Quiet Giant Making a Name for Itself
Beech Street Corp., a silent giant of the managed care industry, is starting to make noise. The privately held Irvine-based firm, which provides health and workers’ compensation benefits to 20 million individuals across the country, aims to remain an independent company. Rather than get lost in the fray as consolidation sweeps its industry, the company plans to capitalize on it.
Last year, it hired the Identity Group, a marketing firm with offices in Tustin and Glendale, to spread its name. “To compete in this world, with all these mergers and acquisitions going on, we just need more visibility,” says George Bregante, who was the company’s top sales and marketing executive until being named president recently.
Beech Street had done little to attract attention. It’s one of the nation’s largest companies peddling networks of discount providers of health benefits and workers’ compensation. It quietly grew by selling services to employers and insurance companies that then resold the products. Beech Street now employs 600 people, including 400 in Irvine. The company posted revenue of $53 million last year and, says Bregante, is very profitable.
The company aims to grow further by picking off customers who don’t want to deal with managed care firms undergoing mergers. But many haven’t heard of Beech Street.
Says Linda Kaplan, an Identity Group account executive: “The average person out there is being bombarded with advertising” and marketing materials from Beech Street’s competitors.
The Identity Group has started sending out announcements of new clients that Beech Street has lined up. The firm is searching for a theme for a national marketing campaign to be launched this year. And it’s booking Bregante as a speaker for industry conferences.
All the activity seems to be attracting more calls from prospective customers, says Bregante, though he hasn’t kept count.
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Barbara Marsh covers health care for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7762 and at barbara.marsh@latimes.com.
