New instructor

New instructor added to the MATE Seminars team

by Mark Bird, owner of MATE Seminars, on 11/3/2017

I am pleased to announce that Dustin Conrad will be joining MATE Seminars for the upcoming Spring 2018 exam season. Dustin will join me for the Core US seminars in Atlanta and Seattle, where he will teach approximately 1/4 of the seminar, while I will teach the remainder. Beginning with the Fall 2018 exam season, Dustin will take over complete responsibility for the Core US and Core Canada products. He will update the study materials as needed and teach the entire Core US seminars.

Dustin comes to MATE Seminars from Willis Towers Watson in Portland, Oregon, where he has spent the last 3 years as a consulting actuary, working primarily on employer benefits consulting. He works directly with large employers to develop strategies to deliver health and welfare benefits to their employees. A large portion of the consulting he provides is centered on financial results: projecting the next year’s costs, setting reserves for current periods, and comparing actual results with projected. He also helps clients follow the latest regulatory and policy processes and understand their financial implications.

Prior to working at Willis Towers Watson, Dustin worked for Regence BlueCross BlueShield for 7 years. While working at Regence, he had active roles on the small group pricing, government programs pricing, and provider contracting teams. His responsibilities included using claim database tools to understand cost trends, developing manual rating factors and costs, and performing ad hoc data analysis to support pricing decisions. He was also responsible for managing the revenue of the Medicare Advantage line of business using the Part C and D risk score revenue model.

Outside of work hours, Dustin has provided service as a math teacher and tutor. He enjoys discussing how math and models combine to explain occurrences in our everyday world.

Dustin is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Prior to beginning his actuarial career, he also earned a master’s degree in Statistics with an emphasis in Actuarial Science from Northern Arizona University in 2007.

I met Dustin while we both worked at Regence, and am excited to be working with him again. I have been impressed with his passion for fully understanding the material he is studying and working on. And I am confident he will bring that same passion as he begins teaching actuarial seminars.