Urbik admits to getting strange looks when he says things like:
”If I`m going to sell you something so that I can make a commission-I`d like to make the commission-I don`t want to make the commission if what I`m selling is going to leave you worse off in my having sold it to you. In which case I`ve got to take advantage of you. And this unfortunately is part of American business and part of the capitalistic concept that has been criticized . . . so strongly.”
Or:
”As I`ve grown older I have become ever more aware of those intrinsic, innate problems of our capitalistic approach. By putting profit at the center of our criteria, the so-called bottom lining, we truly distort what ought to be done in practical terms. Profit is not the end all and be all. The first thing is we have to respect each other as human beings. Profit comes secondarily from some value we`ve added to that relationship. In other words, if I can`t bring some good to you and thereby get paid, then I`ve got no business being paid. I don`t want your money unless I can do something to make you feel that your money was well-spent.
”The individual responsibility not to take advantage of people . . . to get personal gain is tantamount to what I think is a decent business philosophy. If I`ve got to make you poorer in order to make me richer, I don`t want any part of the deal. I`d rather walk away from it. That`s not good business. That`s why I could never be the president of a major corporation.” Urbik wasn`t born to money nor was money or big-time investments much of a factor for the first 26 years of his life.
Jerome Anthony ”Jerry” Urbik was born Oct. 30, 1929, in Chicago and reared by parents of Lithuanian descent in Brighton Park on the city`s Southwest Side. His father was a factory worker who, he said, retired proudly after 30 years from the Western Electric Co.`s now-razed Hawthorne Works in Cicero. Urbik`s high school and college years were spent being groomed for the priesthood at a preparatory school and seminary run by the Society of the Divine Word in Lake County, Illinois.
”I spent 12 years in that (religious) outfit and left just prior to ordination. In those days you made up your mind before, not after,” he said. ”I was three weeks from ordination. I had been accepted for ordination. I was all through. I didn`t feel I could live that life the way my perception of it required and the perfection that I felt it required. So I simply just chose not to go ahead.”
Urbik`s decision not to pursue the life of a missionary ”was a conscience decision” that he said he never regretted making or having had to make.
”I feel even to this day that if you are going to take on something as serious as a religous commitment, which is very directly involving a man and God, you`d better not fool around with that one. You`d better do that all the way. And if you feel you can`t do it completely, you had better do something else that you can do. So I came into business and I`m doing that better,”
Urbik said.
Although the religious instruction that Urbik received at the seminary in north suburban Techny may be worlds apart from the secular training that most, if not all, the approximatley 150 professionals who work for his Hinsdale firm (the corporatation`s personnel list includes graduates of the Harvard Business School), he makes no apology for his educational underpinnings.
”I specialized in philosophy and theology,” he said. ”I didn`t use all that much theology in business but philosophy came in very handy. It taught you how to think, how to approach problems, how to synthesize things, how to get to the heart of the matter. It gave me a great edge. I never regretted a day of having been in that environment or feeling that any part of it was a waste. I was 26 years old when I got out of that. I got a rather late start.” Roughly a year after what would been his first anniversary as a priest Urbik met and married Barbara Chamernik, a nurse from North Chicago. After living for a time in North Riverside the Urbiks settled in Elmhurst where they have lived for 24 years. The couple has five grown children, ages 24 to 30.
Urbik began selling insurance from an office on La Salle Street in Chicago, but after a couple of years he switched to managing an agency that he founded and carefully chose to base in Du Page, initially in Oak Brook but ultimately in Hinsdale in a building the firm still occupies at 119 E. Ogden Ave.
”I felt that this was going to be the epicenter of greater Chicago. We were near the expressways. We were a half hour from everywhere in Chicagoland here in Du Page at this particular area. We were one of the first ones to move out of the Loop.”
Since founding his insurance agency in the early 1960s, Urbik said he made ”a conscious choice to divorce myself from all sales directly. I have not sold anything personally for compensation in 25 years. The reason for that is I wanted to be a professional manager.”
The switch from insurance sales to a full-service, professional financial services firm was the exception when Urbik did it in the early 1970s. It has since become the rule, he said.
The bulk of Urbik`s clientele, which he said includes a list of about 35,000 customers that range from the very big to the very small, are based in Du Page. Less than 10 percent of the clientele is located east of the county, he said.
Having established a vantage point early on from which to watch Du Page`s growth, Urbik is not without some opinions that he shared, when asked, about the shape of county, its leadership, its politics and its problems.
On the county`s growth, Urbik says:
”Growth has different connotations. Growth is maybe numbers of people and numbers of buildings. But growth is also a certain maturation and that is the phase we have moved into. We don`t need any more people in Du Page, I guess. But I don`t know that we should be taking any steps to stop them. It will just take its normal dynamic. What we have to focus on is the normal maturation of the resources we have now, getting the most out of what we`ve got.”
On solving county problems:
”We`ve got to start thinking much more regionally than we do. You can`t live on an island in a community like this. That may be asking a lot of people, to be altruistic, but it isn`t really altruism. You have simply got to get people who have vision and who have charisma and the strength to stand up and say this is necessary for everybody`s ultimate best interests and we`ve got to do this. Everybody has got to give a little.”
For all his behind-the-scenes involvement, both directly and indirectly, in the maturation of Du Page, and his membership on the board of governors of the United Republican Fund and other causes that he says unfairly carry an ultra-conservative label, Urbik said he has never considered running for public office.
”I guess it`s kind of a reverse snobbery. I hate to subject myself to the judgment of the masses because their judgment seems so poor. The kind of people we elect . . . good people don`t to want to be subjected to the kind of abuse its takes to be a politician or to run for office. They may have a lot to offer but say, `Hey, who needs this?`
”I`d love to make a contribution, but I don`t want to subject myself to a popularity vote on the terms of what is popular.”
