The keynote speaker for the fall 2012 commencement ceremony will be Southeastern Alumnus and insurance executive C. Allen Bradley Jr. of Deridder, La. Currently he sits as president, chairman of the board and chief executive officer (CEO) of Amerisafe Inc., which is a workers compensation insurance holding company.
Amerisafe was created in 1986 and originally provided workers compensation for employers in the logging industry only, but in 2005 it became a public company and expanded its operations. The main objective of Amerisafe is to insure workers in hazardous fields: construction, trucking, agriculture, oil and gas, wood production, manufacturing and maritime employees. To date, the company has assets of almost $1.2 billion.
“We write very unusual workers compensation; it’s called high hazard workers comp,” said Bradley. “Our largest group is construction, about 39 percent, and about 23.5 percent is trucking. [We cover] all sorts of dangerous things that insurance companies tend to avoid.  It’s a very unusual company and there aren’t many other companies like it.”
The procession of graduates will begin at 10 a.m. lead by the “Golden Graduates,” from the class of 1962. Current graduates should line up at the lower level of their appointed gate by 9 a.m. The College of Business will line up at gate one, graduate studies and the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will line up at gate three, the College of Education and Human Development and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences will line up at gate five and the College of Science and Technology will line up at gate seven. Overall, about 1,300 students will be receiving their bachelors, masters or doctoral degrees.
Bradley is honored to be asked to speak at the commencement ceremony, and as a teaser to his speech Bradley said, “The [graduates] can do, and be, anything they want to. I never in my life thought I would be doing what I’m doing now, I never considered it. I spent the first 18 years of my professional career as a lawyer suing insurance companies. Life has a way of its own direction, and it’s [the graduates] obligation to try and make the most out of it.”  
In addition, Bradley has also served two terms in the Louisiana State Legislature and received his law degree from Louisiana State University in 1976. For more information about the day of commencement visit www.selu.edu/admin/rec_reg/commencement.