UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In the 10th episode of Invent Penn State’s “Dare to Disrupt” podcast, Host Ryan Newman interviews former Principal and Executive Vice President at Environmental Compliance Services (ECS) David Rosenberg, who received his bachelor’s degree in individual and family studies from Penn State.
Rosenberg and his two partners grew ECS from a small 12-person, $5 million agency to a 500-person, $200 million agency and a leader in the environmental insurance business. ECS was sold to XL Capital Inc., a publicly held company, in 1999.
In this episode, Rosenberg talks about how he and his business partners innovated the hiring methodology in the environmental insurance space, setting what would become standard best practice for hiring in the industry.
“What we did very differently than insurance companies is we hired environmental engineers and taught them insurance skills, rather than hiring insurance people who had no idea how to underwrite an environmental risk,” Rosenberg said.
He also discusses his more recent philanthropic endeavors, as well as his commitment to making an impact in his local campus community, Penn State Brandywine.
Listen to this interview to learn more about David Rosenberg’s journey.
At the end of each Dare to Disrupt episode, a current Penn State student is given the opportunity to speak with the successful Penn State alum and ask questions specific to the student’s startup and career goals. In Episode 10, Aryan Modi, a senior at Penn State studying industrial engineering, joins the conversation. He co-founded Reach.AI, which developed AI to analyze public data in rural Pennsylvania to help bridge racial and ethnic health inequity and disparity. He is also the founder of Mills, which is building India's largest community of family-owned small textile businesses. Modi talks to Rosenberg about working in an industry that lacks a lot of public awareness.
Students can apply or be nominated to be on the show here.
About Dare to Disrupt
Dare to Disrupt is a podcast from Invent Penn State, about Penn State alumni who are innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders, and the stories behind their success. The podcast is hosted by alumnus Ryan Newman, a graduate of the Smeal College of Business and a Schreyer Scholar alumnus who is now a managing director at Goldman Sachs.
Past episodes of Dare to Disrupt include interviews with Matt Brezina, David Rusenko and Jess Weiner.
New episodes of Dare to Disrupt release monthly. Learn more at invent.psu.edu/dare-to-disrupt and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
Invent Penn State is a commonwealth-wide initiative to spur economic development, job creation and student career success.