Working in Travelers Rest often means working alongside your friends and your neighbors. In fact, it’s exactly those sort of relationships that keep small towns like our going strong. We love the stories that involve knowing that the fella who opened the new restaurant also used to mow the grass in your neighborhood when he was in high school. Maybe your child’s first grade teacher is your hairdresser’s sister. Your cousin serves the shrimp and grits at the Upstate’s oldest restaurant or your current business partner used to babysit your children.
We care for one another. We do business together. We know one another. And, we’re always at our best when we’re team players – making room for one another, shopping at all the family owned businesses in town, ordering dinner from the local restaurants, singing the praises of one another.
One of those fellas who is well known throughout our town for doing just that is Steve Borklund. To know him is to know how much he loves Travelers Rest, how he has spent his many years of business in TR as a man committed to making our collective light shine brighter. Steve’s not retiring – so don’t think that. Recently he told us about one of his former employees, David Waddell, who is opening up his own State Farm Insurance Agency here in TR to continue to meet the insurance needs of residents.
As he was sharing the details of this new work and singing the praises of David, we figured maybe he should be the exact one to share this story, not us. Thanks Steve, for loving TR, for serving our town, for promoting and enabling many of us to do what we love to do too.
by Steve Borklund
David Waddell worked with us here in my office for about eight years after he graduated from Clemson. David is a fine young man and showed great potential while serving as an important part of my team.
Approximately three years ago, I encouraged David to apply for an aspirant position at State Farm. David was selected for the program and after about two years, David was selected as an agent candidate. His next step was to go through an intensive training program and once finished, to post for an agent opening where State Farm wanted to appoint a new agent.
As all of this was happening, I had been working with the Sales Leader who is responsible for Travelers Rest. He and I reviewed the need for a second agent in TR and after the review found it made sense to put a second agent in TR. I then encouraged David to post for the opening and encouraged the Sales Leader to consider David as opposed to other candidates who had posted for the position.
Of course, I cannot take credit for David’s appointment as the second agent in TR. David had to earn that opportunity and he worked extremely hard to do so. And he did earn the opportunity on his own accord. All I can take credit for is for encouraging him to shoot for it and getting him in touch with the person responsible for his eventual hire.
You may know that David is the son of Steve Waddell, who has been an integral part of our agency for fifteen years. Steve is an outstanding insurance professional and David is just like his father.
Now you may ask, “Why is Steve Borklund looking to have competition in his back yard?”
Good question. June 1, 2020 marks my 50th year with State Farm Insurance Companies and my 25th year in Travelers Rest. Please note, I have NO plans to retire, but I love both State Farm and Travelers Rest. I’ve spent the past 25 years doing my best to serve the people of this great community and found that in the past few years that we just could not keep up with all of the new folks moving into our community.
We really needed a second agent in town to shoulder part of that responsibility and fortunately someone I knew well and a young man who has the same values as I do was appointed the second agent.
David’s State Farm agency is located on Poinsett Highway across from Leopard Forest.
