Transition in agency called answer to prayer

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN DON RATZLAFF
Not every change in business ownership these days is described as an answer to prayer. But R.J. Bartel is convinced that the recent sale of his insurance agency to Jonathan Maxfield was brokered personally by The Almighty.


The two men and their wives will be celebrating the transition as well as the 40th anniversary of the agency with an open house from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., this Friday at the Bartel Insurance Agency building at 315 S. Main St. in Hillsboro. The public is invited.


“He’s a good guy,” Bartel said about Maxfield. “When I tell people about him, they say, ‘How lucky can you get?’ They just fall for it right away. It’s fantastic, just absolutely fantastic.”


Maxfield grew up in Littleton, Colo., and came to Hillsboro to attend Tabor College, where he received a degree in business in 1995.


He and his wife, Dana, have a daughter Allison, who is almost 3 years old. They live in the country north of Lehigh.


For the past two years, Maxfield was a consumer loan officer at the Hillsboro branch of Central National Bank. While there, he felt a growing desire to go into business for himself.


“I always enjoyed the business aspect, no matter what it was,” Maxfield said. “As far as insurance, this was a chance to own my own business and work with two very respected people who have integrity.”


Maxfield met Bartel through their mutual involvement in Lions Club.


“I knew what he did, but I didn’t know he was wanting to sell the business,” Maxfield said. “Someone finally told me he might be interested in selling out.”


Maxfield also didn’t know that Bartel had been asking for some divine help to find the right person to buy the business.


“For the last two years I prayed, ‘God, do thy will; send somebody to help us,'” Bartel said. “All of a sudden (Maxfield) walked in out of the clear blue. You talk about prayers being answered. I believe in that strictly.”


God worked in a mysterious way to get Bartel into the insurance field back in 1960.


A few months earlier, he had just purchased an 80-acre farm in order to pursue his livelihood.


While directing a service project to shingle a new church building in Topeka, Bartel slipped off the roof, fell eight feet and broke his neck. He was unconscious for four days and in the hospital for 20 days.


“The minute I woke up, I looked around and I said, ‘I guess I’m not in heaven, I’m on earth,'” Bartel said. “Then it hit me. ‘You dummy, you should have bought some insurance; you just bought the 80 acres and you would have lost it if you had died.'”


A few weeks after returning home in a wheelchair and a neck brace, Bartel contacted an agent with Brotherhood Mutual about his insurance needs.


“He said, ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a 10-foot pole,’ Bartel recalled. “But two months later he called me back and said, ‘We need an agent over there for Brotherhood Mutual real bad.’ So I took all my tests, got into the business, and just stayed with it and it almost rolled by itself.”


He began selling insurance in 1960 out of the rural home he and his wife, Tillie, had built on the farmstead. After eight years, he decided he needed to make some changes.


“It wasn’t going fast enough because people don’t like to drive out to the country (to do their insurance business),” he said.


So Bartel decided to open an office in town. He first thought of Hillsboro, but said he was divinely guided to open his first office in Goessel in a building formerly used as a restaurant.


“God worked it out and somehow told me to move to Goessel,” he said. “So then I had that territory. Then I could move back to Hillsboro and have that territory. Then we moved into Newton and we had a triangle.


“That’s the way God planned it.”


Bartel opened an office in Hillsboro during the early 1980s when Seibel Real Estate and Auction opened an office building on the corner of D and Main streets. By the mid-80s, he also had offices in Newton and McPherson.


About six years ago, he bought his current building and consolidated his agency there.


A simple philosophy has been the key to Bartel’s success through the years.


Treat the customer right.


He also believes in responding to his customers promptly and in person-and literally goes the extra mile to do so.


“That’s the secret,” he said. “I go to see them. I’m sort of like the old horse-and-buggy doctor.”


Through the years, Tillie has worked at his side in the venture. Now in their mid-80s, they decided it was time to sell the business. The Bartels will continue to work part time in the office as underwriters for a few more years yet, assuming their health allows it.


“I’m not going to retire to the point where I just sit around,” R.J. said. “If you sit down and do nothing, five years is about your life span.”


Not that sitting around would be a live option anyway. Over the years, Bartel has developed 16 different hobbies in which to invest his considerable energies. The list ranges from refurbishing antique vehicles to collecting quips and quotes.


About two years ago, he and his hobbies were featured on the “Hatteberg’s People” feature produced by KAKE-TV in Wichita.


The staple of Bartel Insurance Agency has been Mennonite-related insurance products, particularly Mennonite Aid Union of Kansas.


He and Maxfield are both prepared to handle those products into the future. Maxfield will also offer a variety of other insurances, too.


The new owner is now as convinced as the former owner that this recent transition has been the result of more than mere career planning.


“I really just felt it was something the Lord wanted me to do,” Maxfield said. “It just seemed things were falling into place without me doing anything. I figured I’d better not argue with that.”

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