute, American Bar Association, Pearlman Association, Mid-South Commercial Law Institute, National Association of Surety Bond Producers, West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Seminar, the Surety and Fidelity Association of America, and the Arizona State Bar Construction Law Section on bankruptcy, surety and construction law subjects.  He is a cum laude graduate of Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and a cum laude graduate of Washington University at St. Louis.

Tiffany Harrod is a partner at Peckar & Abramson's Houston and Austin offices. With over 14 years of experience, she focuses on construction and commercial litigation, representing clients in matters such as contract negotiations, lien and bond issues, defect claims, non-payment claims, alternative dispute resolution, and arbitrations. She is the Immediate Past Chair of the Houston Bar Association Construction Law Section and is active in the State Bar of Texas.

Michael Keller currently holds the role of Home Office Underwriting Director at CNA Surety which entails handling both middle market clients on the West Coast and international reverse-flow surety clients across the Nation.  After attending the University of Washington, he has spent the past 12 years in the construction and surety industry with most of that time spent with CNA. He currently resides in the greater Seattle area. 

Ed is a Senior Vice President at American Global working with contractors both in the Greater New York region as well as firms with a national and global presence.  Ed brings over 30 years of legal and surety underwriting expertise providing strategic surety solutions to contractors throughout North America.   

Prior to joining American Global, Ed was a Senior Vice President and surety leader in Aon’s Construction Services Group.  Ed began his surety carrier with Chubb and spent over 20 years in various surety underwriting and legal roles, most recently as their Vice President and Regional Surety Manager and prior to that as their Surety General Counsel. Ed has regularly presented on various construction and legal topics related to surety to industry organizations including the Associated General Contractors and the ABA Fidelity and Surety Law Committee .Ed is a Vice Chair of the American Bar Association Fidelity and Surety Law Committee.

Ed’s expertise includes surety and other forms of performance security on projects including significant experience with alternative project delivery methods including public private partnerships (P3) and other large Design-Build procurements.  His client base is a mix of Regional, National and Global construction companies. Ed has been involved in providing surety solutions including P3 bonds with liquidity components on some of the largest P3 and Design Build RFP project procurements of the past decade in North America.  

Megan Mazzeffi is Surety Counsel at RLI Insurance Corp. She provides legal support to underwriting across all surety lines. Before joining RLI, Megan worked as Claims Counsel with Travelers and CNA where she managed complex surety performance and payment bond claims. Prior to moving in house, Megan practiced law in Chicago, focusing her practice on surety, construction and commercial litigation. Megan received her Juris Doctorate from University of Illinois, Chicago School of Law and her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Political Science from Purdue University.

Sam is the Director-AsiaPac, Global Risk Claims at Liberty Mutual.  He  is a graduate of Stanford University (BA Economics) and Seattle University School of Law and has over 30 years of experience in commercial and surety law.  His current role with Liberty focuses on the administration and review of domestic an reverse flow claims for large international accounts, specifically for the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.  In his spare time he can be found performing on stage, traveling or flailing on a golf course, weather permitting.

Patrice is a managing director at CBIZ, co-leads CBIZ’s national ESOP practice and sits on CBIZ’s Fairness Opinion Committee.  Patrice specializes in advising shareholders of middle-market companies on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transactions, fairness opinions and other consulting advisory services. In addition, Patrice has been instrumental in leading per previous firm’s (Marcum LLP) national ESOP practice. Patrice is on the Valuation Advisory Committee for the ESOP Association, speaks on various topics at national ESOP conferences and regularly publishes for both internal company-wide ESOP newsletters and outside publications.  Patrice also started her career working with construction companies as a surety underwriter in New York City. 

Wilson Denari is a Manager in the Valuation group. He has performed valuations of business interests for a variety of purposes including, but not limited to, employee stock ownership plans, gift & estate tax, mergers and acquisitions, shareholder buy-sell agreements, and healthcare transactions. Wilson primarily specializes in completing valuations for buy and sell-side ESOP transactions as well as annual valuation updates to ESOP trustees with existing ESOP clients. 

Prior to his current role, Mr. Denari performed valuations for the purposes listed above, in addition to financial due diligence services for buy and sell-side third party transactions, at a regional accounting and advisory firm located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Prior to appraising privately held businesses, Wilson served as an investment accounting supervisor for a global provider of investment processing, management, and operations solutions in Indianapolis. He also has experience providing assurance services in the financial services sector for a Big Four accounting firm in Indianapolis. 

Mr. Denari’s industry experience includes transportation services, professional services, construction, manufacturing, distribution, machinery/equipment repair and maintenance, market research services, and energy solutions providers. 

Ben is a Principal U.S. Economist with the Hartford’s Global Insights Center, where he focuses on macroeconomic and sectoral trends.

He covers topics that shape the business landscape, including inflation, the job market, interest rates, and construction activity.

Ben has almost two decades of professional experience across the corporate, consulting, and government sectors.

Before joining The Hartford, Ben was an economist at Visa where he covered trends in consumer spending, interest rates, and the credit card and banking sectors. He advised board members and executives and was a frequent speaker at client events.

Ben also held positions at the Bureau of Labor Statistics where he focused on long-term job market forecasting, and at a boutique consulting firm that analyzed the California economy.

Jerry Brodsky is a partner and director of Peckar & Abramson’s Latin American practice. Jerry is trilingual (English/Spanish/Portuguese) and is certified by the Florida Bar as a Construction Law Specialist. Many of Jerry’s matters involve multi-cultural domestic or cross-border transactions and disputes. His practice includes the representation of international and domestic general contractors, construction managers, sureties and other construction professionals in the United States and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, in the preparation of contract documents, negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation of construction contract claims, construction and design defect claims, insurance claims, surety bond claims and related matters.

Jerry’s practice and experience includes mega-projects for transportation and other infrastructures, as well as industrial, commercial and residential engineering and construction projects. Jerry also  provides training services and counseling to domestic and international clients in the areas of contract negotiation, compliance and legal project administration/risk management. In 2021, he completed FIDIC Certified Course Module 2: Claims and Disputes Resolution. Jerry represents and has served as project counsel during the procurement, negotiation, implementation, administration and post-completion phases of mega-projects, using both traditional and project finance/ public-private partnership delivery models.

Jerry also serves as referee and dispute board member in international disputes involving construction of infrastructure projects in Central America and has been engaged to develop, implement and administer a program of dispute boards for world sporting events in Brazil.
Jerry is admitted to practice in the State of Florida and the United States District Courts for the Northern and Southern Districts of Florida. He is a member of the Florida Bar and the Dade County Bar, and serves as Chair of the International Division of the Forum on Construction of the American Bar Association and Secretary of Region 4 - Latin America of the Dispute Resolution Board Foundation. He received his bachelor of science in industrial engineering from Lehigh University and his law degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Miami.

Roberto Hernandez-Garcia is an accomplished International Construction Lawyer ad the Managing Partner of COMAD, a prominent construction law firm based in Mexico City. With extensive experience advising major players in the infrastructure industry across Mexico, Central, and Latin America, Roberto has earned a reputation in his field. He specializes in FIDIC contracts and is certified by FIDIC as a Dispute Board, Trainer, and Procurement Specialist through rigorous examinations. His expertise has made him a trusted advisor and a highly sought-after professional in the construction law arena.

Based in Houston, Pat is Sompo Surety’s U.S. National Underwriting Officer.  This role encompasses portfolio management and credit modelling responsibilities for the U.S. Surety book, reinsurance placement activities, and other facets of surety executive leadership. Pat brings 15+ years industry experience to Sompo and its broker partners.  This experience includes underwriting and broking a variety of companies within the Fortune 2000 and private company equivalents, energy risks, and all facets of the surety life cycle including complex credit analysis, mergers and acquisitions, private equity involvement, collateral structures, and claims management. 

Prior to Sompo, Pat worked to build JLT Specialty’s surety brokerage practice in the United States with an emphasis in Energy as JLT’s Energy Surety Practice Leader.  Upon Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.’s acquisition of JLT, Pat became a Senior Vice President in Marsh JLT’s Surety Practice.  Prior to Marsh JLT, Pat worked at RLI Insurance Company in RLI’s Surety Group.  

Pat earned a B.B.A. in Finance and a B.B.A. in Economics from Loyola University of Chicago. He also holds the Associate in Fidelity and Surety Bonding (AFSB) certification.  Pat serves on the Houston Advisory Board for Heroes for Children, an organization that advocates for and provides financial assistance to families with children battling cancer.

John is responsible for servicing and consulting on the surety bonds for clients handled by CAC Specialty Natural Resources.

John specializes in oil and gas surety. Originally a surety underwriter, John started his career with Argo Surety before joining Wortham in 2015. In 2017 he was recognized as a top young broker by Insurance Business Magazine primarily for his extensive research and knowledge of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management regulations which enabled him to specifically target clients with offshore surety bond needs, limiting risk and countless hours of guesswork. Later, he helped develop and implement the use of the Dual Obligee Bond in the Gulf of Mexico for both BOEM and private obligations. He has a deep knowledge of all aspects of the energy market and their surety needs. Later this year, he will be speaking at NASBP on the State of the Union for Oil and Gas Surety.  Outside of energy, John has a strong grasp of contract surety and all forms of commercial surety.

John has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Finance with a specialization in Alternative Investments from Fordham University. He graduated with honors and was on the Varsity football team. He is a member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP) as well as the Houston Surety Association.

Jason joined the Applied team in Jul’23 as the Energy Practice Leader, where he leverages his extensive expertise in risk management and underwriting to lead the company's energy sector initiatives. With a career spanning over two decades, Jason has built a reputation as a strategic leader with deep insights into the complexities of the energy industry. Before joining Applied, Jason served as the Chief Risk Officer at Berkley Surety, where he was responsible for overseeing the company’s risk management framework, while ensuring underwriting best practices, and driving sustainable profitability. His tenure at Berkley Surety was marked by his ability to navigate the volatile landscape of surety and risk, earning him recognition as a key player in the industry. Prior to his role at Berkley, Jason honed his expertise in the energy sector as an Oil & Gas Underwriter at RLI. His hands-on experience in underwriting within this specialized field provided him with the knowledge and acumen necessary to assess and mitigate the unique risks associated with energy operations. Jason holds an MBA from the University of Houston and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) from the University of Denver and served five years as a member of the U.S. Armed Forces.