Written By: Geoffrey Smith, Assurance Financial
There is more to the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce than just making money – sometimes it’s also about making contacts. And the hook-ups!
In the Spring of 2019, my Chamber friend Bill Neglia, a health insurance and disability expert with Neglia Insurance, and myself discovered a common interest - : coaching youth baseball.
Bill had so much fun coaching his sons when they were growing up that he decided to go back and volunteer as a 9/10 year old baseball coach through the City of Roswell. Not being involved in the program and not knowing the players put him at a disadvantage among the coaches, so he reached out to me for help. “We started talking about coaching at one of the Chamber’s ProAlliance meetings and we shared stories,” Neglia said. “Since then, every time we saw each other, we always spent a minute or two talking about coaching youth baseball and when I decided to get back to coaching, I asked for his help.” At the time, I was serving on the Roswell Youth Baseball Association Board and he asked me who he should talk to in regards to throwing his hat in the ring as a coach. Once he secured a spot he asked me to help evaluate the players during the draft!
This was certainly something that wasn’t necessarily related to our businesses, but it was something that we both enjoyed doing and were able to help each other with. Bill is a great guy and knows baseball. It was fun to watch him get back into it after spending years away from it. His team didn’t win the championship, and I didn’t really have to move heaven and earth to help him, but that small connection helped smooth the way for him to get to spend one more season doing something he loves almost as much as helping his customers with their health and life insurance needs.