Dwight Hester

©   2011-2021  Dwight A. Hester, All Rights Reserved

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Dwight A. Hester, PhD, JD

A 1969 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, judicial decisions expanding liability exposures, and legislative revisions to workers’ compensation laws significantly altered the insurance needs of boards of education during the early 1970s. As a doctoral student at the University of Alabama in 1971, my major professor assigned me a research project to identify more cost effective strategies for boards to use in purchasing property insurance. The initial assignment was expanded to include research regarding purchasing and funding alternatives for not only property exposures but also workers’ compensation and liability exposures.

A graduate school research assignment was the beginning of a fifty-year research and management consulting career focused on risk exposures of education entities. Initially I practiced alone, then as a consultant with and executive director of the Southern Region School Boards Research and Training Center, Inc. and since 1982 as an independent consultant.

Before the term enterprise risk management was commonly used, I was providing risk management advice to education clients based upon knowledge of the governance and operation of boards of education. I have developed policy, safety, risk management, or procedure manuals for local and state boards of education in twelve states. I have also conducted risk management audits for hundreds of boards. I have consulted on risk management issues with state school board associations or school board insurance trusts in nineteen states, state departments of education, the National School Boards Association, and the National Association of State boards of Education. I have made numerous presentations for those associations, as well as national and state associations of administrators and school business officials.

I have participated in the design, implementation, governance, and management of forty group self-funded risk management programs in which thousands of boards participate. These programs have included risk management options for the following types of risk:  property, workers’ compensation, automobile liability and physical damage, general liability, school board legal liability, unemployment liability, equipment breakdown, fidelity, employee benefits, and student accident exposures.

My research and consulting are currently focused on liability claims management and the governance, management, and operation of group self-funded risk management programs, including solvency issues, capital reserve adequacy, and fiduciary duties.

For fifty years I have been providing thoughtful, independent management advice based upon academic preparation and practical experience. I place high value on common sense and good judgment.  I seek for clients frugal risk management alternatives and believe brevity reduces risk.