On The Passing of Paul Meagher

July 12th, 2016 by Tom Lynch

Last week workers’ compensation lost a true professional and I lost a dear friend.

I first met Paul Meagher 32 years ago when he was Senior Counsel for Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) and I was a young guy who thought he had a big idea. The idea was that if employers were educated about workers’ compensation they would approach it differently and losses and Experience Modifications would fall.

Paul believed in the idea. Workers’ compensation was entering a ten-year crisis, and AIM, at the time the largest such organization in America, needed a solution for its members. So Paul convinced the AIM hierarchy to launch a series of seminars around Massachusetts with my big idea as the centerpiece. And it worked. When employers saw there was a common sense, management 101 solution they took to it like water finding a crack in the floor. It culminated five years later with the creation of the Massachusetts Qualified Loss Management Program, which, along with sensible legislative changes, ended the crisis. A $2 billion dollar problem turned into a $1.3 billion dollar win for the state and its employers.  And it never would have happened without Paul’s steady, shoulder-to-the-wheel work.

Paul went on to become the President of the Massachusetts Workers’ Compensation Rating & Inspection Bureau. He captained the Massachusetts workers’ compensation ship for 16 years until early Saturday morning, July 2nd, when he suddenly, but peacefully, died in his sleep in Maine on the first day of a much deserved vacation. He was only 64 years old.

If you met Paul you would have instantly underestimated him. He had not one gram of outsized ego in his body. His leadership style was calm, even quiet. He was perfectly happy to surround himself with people he judged smarter than himself. He played the steady, unassuming jockey sitting atop the speeding thoroughbred, nudging it along without the horse even knowing he was there. In a world of masses on the make, he just did his job, and the continued exceptional success of Massachusetts workers’ compensation is all the proof you need.

But worker’s compensation, while an important part of his legacy, pales beside the deeper, broader person who adored Addy, his wife of nearly 40 years, and Madeline and Michelle, his two accomplished daughters. When we talked about our families at our regular lunches he would ooze pride in those two young women. About a day and a half before he died we spent an hour on the phone, 40 minutes of which was devoted to his two daughters and my two daughters. He and I were entirely different people, but we were cut from the same cloth when it came to our pride in our children.

Paul made me understand why humility is such an important virtue. He was a successful person who could have flaunted his success, but never did, not for a minute; it just wasn’t in his nature.

The workers’ compensation industry will find a replacement for Paul Meagher. I won’t.

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