Meet Our Crew: Betsy Hicks, Marine Operations Manager
Betsy Hicks wasn’t raised around boats, but she was at Hagerty Marine for three years during our infancy in the late 1980s, so we kind of grew up together. Betsy left us for a bit – working for two other marine-only insurance agencies as a licensed insurance agent in all aspects of sales, customer service, administration and management – before returning to Hagerty in 2013. We couldn’t be happier to have her back.
Betsy said her true introduction to the wonderful world of boating came in the summer 1975, when her then-boyfriend (and future husband) invited her to join him at the family cottage on Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada.
“That was really my first time being on a boat, which was a waterski boat,” she said. “He taught me how to waterski that summer, but my most important job was being an observer for his three brothers and all of the nieces and nephews who came later as they all learned how to ski.”
Betsy and her husband now own a 16-foot Sugar Sand Marine jet boat. Betsy, who also knows how to sail, became reacquainted with classic boats in 2005, when her husband’s brothers restored a 17-foot 1957 Chris-Craft Sportsman. The family has enjoyed it every summer since. Last year, the boat was on display for a month in the lobby window at Hagerty in Traverse City, Mich., just a few blocks from Lake Michigan.
“There’s no better sight to me than seeing Traverse City from East or West Grand Traverse Bay,” Betsy said, “or seeing the village of cottages in Canada on the shores of Lake Erie.”
A proud Michigan State University alumnus, Betsy and her husband have three grown children, twin daughters (one an attorney, the other a licensed insurance agent who also works at Hagerty) and a son, a marine engineer who works on nuclear submarines. Betsy also enjoys reading and travel.
To find out more about Hagerty’s Classic Boat Insurance, click here.
