SIDEBAR: The Cowboy Brokers (1970s–1980s)
Featuring: Barney Mizel, ABM, and the Politics of Trust
The West Coast workers’ comp market of the 1970s and 1980s wasn’t just shaped by carriers. It was shaped by brokers — big personalities who operated with a mix of charm, hustle, improvisation, and sheer audacity. They were part MGA, part impresario, part evangelist, part gambler. And no one embodied that energy more than Barney Mizel of ABM.
Barney was the kind of guy who could walk into a brokerage and instantly change the temperature of the room. He was always pitching something — a new program, a new carrier relationship, a new scheme to “shake up the market.” He had that fast‑talking, big‑smiling, West Coast brokerage charisma that made some people want to follow him into battle and made others — the wiser ones — take one step back.
He was pursuing some business with Heffernan, Keiler & Doble, the San Francisco firm where I worked before it was acquired by Gallagher in the mid‑1980s. Barney was always courting Frank Heffernan, always trying to pull HKD into some new venture or partnership.
Frank knew I didn’t trust Barney. So Frank told Barney — directly — that I didn’t trust him. Whether Frank cared that I didn’t trust Barney… maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But it was a good tactic for Frank to tell Barney that, because it kind of let the cat out of the bag about the talk on the street about Barney’s reputation.
Which meant Barney suddenly had a new mission: win me over.
Not because he needed me to like him, but because he needed Frank — and Frank listened to me apparently.
So every time Barney saw me, he turned on the charm. He was unfailingly polite, always upbeat, always trying to show me his “best side.” Brokerage politics.
So, one day I stepped into the elevator with a book in my hand. Barney was standing there. And Barney, always scanning for an angle, asked what I was reading. I showed him the book. He seemed genuinely interested. So I said, “You should buy a copy.” I wasn’t going to lend him mine.
And Barney — doesn’t miss a beat — he just can’t help himself. He says:
“No, I only read hardback books.”
It was perfect. It was ridiculous. It was so Barney.
A man who lived in a world of big deals, big gestures, and big self‑mythology — even down to the format of his reading material. And the whole time, he was trying to win over the one person in the office who saw through him.
This was the culture of the cowboy brokers:
- big personalities
- big appetites
- big swings
- and sometimes big wreckage
But also big laughs, big stories, and big memories — the kind that stick with you years later.
