Tom Mayer
Tom Mayer is an energetic and resourceful professional with more than 25 years' business experience, predominantly with entrepreneurial growth firms.
Tom entered the business world at age 11 with Kid for Rent lawn service, followed by White Wolf Maintenance, a cleaning restoration company. After graduating from Hamline University in St. Paul in 1991, he sold White Wolf to his brother, Pat, who still owns it today.
Tom then co-founded the Five Star Gourmet Meat Company, grew it into a $4 million home-delivery business with 90 employees, and attracted the attention of business publications including Forbes, Success, and Twin Cities Business Monthly. Tom sold his interest in Five Star in 1991, and then earned an MBA in marketing and strategy from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. During graduate school, Tom started Superior Foods, Inc. and happily sold frozen foods door-to-door in his 1995 Nissan Pathfinder.
In 2001, Tom founded Direct Benefits, Inc., a managing general agency specializing in the distribution of dental, disability, life and vision benefits to more than 2,700 agents, brokers, consultants and general agents nationwide. Tom and his staff have helped agents write more than 6,000 employer groups and thousands of individual clients.
From 2006 to 2009, Tom served as the Retention Chair for Region 4 of the National Association of Health Underwriters and was named National Recruiter of the Year in 2007, 2008 and 2009. His hobbies include backpacking, cooking, dog sledding, kayaking, mountaineering, rabbit hunting, reading, scuba diving, traveling, trout fishing, and tubing with his gas-powered blender. His favorite foods are Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon and oatmeal raisin cookies.
Jodie Ingeman
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Jodie participated in the infamous "Work Program" through South High School and landed her first job at Dr. Brackney & Associates. After graduation she worked full-time at the dental office for 5 years, and then left the work force when her first child was born. Jodie was a stay at home mom until her children were full-time students, then returned to St. Paul Technical College, where she earned a M.S.C. degree. In 1999, she left Affiliated Reconstructive & Cosmetic Plastic Surgery for the insurance industry. She spent 7 years at Corporate Benefit Services of America (CBSA) where she worked in administration services (self-funded), new business processing and underwriting departments and 1 year at Insurance Administrators Corporation (IAC). She has enjoyed working in this field ever since.
Carrissa Profant
Carrissa joined Direct Benefits after more than 12 years in the healthcare and insurance industries. Her career has included positions at Diversified Pharmaceutical, SmithKline Beecham, UnitedHealthCare and Delta Dental Plan of Minnesota. During those years, she worked her way up from member materials to contract installations, proposals, and underwriting and, finally, to sales. At Direct Benefits, Carrissa wears all those hats and more. She takes pride in providing creative and responsive solutions to our agents and then making sure everything is processed smoothly for their clients.
Outside the office, Carrissa enjoys traveling, motorcycling, volleyball and the occasional home remodeling project. During downtime, she loves to catch up on the latest movies, HGTV, Boston Legal and Grey's Anatomy.
Shelly Kramer
Shelly Kramer has more than 15 years of experience in the dental insurance industry. At Capital Benefits Groups she served as an internal operations manager working with customer service, inside sales and marketing, new business enrollment and plan design development as well as helping agents with their renewals. In addition to her role as “Benefits Shaman” at Direct Benefits, she works part-time as a 2nd degree Reiki (energy work) practitioner.
An active member of NAHU since 2004, Shelly has also taught an Ancillary Benefits Class at Kaplan Financial Education. In her spare time, she enjoys volunteering with the Angel Foundation and Toastmasters CC. Shelly's hobbies include building Faerie houses, cooking, gardening, kick boxing, yoga and making the world a better place by laughing as much as possible
Barbara Boukal
Before joining Direct Benefits, Barbara worked as a nurse at St. Joseph's and United Hospitals in St. Paul, then spent time raising her 3 children. In 1997, she began her full-time insurance career with State Farm, working in sales and customer service in Property/Casualty, Life/Health, before expanding to bank products and commercial insurance. In 2007, Barbara moved to Capital Benefits Group and employee benefits. Her many duties included sales, marketing, project management, administration and customer service. She joined Direct Benefits in 2012 as a member of the Individual dental & Vision team.
Barbara has a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and is NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) certified as a personal trainer and yoga teacher. She enjoys reading, the never ending quest of learning, yoga, kickboxing, weight lifting and spending time with her children, family and friends. The "real" reason for joining Direct Benefits was to conceal her true identity--- Cindy Crawford.
Paulette Kotila
Paulette Kotila, active in insurance for 17 years, began her career in nursing. She first worked in a doctor's office and then left to teach nursing skills, lab work and insurance compliance to certified medical assistants. When her youngest child was born, Paulette left teaching and began her insurance career. She started in life and health and then went on to commercial insurance. Her first love has always been life and health and she has finally returned to doing what she likes best.
Paulette enjoys people contact and working with brokers. She has continued her education in insurance over the years, having received her designation for CISR. She is now taking classes for the designation of CLU.
Arron Olson
Arron grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, where his mother, Direct Benefits Shaman Shelly Kramer, still lives. At 15, while in high school, he started his work career at Cub Foods grocery store doing a little of everything -- gathering carts, stocking shelves, and cutting and selling meat. At school, he was the starting pitcher and short-stop for the Jefferson High School baseball team and was named the team captain. Arron was also a student athlete at Southwest Minnesota State University where he majored in History and Political Science, with a minor in Philosophy. Arron was the closer for SMSU baseball for three years and ranks second in career all-time saves at the university.
At SMSU, Arron was a Resident Assistant and a Student Senator and was personally responsible for registering more than 500 students to vote in 2008. Outside of work Arron enjoys spending time with his beautiful bride Vanessa and their new puppy, Weston, in their new home in Hopkins Minnesota
Kelsey Stilwell
Prior to joining the Direct Benefit's team, Kelsey's varied career path has included processing a huge caseload of Social Security applications for Premier Disability Services, working as a cosmetologist at Fantastic Sam's and providing administration and marketing support for KeyStone Energy Advisors. Kelsey graduated from Minnesota School of Business with her Associates Degree in Business Administration in 2011 and is now attending Rasmussen College to obtain her Bachelor Degree in Business Marketing.
She is expected to graduate June 29, 2014. Kelsey strives to push the limits and challenge herself on a multitude of different levels. Being able to take a challenge and turn it into a goal is the best way for her to learn and understand all aspects of life. Outside of work Kelsey loves to spend time with her husband Michael and their puppies, Ace and Jackson. They love to enjoy the outdoors, hunting, fishing and camping. She also loves to bake all things gluten free and spend time with family and friends.
Joe Baldwin
Joe comes to Direct Benefits after spending 5 years as a Program Manager at Junior Achievement of the Upper Midwest contributing to the growth of their High School department. He brings with him a passion for sales, focusing on relationship building and customer service.
Born in Minneapolis but a St. Paul kid at heart, Joe attended High School at Saint Thomas Academy where he played Football and Basketball and was a member of 3 State runner-up teams and 1 State Championship team. Joe then continued his Football and Basketball career at the University of St. Thomas before transferring to Metropolitan State to focus on a degree in African American Studies. While going to school full-time Joe held down 3 part-time jobs as a property manager, cook/waiter, and non-profit program manager.
Joe lives in downtown Saint Paul and spends the winter months coaching JV and Varsity Girls Basketball at the Convent of Visitation. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, participating in the Twin Cities music scene, supporting the local sports teams, and taking in a good movie.
Jessica Traiforos
Jessica came to Direct Benefits with 13 years group employee benefits insurance experience. She started as a receptionist with Principal Financial and quickly transitioned to group quoting and marketing as well as enrollment sales support for 6 years. Jessica then spent 7 years with Associated Financial Group as a group marketing specialist and provided support to as many as 9 consultants and their books of business. Born and raised in Chaska Minnesota, Jessica also earned a Business Associates degree from KRS Computer and Business School. She now lives in Burnsville, Minnesota with her husband and son and a dog named Kail and cat named Cinder. Outside of work Jessica enjoys spending time with family, learning about dinosaurs with her son and aggressively competing at Frisbee golf with her husband.
Macarena Barnes
Maca was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. She started learning English when she was three and graduated University as an ESL teacher. She did a Summer Work and Travel Exchange Program where she worked at a ski resort in Colorado and met her husband who is a Minnesota native. After finishing college and doing 2 years long distance, she decided to say goodbye to her high school students and moved to Minneapolis where she started doing translations and interpreting work.
Outside of the office she enjoys time with her husband Joe, family and friends, training her 2 year old Mini Australian Shepherd named Grizzly, learning Italian, French and someday Russian, Going to the lake, working out and baking chocolatey things.
