Page 29 - BusinessWest October 3, 2022

This photo of downtown Holyoke, circa 1870, has earned a spot on the wall in the conference room at the Dowd Agencies.
grams, as they did for the company’s centennial in 1998.
“We have a few things we’re planning that are in the works,” he said. “We’re trying to do some things that involve the community; overall, it’s an opportunity for us to say ‘thank you’ to the community for supporting us for 125 years and through five generations. That’s an important
“We want to continue to grow, but want to make sure we’re not growing too quickly; we don’t want to get over our skis, as we like to say.”
‘thank you,’ and we’re thinking long and hard about what we’re going to do.”
In the meantime, the company is taking steps to ensure that it can continue its long history as an independent agency, said Dowd, noting, for example, the latest in a series of recent acquisi- tions that provide needed size and flexibility at a time of continued consolidation in the insurance industry.
Just last month, the firm acquired the Ideal Insurance Agency in Ludlow, which, like many smaller, family-owned agencies in the area, became available for one of many reasons, rang- ing from COVID-19 to lack of a clear succession plan to the inability to effectively compete in a market increasingly dominated by larger firms.
John Dowd Jr. said the picture was owned by a long-time client who offered it to him after Dowd repeatedly raved about it. He accepted the offer and gave the picture a prominent home — across the conference room from another framed photo, this one of the insurance company’s founder, Joseph Dowd, who went into business just a
few decades after that picture of downtown was taken.
Together, the pictures provide some needed perspective — about time, Holyoke, the com-
pany, change, what hasn’t changed — and how they all come together. And the juxtaposition
of all this will come into even sharper focus in 2023, when the agency, which Dowd claims is the oldest family-owned insurance agency doing business in the Bay State, celebrates its 125th birthday.
There hasn’t been much hard planning about how to mark that milestone, he said, adding that he and others will pick up the pace in the coming months and put together some events and pro-
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