If Greg Hatcher ever feels like he has time on his hands, it is probably because he does not waste any.
The perpetually multitasking Hatcher is the founder of the Hatcher Agency in Little Rock, which he began in 1990 and, for 30 years, has been the state’s top producing employee benefits agency and the largest, organically grown employee benefits agency in the country. Hatcher is also the owner of Scoops Homemade Ice Cream, a recent acquisition, and he was the primary driver behind the rise of wrestling as a sanctioned, scholastic sport in Arkansas.
He does all that among many other things.
“I always say you get more effective and efficient the more you have to do,” said Hatcher, 63. “I figure out ways to do things to maximize time. No minute is wasted.”
Hatcher was a multisport athlete and a nine-time letterman at Michigan’s Alma College, where he graduated in 1983. He joined his family in Arkansas in 1984, and after a stint coaching in the north, he returned for good to work for Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield before he founded the Hatcher Agency at age 28.
Hatcher works out seven days a week, advises others in their business dealings when asked, and coaches football fundamentals once a week at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock and Sheridan High School, as well as coaching at the Arkansas Wrestling Academy at the Mighty Bluebirds sports complex — where two construction projects are underway — that he helped create.
“There’s always wrestling. There’s always new colleges, new high schools, existing programs that I’m involved in,” Hatcher said.
He helped grow wrestling from 44 programs in 2008 to the more than 100 boys and girls programs competing today, while the state’s colleges have sanctioned programs ranging from the NCAA Division I level to Division II, Division III and the NAIA.
Among his accolades, Hatcher is a member of the Arkansas Insurance Hall of Fame and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, and he will be inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in April.
Hatcher coached his five children, is now helping to coach his five grandchildren, and is in the process of writing “a couple of books” while managing a high-profile insurance company and its 100 employees.
“Every day, somebody is going to be asking me for something,” Hatcher said. “It’s kind of my job in insurance. I solve all the problems.”
Hatcher tries to make every moment as productive as possible to get him home in time for dinner or to help him make it to a kid’s sporting event.
“I have a wife, [Lee], and I need to be home at X time,” he said, “and I’m going to pile up any work I have and take it with me. I’m not going to stay in the office.”
Hatcher is in bed by midnight and gets up at 7 a.m., starting his day with a workout at home or a trip to the gym to work with a trainer, after which he is ready to make his first appointments around 9:30 or 10 a.m.
“Success is when you can get up without an alarm clock,” he said.
During almost any car trip, Hatcher is on the phone. While on the stationary bike at the gym he handles calls, answers emails or reads the news, and if he flies somewhere, he uses the time to work on his to-do lists.
“I do it so I can get those things done. I think that’s one way to do it,” Hatcher said.
He does not answer emails during the day at work. Nor does he answer them at night on his iPad or phone.
“People are always amazed that I don’t have a computer on my desk,” Hatcher said. “Well, I’m seeing people all day.”
He leaves errands to his staff, and Hatcher pointed out he is not the one writing Hatcher Agency proposals. He is the one reviewing them.
It is all about working smart rather than simply keeping busy, and every second Hatcher can wring out of every day goes to something with a higher priority, whether it is agency clients in central and northwest Arkansas, Jonesboro, Memphis, Austin, and Philadelphia or his family.
With his reputation for getting things done and his record of success, people tend to call on Hatcher for advice or help with a cause, and he turns down very little.
“Sometimes I’ll listen to it and say, ‘This person can help you,’ but most of the time, I find ways to get it done,” he said.
Hatcher recalled recently advising an acquaintance about how to start an insurance company. Rather than see him as a competitor, Hatcher saw the man through from the perspective of a mentor helping a mentee.
“There are some head coaches that don’t want any of their assistants to become head coaches, and then there are head coaches who want to see how many can become head coaches. I’ll fall on the latter,” Hatcher said.
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