For once, Fred Thies was being interviewed. In his line of work he has interviewed thousands of people over the years. Now the tables were turned.
Fred has worked for State Farm Insurance on Queen Anne for 50 years. He joined the company in 1955, when he was 30 years old. For the first decade he was a salaried employee. Then he became an independent con-tractor on commission. "The harder you work, the more you make," he says.
His agency now has about 8,000 policy holders, twice as many as usual for a comparable agency. Fred calls that success, reasonable success.
Although Fred was raised Lutheran, his view of life has a Buddhist cast. Moderation in all things. Do not over-indulge in habits like eating and drinking. Learn to say no. Quit smoking, as he did cold turkey on June 15, 1956.
Fred is a Seattle native, born here Dec. 31, 1924, in Swedish Hospital. The first few years of his life, the family lived in Georgetown. In the late 1920s they moved to Tacoma, into a water-front home on Brown's Point. Fred remembers one long event of swim-ming and rowing boats in front of his house.
His father was a welder, or boilermaker. A boilermaker fabricates and repairs things made of heavy metal plates, including, at that time, boilers. He worked at Boeing and various ship-yards in Tacoma, eventually becoming a supervisor in his trade.
Fred attended Stadium High School in Tacoma, where he was a wrestler, president of the senior class and editor of both the yearbook and the school newspaper.
"Then and now," he recalls, "my classmates were wonderful people."
Of the 600 who graduated in 1943, he saw 300 of them (including some spouses) at their recent 60th class reunion.
He entered the University of Washington in the Navy's V-12 Program, an officer-training program. His academic studies were interrupted by service in World War II. Fortunately, he did not serve abroad, but at naval bases Stateside, starting with one on Long Island, N.Y., and ending in Bremerton.
Shortly before being discharged in 1946, Fred married Lucy Ellen Mc-Curdy, whom he had met in junior high school. The newlyweds moved into a tiny house behind another house in the University District, and Fred returned to college on the G.I. Bill, studying a well-rounded curriculum of arts and sciences.
One course he particularly remembers is an economics course for non-majors. It inspired him to go into insurance. "Insurance solves a problem that many people have: attaining financial stability," he says. "Insurance provides that at a price. Nothing is free. I make no bones about it because my expertise is built into my recommendations."
What has probably kept Fred in business all these years is his interest in people, and sensitivity to their varied wants and needs. "You have to be understanding of people to do business with them," he says.
Fred's office is located on the northwest corner of First North and Boston. For many years it was across the street, but in 1980 he bought the building he's in now, a low, cream-shingled structure with off-street parking.
As Fred's business grew, so did his family, to include five children and, eventually, four grandchildren. His son Michael has worked with him as office manager for almost 25 years.
In 1989, Fred and Lucy moved to Seward Park. Once ensconced there, they built their dream house on Lake Washington and moved into it in 1995. So, once again, Fred lives on the water. This time he has his own dock, and a boat, the Knotti-Lady, a 43-foot diesel cruiser. In it he explores Puget Sound, especially the south sound he knows so well, but he also ventures north as far as the Gulf Islands in Canada.
"Seward Park is very heterogeneous," he observes, "and has a suburban feel. I enjoy summer events around the park, like the hydroplane races and the Blue Angels."
He and Michael are landlords. They have 10 houses other than their own residences, most of them in Seward Park. "Our tenants are our friends," says Fred. Many are Jewish, and Fred is frequently invited to Jewish celebrations and enjoys learning about another religious culture. He has even attended a bris, or circumcision.
"My other hobby, besides boating," he says, "is maintaining our rentals. It's a paying hobby." A jack-of-all-trades, he takes Fridays off from the insur- ance business to fix what needs fixing.
Working on Queen Anne isn't so bad, either, even after 50 years. "It's more urban," says Fred. "It's a nice business address to have: 20 Boston St. Sounds almost as prestigious as No. 10 Downing St." Plus, half of his clients live on Queen Anne.
His commute takes about 20 minutes, if uninterrupted by insurance inspections or bad traffic. While driving, he listens to audio books. An aural person, he reads newspapers but nothing else. "I get much more out of books if I hear them. In my business I've learned to listen closely." He likes Tom Clancy novels and other mystery thrillers.
Sadly, after 59 years of marriage, Lucy died on March 5 after a long battle with breast cancer. Fred still works because he enjoys it. "It keeps me off the streets," he jokes. But it also mitigates his pain and grief.
He is still involved in the day-to-day operations of the agency. "I'm finally arriving at a point that I'm not questioned about my decisions," he says.
Fred has few regrets - "nothing major outstanding," anyway. "The minor ones are of little consequence," he says.
"This stems from the fact that I enjoy what I do." Are we to deduce that if you truly enjoy what you do, you will have no regrets? Worth pondering.
"If a person is not afraid to move forward with organization and confidence," he con-tinues, "their future looks bright. But if they face the future with trepidation, their future looks bleak."
In other words, how you face the future determines it? Also worth pondering.
You can guess how Fred faces it.
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