Long-time agent sets sights on new career path; sells Nationwide agency

Usu­ally peo­ple who are accepted into law school, after fin­ish­ing their master’s degree in edu­ca­tional admin­is­tra­tion, stay the course, and become a lawyer or school administrator.

That was not the case for Dan Trinter.

“I was get­ting ready for law school at (The Uni­ver­sity of) Day­ton. Then Nation­wide (insur­ance) called and said they had an open­ing in Welling­ton. I had put in for a job two years ear­lier, and then out of nowhere they called me,” Trin­ter said.

Thirty-one years later, Trin­ter is sell­ing the insur­ance agency that has served his fam­ily and vil­lage of Welling­ton for many years.

“We started out at a flower shop, and at one point had offices in Welling­ton, Amherst, Ver­mil­ion and Elyria,” said Kathie Hart­man, who has worked with Trin­ter since the beginning.

Trin­ter, who is only in his 50s, could keep the suc­cess­ful busi­ness going, but feels it is time to move on to the next chapter.

“The kids are all grown, edu­cated, mar­ried or paired off,” Trin­ter said about one of the fac­tors that helped make his retire­ment decision.

Although done with Nation­wide, Trin­ter would like to con­tinue doing work in the non-profit sec­tor, some­thing he loved to do while in Wellington.

“I want to re-invent myself. I worked with the Lorain County Free Clinic, worked on health care for the work­ing poor, food banks, hos­pi­tal boards, helped inves­ti­gate child-neglect cases, and health care for kids is a big con­cern of mine,” Trin­ter said.

Trin­ter has been mar­ried for 34 years to his wife Lisa, who he met at the end of high school through a friend. Together, they had three chil­dren, Mary Beth, Katie, and Daniel, and have one grandson.

After grad­u­at­ing col­lege at the early age of 21, Trin­ter went straight into teach­ing, and for three years, worked on his master’s in edu­ca­tional admin­is­tra­tion while instructing.

Then it became time to make a deci­sion that would define Trinter’s next 30 years of life.

“I thought about becom­ing a super­in­ten­dent or prin­ci­pal, but it all came down to the job open­ing, came down to the town. Work in a lit­tle office in a lit­tle town, sounded great,” Trin­ter said.

Trin­ter decided to own his own Nation­wide insur­ance agency in Welling­ton, and said his wife was very sup­port­ive of the move.

Over three decades, Trin­ter has seen growth and evo­lu­tion through­out the village.

“The pop­u­la­tion of Welling­ton hasn’t grown, but there has been a lot of devel­op­ment. Every­thing used to be down­town, but now a lot is gone. It’s the nature of retail, always evolv­ing,” said Trinter.

Now with more spare time, Trin­ter would like to con­tinue his urban bike rid­ing hobby.

“I love to bike in urban areas. I’ve biked in New York, the canals in New Orleans are great. When you bike in a city like New York, you can turn a cor­ner and the whole envi­ron­ment changes. I’ve been to New York prob­a­bly 30 times, I mean, where else can you go down a new street and see 150 Hasidic Jews,” Trin­ter said.

Although Trin­ter will be leav­ing the insur­ance busi­ness behind him, a few office relics with be accom­pa­ny­ing him home.

“I know he’s keep­ing his desk, since it was owned by the pre­vi­ous agent and he’s had it the whole time,” said Hartman.

Along with the nos­tal­gic desk, Trinter’s office was full of old World War II bond posters.

“Oddly enough, I bought the posters at Get­tys­burg when I was there. They wanted to get rid of them since every­thing is Civil War. Got them for $20 each,” Trin­ter said.

There was also a pair of seats from Cleveland’s old Munic­i­pal Sta­dium, which was gut­ted and destroyed in 1996 after the Browns were moved to Baltimore.

When asked what he would like to say to the vil­lage of Welling­ton, Trin­ter was teary-eyed when he said, “I can’t thank the peo­ple of this town enough for the won­der­ful life they gave me, that they are still giv­ing me, it was a won­der­ful place to raise my kids,” Trin­ter said.

After years of expe­ri­ence, Trin­ter real­ized, “It is easy to stay in your com­fort zone, but that will only get you so far.”

When the sale becomes offi­cial, Trin­ter plans to take a three-week vaca­tion to Den­ver, Salt Lake, and Chicago.

“I’m still try­ing to fig­ure out what to do when I grow up. But I know that I have worked for the best peo­ple on earth for 30 years,” Trin­ter said.

Denny Bauer will be tak­ing over for Trinter.

“I wanted to move back to be closer to fam­ily. I real­ized how short time is and I knew how beau­ti­ful this place (Welling­ton) is,” said Bauer.

Nation­wide is located at 102 S. Main St. in down­town Wellington.

by ADAM FOX

Enter­prise reporter

Posted by Adam Fox on Jul 19 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.