Longtime president of Scott Insurance to retire

The president of Lynchburg-based Scott Insurance, Walker Sydnor, will retire at the end of the year after 37 years at the insurance brokerage.

He will be succeeded on Jan. 1 by Hutch Mauck, who has headed the firm’s Richmond office since opening it in 1991. The transition concludes a two-year succession process.

Under Sydnor’s tenure as president from 1986 through 2013, Scott Insurance grew from a regional company to the second-largest independently owned insurance agency/broker in the Southeast and the largest in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

During the past 27 years, the company has opened six offices in three states, expanding into larger commercial markets by developing new services and creating an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which has led to a 97 percent employee retention rate.

Since 1986, the number of company employees has grown from 30 to more than 240.

Mauck joined Scott Insurance in 1991 to open the Richmond office, where he has served as a risk advisor and the branch leader. Under his direction, the Richmond office has grown to be Scott Insurance’s highest producing office in Virginia. He has served on the Scott board since 2003 and on the executive committee since 2009.

Mauck graduated from Wake Forest University with a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1987 and earned his CPCU designation in 1995.

Founded in 1864, Scott Insurance provides risk services, benefit services, bonds, and financial management. In Virginia, the company has offices in Lynchburg, Roanoke, and Richmond.
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