Tom Bryant

Director Meridian Consulting Group

Today’s rapidly maturing communication, logistics tracking, and… community.kinaxis.com

“Supply Chain risk and risk management savvy have been around since the first land and water trading routes were established millennia ago. And while the fundamental issue has not changed, the modern age’s rapidly maturing communication, logistics…

http://bit.ly/hhKgeW

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer primarily for privately held companies. We are members of the Professional Insurance Agent Association, International Energy Credit Association and the Connecticut Maritime Association. Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  MERIDIAN – YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT

Of course the change from one to the other is hardly simple.  And the risks and risk transfer issues that arise are not insignificant.  To address the former questions, financial executives need to take in this webcast Dec 14^th.  To address the latter questions contact us.

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer primarily for privately held companies. We are members of the Professional Insurance Agent Association, International Energy Credit Association and the Connecticut Maritime Association. Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  MERIDIAN – YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT

Making The Most of Cloud Computing: What Finance Executives Need To Know

Sponsored by Host Analytics

Tues Dec 14^th 2010  2 PM EST
There is no denying that companies are making a huge push into cloud computing: one research firm says that the increase in corporate spending on cloud services in 2009 was three times that of conventional IT spending.

But moving to the cloud is not easy. There are a number of decisions to make up front, along with come careful analyses. Done right, an embrace of cloud computing options can both save money and provide more powerful IT to all employees. Done poorly, chaos can result.

This Webcast will identify the top concerns that CFOs should be directly involved in: an overall migration strategy, data security concerns, how to create the best vendor mix, how to wind down data center investments, and how to negotiate contracts. We’ll also take a look at important change-management issues and explore other issues related to data access.

In short, this Webcast is an invaluable primer for CFOs who sense great opportunity in the cloud but who want to make sure their organizations have the fullest possible context in which to make these critical IT decisions. For more information or to register for this free webcast see attached link.

http://www.cfo.com/webcasts/index.cfm/l_eventdetail?webcast=14538928

If you have questions about the impact on your business, let us know.

1. Crude Oil: The cost of crude oil as a share of the retail price varies over time and among regions of the country. In September 2010, refiners paid an average of about $76 per barrel of crude oil, which accounted for about 67% of the national average retail price of a gallon of regular grade gasoline.
2. Refining: Refining costs and profits were 7% of the retail price of gasoline in September 2010.
3. Distribution & Marketing: Distribution, marketing, and retail dealer costs and profits made up roughly 11% of the retail price of gasoline in September 2010.
4. Taxes: Federal, State, and local government taxes (not including county and local taxes) accounted for about 15% of the national average retail price of regular gasoline in September 2010. Federal excise taxes were 18.4 cents per gallon and State excise taxes averaged 22.44 cents per gallon.

Given the squeeze between surging economies in the East, the West’s continued heavy demand, and the obvious limits to supply growth worldwide, we will see changes to these input costs in years to come.  And pricing cycles will also continue and create periodic alternating malaise and panic further adding to the confusion. If you have questions about these changes and how to deal with the risk and risk transfer impacts on your business, please ask us.

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer for traditional and alternative energy companies. We are members of the International Energy Credit Association and the Connecticut Maritime Association. Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.

MERIDIAN – YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT.  We are a hard-driving group with an entrepreneurial spirit who will work tirelessly for clients.  We specialize in risk management and risk transfer issues for clients in the energy and sustainable business  arenas.  We belong to  IECA, Slow Money, the Sustainable Business Network and in the past year became a B Corp. For more on this read our blog on sustainable business practices.

Our Mission is simple.   We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  We bring market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives.

SRI International’s Ripudaman Malhotra says the world’s energy usage equals burning three cubic miles of oil every year, and that will grow to nine cubic miles of oil by 2050 if current trends continue.

“Imagine the island of Manhattan covered with 150 feet of crude oil – almost enough to drown the Statue of Liberty – or 1,000 football stadiums filled to the brim with black gold.

That’s a cubic mile of oil, or the amount of oil alone the world now consumes in a year, Ripudaman Malhotra told an audience Monday at Greentech Media’s Greentech Innovations: End-to-End Electricity conference in New York.

And Malhotra, associate director of SRI International’s Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., wants people to think of all the world’s energy usage in terms of cubic miles of oil, or CMOs, because “That exercise will bring us face to face with the enormity of the challenge we are facing” in moving to a renewable energy future.

Including electricity generation, which takes up about 40 percent of the world’s energy usage, and all other forms of energy, the world uses the equivalent of three cubic miles of oil per year, he said.

But renewable energy makes up only a tiny portion of that measure of world energy supply, he said – about two-tenths of a cubic mile including large hydropower projects, and a mere 0.005 cubic miles of oil for all the solar and wind power now in place today.

It will be very difficult for renewable sources to grow to meet the world’s projected demand growth to somewhere between six to nine cubic miles of oil by 2050, he said. (see IEA Paints Dire Picture of Energy Supply and Demand).

While the sun provides an equivalent of 22,000 cubic miles of oil in energy to the earth, capturing that energy will take new technologies deployed on a scale that is hard to fathom, he said.

“If we are at .005 CMO [for solar and wind power] and want to get to 5 CMO, that’s a thousand-fold increase” over the next 40 years, Malhotra said by way of example. And current technologies are not effective enough to make up for “a big part of that gap, so I’m looking to see some new things,” he said.

The first problem is the sheer scale of the expected growth in energy demand, he said. Second is the disadvantages that solar and wind power have in terms of intermittency – not producing power consistently throughout the day and year – which will require new forms of energy storage to capture the power for use when it’s needed most, he said.

In terms of cubic miles of oil, Malhotra laid out some daunting figures for how much solar and wind would be needed to meet demand.

Getting just one CMO-equivalent of photovoltaic solar power in the next 50 years would require 4.2 billion 2-kilowatt solar rooftop systems, or 250,000 installed every single day over that timeframe, he said.

Looking at concentrated solar-thermal power, which produces power using the sun’s heat at lower cost than photovoltaic solar systems, Malhotra said it would take 7,700 solar-thermal parks of 900-megawatts capacity – or three built per week over the next 50 years – to add up to one cubic mile of oil equivalent.

As for wind power, getting to that one CMO-equivalent within 50 years would require putting up 1,200 1.6-megawatt wind turbines every week over that time, he said.

Using solar-thermal and wind power effectively will also require a massive investment in transmission to bring the power from the remote areas where it’s best produced to the cities that need it most, he said. (See NREL Hunts for Solar-Thermal Hot Spotsand National Grid: Dream or Reality?)

Biofuels – which have the advantage of being the only form of renewable energy that can be easily stored – offer other problems, such as the energy that’s required to make them and the potential environmental and greenhouse-gas emission costs of clearing land or cutting down forests to make room for planting the crops to make them, he said.

Creating one CMO-equivalent of biodiesel, for example, would require an 85-fold increase in the current amount of land now dedicated to growing soybeans around the world, he said.

As for nuclear power, which Malhotra said must be a part of the world’s energy future, getting to the equivalent of one cubic mile of oil would require the building of 2,500 nuclear plants, or one every week for the next 50 years.

And fossil fuels, which now account for the vast majority of the world’s energy supplies, will have to increase in use as well, even as the world tackles how to keep their use from increasing greenhouse-gas emissions and thus the threat of global warming, he said (see Can You Spare $45T to Curb Global Warming?).

Given these massive challenges, “The operative conjunction is ‘and,’ because it will take nuclear and solar and wind and whatever” to meet the world’s energy needs, he said.

And the solution won’t just lie in increasing energy supplies, Malhotra said. Efficiency – doing more with less energy – and conservation, or foregoing the use of energy, will play an equally important role, he said.

Efficiency has “historically never reduced net consumption,” since people tend to increase their energy use as efficiency improvements make it cheaper, he said. Still, doing things like replacing one billion incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, could save the world an equivalent of one cubic mile of oil per year, he said.

Making more energy-efficient buildings, which now account for about half the world’s use of energy, could also have a big impact – if such improvements in lighting, heating and air conditioning systems, as well as more efficient building materials, can meet the price demands of developing countries like China and India, he said.

Bringing a host of efficiencies to the United States’ roughly $500-billion-per-year building renovation market could yield a savings of about one-tenth of a CMO, he said.

Bringing the same innovations to India and China, where several trillion dollars of buildings are built and renovated each year, would raise that energy savings to as much as two CMOs, he said. But right now “we really need major innovations to produce cost-effective solutions” for those markets, he said.

“Conservation, or avoiding [energy use], is tougher,” he said. But, given the enormous challenges in increasing energy supplies and improving energy efficiency, it will have to be part of the equation, he said.

Conservation and efficiency together could reduce the world’s energy demand by three cubic miles of oil equivalent, he said.

“The question is, what about the rest? Those solutions will have to come form the supply side now – and as we’ve seen, we have absolutely nothing on the supply side to meet this right now.”

Jeff St. John for Greentech Media  Nov 17th 2008

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT.  We are a hard-driving group with an entrepreneurial spirit who will work tirelessly for clients.  We specialize in risk management and risk transfer issues for clients in the energy and sustainable business  arenas.  We belong to  IECA, Slow Money, the Sustainable Business Network and in the past year became a B Corp. For more on this read our blog on sustainable business practices.

Our Mission is simple.   We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  We bring market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives.

“HONG KONG — China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United        States and Europe, three industry officials said this week.

The Chinese action, involving rare earth minerals that are crucial to manufacturing many advanced products, seems certain to further intensify already rising trade and currency tensions with the West. Until recently, China typically sought quick and quiet accommodations on trade issues. But the interruption in rare earth supplies is the latest sign from Beijing that Chinese leaders are willing to use their growing economic muscle.

“The embargo is expanding” beyond Japan, said one of the three rare earth industry officials, all of whom insisted on anonymity for fear of business retaliation by Chinese authorities.

They said Chinese customs officials imposed the broader restrictions on Monday morning, hours after a top Chinese official summoned international news media Sunday night to denounce United States trade actions.

China mines 95 percent of the world’s rare earth elements, which have broad commercial and military applications, and are vital to the manufacture of products as diverse as cellphones, large wind turbines and guided missiles. Any curtailment of Chinese supplies of rare earths is likely to be greeted with alarm in Western capitals, particularly because Western companies are believed to keep much smaller stockpiles of rare earths than Japanese companies.

China experts said on Tuesday that Beijing’s assertive stance on rare earths might also signal the ascendance of economic nationalists, noting that the Central Committee of the Communist Party convened over the weekend.

A few rare earth shipments to the West have been delayed by customs officials in recent weeks, said industry officials in China, Japan and the United States. But new restrictions on exports appear to have been imposed on Monday morning.

Industry executives said there had been no signal from Beijing of how long rare earth shipments intended for the West would be held by Chinese customs officials. A few shipments are still being allowed out of the country for reasons that remain unclear: a fourth rare earth industry official said on Wednesday that one of the 32 authorized rare earth exporters in China had been allowed to export one container of rare earths to the West on Tuesday and hoped to be allowed to ship another on Thursday.

China’s official stance remained unclear on Wednesday. In an apparent reference to a report on Tuesday in the official China Daily newspaper, the commerce ministry said the report, predicting a decline of up to 30 percent in rare earth export quotas next year, was “totally groundless and purely false,” and added that no decision had been made yet on future quotas.

Without mentioning whether customs officials were interfering with statements to the West this week, the statement also said that, “China will continue to export rare earth to the world, and at the same time, in order to conserve exhaustible resources and maintain sustainable development, China will also continue imposing relevant restrictions on the mining, manufacture and export of rare earths.”

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday that an unidentified diplomatic source in Beijing had said that rare earth shipments to the United States and Europe were being held up by customs officials for tighter inspections, one of the explanations that customs officials have also given in blocking shipments to Japan for the past month. But John Clancy, the trade spokesman for the European Commission, said in a statement on Wednesday that, “at this time, we cannot confirm claims made by European industry officials in media reports of China blocking rare-earth shipments to the” European Union.

The signals of a tougher Chinese trade stance come after American trade officials announced on Friday that they would investigate whether China was violating World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing its clean energy exports and limiting clean energy imports. The inquiry includes whether China’s steady reductions in rare earth export quotas since 2005, along with steep export taxes on rare earths, are illegal attempts to force multinational companies to produce more of their high-technology goods in China.

Despite a widely confirmed suspension of rare earth shipments from China to Japan, now nearly a month old, Beijing has continued to deny that any embargo exists.

Industry executives and analysts have interpreted that official denial as a way to wield an undeclared trade weapon without creating a policy trail that could make it easier for other countries to bring a case against China at the World Trade Organization.

So far, China seems to be taking a similar approach in expanding the embargo to the West.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said on Tuesday that the Chinese government was putting new restrictions on the mining, processing and export of rare earths to protect the environment. But he said that China was not violating any W.T.O. rules in doing so and that it was not imposing an embargo or trying to use rare earths as a bargaining chip.

“With stricter export mechanism gradually in place, outbound shipments to other countries might understandably begin to feel the effect,” Mr. Wang said in an e-mail. “But I don’t see any link between China’s reasonable rare earth export control policy and the irrational U.S. decision of protectionist nature to investigate China’s clean energy industries.”

Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative in Washington, said that American trade officials were looking into the matter, after a report of the Chinese customs restrictions was published on Tuesday afternoon on the Web site of The New York Times.

“We’ve seen the news report and are seeking more information in keeping with our recent announcement of an investigation into whether China’s actions and policies are consistent with W.T.O. rules.”

Jeremie Waterman, the China director of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that he was still checking government and industry sources to learn the extent of a suspension of Chinese rare earth shipments. “If it’s true, it’s disturbing news to say the least,” he said.

Mr. Waterman said that rare earths were so important to advanced manufacturing that restrictions on their trade might need to be put on the agenda of the Group of 20 meeting of heads of state, scheduled next month in Seoul, South Korea.

The Chinese government office that oversees rare earth policy, which operated with considerable independence for many years, was moved early last year into the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. That ministry, formed only two years ago to draft plans for global leadership in many industries, has emerged as a bastion of economic nationalism.

Despite their name, most rare earths are not particularly rare. But most of the industry has moved to mainland China over the last two decades because of lower costs and steeply rising demand there as clean energy industries have expanded rapidly.

Congress is considering legislation to provide loan guarantees for the re-establishment of rare earth mining and manufacturing in the United States. But new mines are likely to take three to five years to reach full production, according to industry executives, although existing uranium mines may be able to move faster by reprocessing previously mined material, which often contains rare earths.

China reduced in July its export quota for rare earths for the second half of the year by 72 percent. Exporters had only six weeks’ of quotas left when China imposed its unannounced embargo on shipments to Japan.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 20, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT.  We are a hard-driving group with an entrepreneurial spirit who will work tirelessly for clients.  We specialize in risk management and risk transfer issues for clients. We are members of several business and industry associations  and the Professional Insurance Agents group (PIA.)

Our Mission is simple.   We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  We bring market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives.

“The Gracechurch London Market 2010 Study’s main headline was that Brokers were “very positive” about doing business at Lloyd’s over the next three years but digging down into the details some interesting trends are emerging.

An emerging market trend that caught my eye was the prediction that the percentage of risks placed electronically would almost double by 2012.  Brokers anticipate more business being placed screen to screen over the next two years, maybe as much as 5% of the total.  However brokers remain solid on the need to have close physical proximity with the people they deal with; face to face trading being one of the unique selling points of the London Market.

As we approach the formal launch of the Endorsements Pilot on 1 October 2010 that will see all endorsements for direct marine hull, cargo and liability sent electronically using electronic messaging to support the face to face trade it seems that this forecast may prove to be correct.

Lloyd’s is currently undertaking a piece of research using the iPad. This work proposes replacing the broker’s slip case with a device that enables documents used in the face to face negotiation to be stored and read electronically. Brokers have responded to this proposal with great enthusiasm.

The combination of a ‘sexy’ gadget to support the trade and ACORD messaging to evidence contract certainty could help maintain the uniqueness of the London Market and may well mean that 2011 is the year when electronic support for the face to face placing process comes of age.”

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT.  We are a hard-driving group with an entrepreneurial spirit who will work tirelessly for clients.  We specialize in risk management and risk transfer issues for clients in the sustainable business  arena.  We belong to Slow Money, the Sustainable Business Network and in the past year became a B Corp. For more on this read our blog on sustainable business practices.

Our Mission is simple.   We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.  We bring market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives.

“One of the most remarkable aspects of the launch of Slow Money has been the participation of our members and the emergence of the Slow Money Principles.  Thank You.  In this day of financial razzmatazz and uncertainty, 12,000 of us have taken the time to consider and affirm a new vision of money and the soil.

Now, Slow Money is ready to move from launch to full-scale implementation.  Slow Money initiatives are emerging around the country, money is starting to flow and our momentum is building.

For more highlights, scroll down to see our progress report.

“The Slow Money Principles are the path to a new, healthy food system. Sign them and be counted!“
- Greg Steltenpohl, Founder, Odwalla

We couldn’t agree more with our friend Greg.   It’s not just about transactions. It’s about relationships and values. It’s about a new way of thinking that will catalyze a major cultural and economic shift towards preservation and restoration.

PLEASE TAKE A FEW MOMENTS TO FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO TWO FRIENDS, so that they can read the Principles, and, we hope, join you and the rest of us who share abiding concerns about the fertility of our soil, the vitality of our culture and the health of our economy.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the simple act of signing the Slow Money Principles: http://bit.ly/slowprinciples.

NPR calls us a movement. ACRES USA calls us a revolution. Business Week cited us as “one of the big ideas for 2010.”

We are still at the beginning. But what a promising beginning it is!

Of course, if you are also moved to increase your participation by becoming a member of theSlow Money Alliance, we’d love to welcome you.   Click here to make a financial contribution of $25 or more, supporting our work convening national and regional gatherings and incubating the new products and services that will enable a million people to invest 1% in local food systems with a decade.

With deep gratitude,”
Ari, Woody, Michael, and David at Slow Money Alliance

Analysts at Ernst went on to say that oil prices are anticipated to grow with increased demand as the economy continues to recover.  The challenge may be higher prices negatively affecting economic development.  While natural gas long term prospects for pricing and demand are strong, current prices and demand remain generally weak on continued production growth largely from unconventional gas plays.  Not surprisingly, oilfield service company bottom lines have benefited from the strong uptick in drilling assets and the growth in unconventional gas and associated boom in horizontal drilling.   Meanwhile refining margins have finally showed some strengthening though capacity remains shut in at pre 2008 levels.   Deal flow is up and deal size is growing on loosening capital markets and consolidation in oilfield services.

And in the insurance world, a quiet hurricane season and significant new capacity both upstream and downstream is stabilizing and in some cases softening pricing.  Absent more events such as the tragic loss and developing environmental problem accompanying the fire and total loss of TransOcean’s Deepwater Horizon this week, the challenge for energy accounts is to differentiate themselves within this market to take advantage of the opportunities.  But conversely with increasing capacity, insurers are feeling the pressure to differentiate as well to show their market leadership.  What is still unclear early in this process is how far this trend will go to impact retentions and other terms and conditions.  No significant changes are expected in terms and conditions but pressure could be applied on retentions in an effort to pressure competitors in an environment of improved capacity over the past 18 months.

If you have questions about the impact on your business, let us know.

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer for traditional and alternative energy companies. We are members of the International Energy Credit Association and the Connecticut Maritime Association. Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.

MERIDIAN – YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT.  We are a hard-driving group with an entrepreneurial spirit who will work tirelessly for clients. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer for sustainable businesses. We personally promote sustainable practices and are members of the Sustainable Business Network and Slow Money.

Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible. To that end we bring  market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives.

MERIDIAN- YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT

Peter Young -London –

Meridian Consulting Group LLC

Peter joined Meridian in 2010 to represent them in the London market.  He has over 40 years experience in the Insurance industry with an extremely diversified background. Having worked as a Head Office underwriter with a major UK Insurer his sense of adventure led him into the broking sector and a move to Africa where he spent 10 years managing local offices in West & Southern African for the Minet Group.

On his return to London he specialized in the management of the Global programmes for UK based multi nationals. This experience developed into working on a similar project for a major US Oil company which led to his transfer into the Energy sector, ultimately becoming the Managing Director of the Onshore Energy division of Minet. During this time he worked with a number of major Oil companies as well as the development of business in the Middle East.

He moved to Marsh in 1995 and was soon made Managing Director responsible for their Energy business in Asia/Pacific. Initially based in London he later lived in Singapore for 2 years and during this time he worked with the Risk Management departments of all the worlds’ major Oil companies as well as the national Oil companies throughout Asia.

More recently he has worked as a Consultant with the London and Asian offices of a major International law firm and on behalf of a newly established Lloyds syndicate, based in Singapore as head of Business Development.

David J. Webster-Meridian Consulting Group LLC

David brings to Meridian a lengthy professional career which began with the Northern Assurance Group in Glasgow, but which soon led him into risk management because of his interests.  David qualified by examination as an Associate of the Charter Insurance Institute early in his professional career. As a Risk Manager he has worked for major companies such as Boskalis Westminster Dredging, Viking Offshore Pipelines, British Petroleum and Shell Exploration and Production.

As a Senior Risk Manager with British Petroleum in the UK and US, David handled some of the largest exposures in the worldwide insurance markets.  In that capacity he adopted and used the latest risk management techniques available to transfer and offset risk including the use of Captive Insurance. He also negotiated the most favorable terms and conditions for major construction and operational and charter contracts on behalf of his employer.

While with Shell as an Insurance Consultant, David played two leading roles on behalf of the Oil Industry in helping to introduce the first standard forms of contract for the offshore industry, known as the CRINE contracts and also in attempting to reach an agreement between the UK Government and the Oil Industry in relation to security aspects relating to the future abandonment of North Sea Oil related structures.

While with British Petroleum in Cleveland at the time of the takeover of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio (SOHIO) part of David’s responsibilities were, the management of a large number of personal injury related lawsuits (excluding Workers Compensation) in all geographic areas of the USA where BP/SOHIO operated.

David has traveled extensively for his past employers and is enthusiastic and passionate about both the oil and insurance industries and is prepared to travel on behalf of Meridian clients, as their needs require.

Born and raised in Scotland, David’s interests are DIY, golf and rugby. In his earlier years he played on a leading Scottish Rugby Club team and was on the team that won the Scottish Rugby Championship.

Meridian is a highly dynamic specialized insurance consulting group and broker with offices in Boston, MA, Newport, RI and Brookfield, CT. We specialize in risk management and risk transfer for traditional and alternative energy companies. We are members of the International Energy Credit Association and the Connecticut Maritime Association. Our Mission is simple.  We seek to help our clients make the best risk and risk transfer decisions possible.

We bring market-leading service to the most creative solutions in the risk management field to ensure that each Meridian client achieves their risk objectives. MERIDIAN -YOUR RISK RETHOUGHT.