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TASB Risk Management Fund’s Dubravka Romano Honored With Leadership Award

  

Dubravka has served in her role with the TASB Risk Management Fund — one of the largest and oldest risk pools in the U.S. — since January 1988. Dubravka’s transformative leadership and commitment to the important purpose of public entity pooling have allowed her to navigate and guide the Fund through several pooling challenges and transform it into the successful entity it is today.

When she assumed her role as the Fund’s top administrator, the workers’ compensation program was struggling. In response, Dubravka helped develop and implement a multi-year remediation strategy to gain reinsurance support. The success of the Fund today results directly from Dubravka’s insight and guidance. 

“TASB is fortunate to have Dubravka at the helm of the Fund to provide leadership, experience and excellent customer service to our membership,” said TASB Risk Management Fund Chair Ted Beard, who also currently serves as TASB’s president. “She is relentless in her commitment to serving Texas public school districts and other education entities across the state so that they’re prepared with proactive risk prevention and mitigation strategies. She is certainly deserving of this prestigious honor and we’re extremely proud of her and her work.”

During her tenure, Dubravka has been a leader in service and coverage enhancements and operational improvements for the Fund. Among other accomplishments, she transformed TASB’s distinct property compensation, casualty compensation, workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation pools into a single multiline pool. Consolidating the pools provided broader and more comprehensive coverage for members and financial leverage for various exposures. It also reduced the Fund’s administrative costs. 

In addition, Dubravka moved claims in-house over 25 years ago, increasing the responsiveness of the Fund with an ongoing dedication to ensuring excellent customer service and claims management. 

“Few are more passionate, experienced and credible than Dubravka Romano,” said industry colleague Amy Guilford, chief program administrator with the MASB-SEG Property/Casualty Pool. “She recognizes that the future of pooling is dependent upon the leaders of tomorrow, and her mentorship and commitment only strengthen and secure the future for all governmental risk pools.”

Throughout her career, Dubravka has been a staunch advocate for Texas school districts and their employees through TASB and the Fund. She’s also been a notable influence across the public entity pooling community. As a frequent speaker at AGRiP conferences and active in a variety of pool gatherings, Dubravka takes time, energy and care to share her knowledge and experiences with her pooling peers.

“We’re all indebted to Dubravka for her lifelong work in pooling,” said Jon Shull, AGRiP Board President. “Her tireless efforts at TASB, the Fund and beyond have deeply benefited our community.”

AGRiP’s Award for Excellence in Leadership is given to an outstanding leader and/or mentor in the public entity pooling community who has made strong contributions to the industry and inspires others. Dubravka will receive her award on March 7 at AGRiP’s Governance Conference in New Orleans.

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