According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, public trust in government has edged near all-time lows in recent years.
The nonpartisan organization She Should Run believes part of the answer to fixing this problem includes increasing the number of women in public office. To understand how this could improve public trust in government, podcast producer Zach Ewell spoke with Tracey Vasile, a member of the Planning Board for Foxborough, Massachusetts, home of the New England Patriots. Vasile is also senior vice president for client strategy at Verisk, an information services company that specializes in risk. The New England native discusses her journey serving in elected office, the importance of women running, and recent risk trends.
Read the Transcript
At the time, we couldn’t fathom bringing a casino into our town. Our town is about 17,000 people. The energy in this town, I mean, concerts are fun and major league soccer games are fun, but just the energy, especially when we were winning Super Bowls. We want the most experienced, the best leaders at the helm of our government.
Welcome to the Leader’s Edge Podcast. I’m Zach Ewell, content producer here at Leaders Edge. It’s no secret that the political climate of this year’s election has continued to intensify. Many people have been turned off by the bad news and publicity of American politics. In fact, according to a recent Pew Research poll, public trust in government has continued to edge near all-time lows in recent years. This leads to one question. How can the polarization that has engulfed our politics and government be fixed? The nonpartisan organization She Should Run offers an interesting solution. Increase women’s participation in running for public office. Now, this answer is an interesting one. As women only hold 28% of the seats in Congress, that figure points to a hefty representation gap when compared to overall American population, which women make over 50% of. To understand the impacts of this gap and how increasing women’s participation in public office could possibly lead to better public trust in government, I spoke with Tracey Vasile, Senior Vice President of Client Strategy at Verisk, an information services company that specializes in risk. Vasile also holds public office as a member of the planning board for Foxborough, Massachusetts, home of the New England Patriots.
Zach: As I understand it, you serve in elected office in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts. Can you tell me about why you decided to participate in public service? Was there a specific moment or issue that you wanted to address by initially running?
Tracey Vasile: Oh, happy to answer. So back in, I moved into Foxborough in 2001, at the time with my one-year-old daughter, and absolutely loved the culture, the environment, the small town feel. But in 2012, talk began around Steve Wynn bringing a casino to Foxborough, specifically on land that he wanted leased from the New England Patriots owner, Robert Kraft, who was also in support of the casino. At the time, we couldn’t fathom bringing a casino into our town. Our town is about 17,000 people. We have, obviously, the stadium there and the various events, including New England Revolution games, concerts, in addition, obviously, to the football games in the fall. But even with all of that, we were able to still retain the small town feel. And it was very clear early on that a casino would change all of that. Because of that, I became involved with a group in town called No Casino. And thankfully, the woman who pulled tons of folks together was able to rally the town, ensure that the residents and the voters weren’t swayed by Wynn’s very intense marketing campaign. And the end result was two members of the select board who were elected into office, who were against the casino as well, which helped us secure a majority-nay vote on the casino. And it effectively died. And then Wynn went, actually, and built it right outside of Boston. So it still came to fruition in the state, but not within Foxborough. Following that, I was appointed to the town’s financial advisory committee, known as FINCOM or ADCOM, depending on the town that folks are in, and did that for six years. Prior to that, paid no attention to town politics, whether it was in Foxborough or previous places that I had lived. Over the six years, I had the opportunity to be a member, then became vice chair, and then became chair of the advisory committee. And then made the decision, when an opening presented itself on the planning board, to run for election. With a town so small, too, that’s a lot to take in, essentially, if a casino was just going to move in to a town that’s under 20,000 people. It was hard to imagine. It actually was very scary in many ways, because the infrastructure wasn’t there to support it. And people say, well, you already have an NFL stadium in your backyard, and I think we’re one of the only ones, if not the only one, in a small town community like this. But with Gillette Stadium, we know when concerts were happening. We know when games are happening or events are happening. And you can plan, and we’re used to it. And that’s great. And it doesn’t change the feel of the town. But having a permanent casino bringing thousands and thousands of people into our town on basically a daily basis would have really altered it. And personally, I didn’t feel that. And many people didn’t feel that would be for the better. So that kind of leads into my next question. However, if there’s another example, can you give me an example of a time the planning board implemented a policy that you think had a positive change in your community, other than, I guess, the one you just gave? Well, another example, not exactly a policy, but I do think it’s a good example of how the planning board, but other boards within any town, really do impact the lives of the residents. So we have Route 1 in Foxboro, which is a major road. It’s not a highway, but it is a four-lane road that cuts through as our main artery within our town. And there was a group of developers who wanted to, and it was actually a totally woman-owned company, who wanted to build a large warehouse on Route 1. And it abutted a residential area. And I’m all of the beliefs that we live in the United States of America. People can do what they want to do with their land. And as you make decisions in your life, you need to make well-informed decisions. So these people absolutely knew that they were abutting a commercially zoned area. I have never seen residents get so involved and emotional and be so caring about a topic as this potential warehouse that was going to come in. And it just was amazing. And I wish I could have seen it on the other side of the table, but there were hearings upon hearings upon hearings, and emotions ran high. We actually had to have some police presence at our meetings at some point. But we were fully vetting this organization and what they were going to do with the building because of the impact it would have on the residential streets around where the facility would be. And they’re often used as cut-throughs. They’re not built for cut-throughs. They’re very residential roads. There’s been a lot of accidents. They can’t make the turns in the 18-wheelers, which we knew we were going to have in a warehouse. And the vetting process that the planning board went through was more thorough. And it really was exemplified the purpose of why the planning board exists in any town, not just Foxboro. And we vetted it so thoroughly that it never even came to a vote of our board. Because the lawyer and the civil engineer and this women-owned organization, they realized that it was an uphill battle. That if they were going to build a warehouse, it wasn’t going to be as large as they had wanted it, which means, of course, you have to rework all the financials on it. And they ultimately decided to not move forward.
Zach: That’s fascinating. There seems to be so much going on in such a… I mean, it’s not a super small town, but it seems like there’s a lot. You have your hands full, essentially.
Tracey Vasile: We definitely do. Very busy.
Zach: As you mentioned prior, but Foxboro is also home to the New England Patriots and has been for a while now. How does hosting the multi-year Super Bowl champions in your hometown play into your role as an elected official?
Tracey Vasile: You can imagine a lot of the boards in town interact regularly with the craft organization. Primarily, a lot of their interactions go through our select board for approval for concerts, fireworks, etc. Where the planning board gets involved is in two areas. And I will provide definitions because if folks aren’t familiar with the planning process, it’ll be a bit unclear. So we get involved in site plan review, which means there’s criteria that a commercial facility of that type needs to meet from a layout, a scale, appearance, environmental impacts to ensure that it fits within the community and addresses safety, infrastructure, and other concerns.
The other one that we do is we have the ability to grant special permits. And that’s when a commercial entity wants to utilize a plot of land or a building that would not be appropriate generally or without restrictions placed on it. But if there are restrictions placed on it, whether it’s a number of parking spaces, the particular area, how it relates to the abutting residential neighborhoods, and with the thought that it would promote the general welfare of the town, we have the ability to grant those special permits. So an example of two good examples, actually, of one of our some of our latest interactions with them is the craft organization wanted to redesign their the north end zone at Gillette Stadium. And that involved taking out basically that whole end of the stadium, including our famous lighthouse and the Jumbotron and all of those things. And they now and we had to grant the permit, the special permit to allow them to do that work and see what it looked like in drawings, both technical and visual. And now we have the largest Jumbotron in the NFL, one of our claim to fame besides six Super Bowl trophies. And then we actually most recently, and this is when it’s really going to get even more exciting in town, is we just had a review and provide commentary, hasn’t gone to a vote yet for a pedestrian bridge that they’re going to build over route one, which I mentioned earlier, in preparation for the Soccer World Cup that’s taking place in 2026.
Yeah, we’re going to we’re hosting, I believe we’re hosting five or six games, which is going to be just concerts, games, and on steroids. It’s going to talk about an influx of people to this town. But thankfully, the craft organization and our public safety officials do an incredible job of all of that.
Zach: No, I didn’t even think about the World Cup. That’ll definitely impact a lot of cities in America, well, specifically North America. But yeah, I wonder if your town is maybe the smallest that is hosting?
Tracey Vasile: I think there’s a very good possibility we are. It’ll be very exciting here and interesting to see. I think it will hunker down in our homes the days of game, just unless we’re going ourselves. But I do believe we are the smallest town. And again, I do think we are the only small town that houses a football stadium, an NFL football stadium as well.
Zach: Sure, there’s something magical about that.
Tracey Vasile: There is the energy in this town. I mean, concerts are fun and a major league soccer games are fun. But just the energy, especially when we were winning Super Bowls, it was so palpable. I used to run a great deal and I purposely run well when everyone was going to the game and the streets were a little bit of gridlock because the energy and the enthusiasm was just, it was amazing and very infectious. And it is great to live here. People ask if it’s difficult. And as I said, the craft organization, our public safety officials do a phenomenal job.
Zach: According to Pew Research Poll, public trust in government has continued to edge near all time lows in recent years. Many, including the nonpartisan organization, She Should Run, argues that increasing women’s participation in running for office is a way to fix this problem. In your own opinion, why is having more women leaders serving in elected office good for our democracy?
Tracey Vasile: I think, honestly, there are several reasons. And first and foremost, obviously, we want the most experienced and the best leaders at the helm of our government in all facets, in all areas, town, state, country. But I think that there’s a number of different reasons why it’s important to have more women in elected office. First, representation of diverse perspectives. Women bring unique experiences and viewpoints to the table, which, is just a natural lead into more comprehensive and effective policymaking. And when decision makers reflect the diversity of the population that they represent, the policies they create are more likely to address the needs and concerns of all of the citizens versus the subset. I think there’s a degree of enhanced trust and legitimacy. And a little bit more about that. Increasing women’s participation in leadership, I do think can help restore public trust in government. Not because women are more trustful or trusting than men or other genders. But when people see leaders who look like them, act like them, have had similar experiences to them in those roles, they typically feel that the government to some degree is working for their benefit, which leads to greater trust overall. Collaboration and inclusivity. And I’m going to say, make a generalization, and I’m not saying men are not, but women leaders often prioritize collaboration and inclusive decision-making.
This leads to more thoughtful of innovation solutions to complex problems because people feel comfortable putting their idea out there and having it be discussed and a wider range of ideas and perspectives get put on the table and taken into consideration as a result. I think there’s also some areas of our world where women’s leadership is associated with positive policy outcomes. And again, I’m not generalizing and saying this doesn’t happen with male leaders, but I think it’s even, that’s, it is more true in areas such as health, education, social services. And it allows the women in their leadership roles to contribute to the overall wellbeing of society. And then probably the one that I feel, it’s not more important, I probably feel incredibly passionate about it, is role models and inspiration. Having the younger generation and those that will come behind them look at their leaders in all facets of government demonstrates to that younger population that they can aspire to and achieve those leadership positions. And that just supports gender equality and empowers more women to participate in the democratic process. So I think it’s absolutely critical for women to put themselves in the running for roles and represent, whether it’s their state, their town, their school, there’s all types of leadership roles that women can and should aspire to.
Zach: On top of serving on your town’s planning board, you also work as a Senior Vice President of Client Strategy at Verisk, a risk assessment firm. Has working in the realm of risk impacted the way you look at serving in public office?
Tracey Vasile: Absolutely. Verisk’s purpose, and this is another reason I’m so passionate about my job as well as my elected position in town. Verisk’s purpose is working together to build global resilience for individuals, communities, and businesses. At Verisk, we engage in carriers, brokers, regulators, and other industry organizations to help provide that resilience. In Foxborough, the planning board has the same purpose. We’re working together both as a board as well as with other boards and committees in town to build resistance for and within our community. So it’s almost a perfect fit. I would say the way it’s impacted me is I have always tended to view risk, the word risk, any risks, as something negative. And through my work at Verisk and with many of my colleagues in the insurance industry, I’ve learned, and I think I always knew this, but it just reinforced it and made me realize it was okay, is that there’s risk in almost everything.
I mean, even eating a banana, there’s risk. If it’s rotten, you could end up with food poisoning. I’ve also learned that there’s such a thing as good risk, which if you had asked my 25-year-old self, I would have laughed and said that such a thing doesn’t exist. And that having a complete and accurate understanding of that risk when making a decision is critical to making the best or the right decision. And so both personally and professionally, I’ve taken on projects, I’ve gotten involved with things that I wouldn’t have because it was very black and white, risk, no risk, for a long portion of my professional and political career. But now I’ve come to realize that there’s good risk. And it’s just a matter of assessing that risk completely and accurately and getting through all the mud and getting to the facts that there is good risk. And it’s making a well-informed decision about that risk that is most important.
Zach: Given your background, what are some risk trends that you believe more people should be aware of?
Tracey Vasile: Two really stick out for me on that question. First, absolutely is fraud. I mean, fraud has always existed. And I think more and more folks are becoming aware of to what degree it exists. And it continues to grow exponentially. And every day I swear I hear a story about a new way to commit fraud within the insurance industry, or just talking amongst friends and family. Within insurance though, it’s estimated that fraud costs Americans more than 300 billion per year. That’s a crazy number. And it’s increasing. And fraud is absolutely one of the areas that Verisk is focusing their innovation, their work with their business partners to join together to combat fraud. We do a lot of work around digital media forensics. I can’t begin to tell you how many people put a claim in, and then they send the picture to their carrier. And it’s actually a stock photo that’s been used online somewhere. We work with supply chain fraud where 18 wheelers, believe it or not, you wouldn’t think you could steal one, but it’s actually quite easy to steal the trailer of one and take thousands and thousands of dollars of cargo. And we also maintain for the industry an all claims database that allows carriers to quickly differentiate between valid and fraudulent claims. The other big, it’s a risk trend, but it’s more of a trend, I would say, is social inflation, which everyone has talked about inflation. We’re always in some sort of inflationary cycle. Inflation itself refers to the increase in prices for goods and services. And we all know everything is costing more. Going to the grocery store is an incredibly frightening experience for two of us, I can imagine for a family. Social inflation though is almost an added inflation. It’s the easiest way to put it, but it specifically pertains to the increasing costs related to insurance claims driven by societal and legal trends. So we have thoughts about how much somebody should get impunitive damages. The judicial system has thoughts around that where we’ve become a very litigious society. And that’s all driving inflation within what we term social inflation within the insurance industry. And it’s impacting the consumer by the fact that fraud in general, add social inflation, as well as other different metrics. We’re seeing it in very high premiums. I think we can all probably shake our head. We would shake our heads yes, that our premiums for our homes and our autos for our businesses have gone up exponentially. With social inflation, inflation is something we can pretty, as a society we can track.
Social inflation is more qualitative and it’s harder to quantify, but we can see the impact on it through, I just mentioned the rising insurance premiums, increased settlement amounts in claims, excuse me, in claims, as well as lawsuits when there are punitive damages. And it’s really having the impact of, it influences the availability and affordability of insurance company, excuse me, insurance coverage within the United States. It’s those are the two that keep me up at night and are topics of every conversation I have with executives within the industry.
Zach: What have been some recent innovations in how people source and utilize data-driven analytics to help them evaluate information?
Tracey Vasile: I think the first one would not be a surprise for anybody listening here is AI and Gen AI. Major topic for the industry, major topic in general, if there’s many positives, there’s also some negatives and concerning aspects of it, just in general. It really has the potential to be an excellent tool to drive greater efficiencies, which benefit not only the carriers in the industry, but the consumer. If insurance companies can drive down their costs, that will be reflected. And obviously there’s 20 other inputs into the equation, but that can help them in terms of what level of costs they have to pass on to their insurance. So it could have a very positive impact on consumers. Within the industry, though, we’re regulated at the state level. It’s very, very complex. Discussions right now are centered around how, where, and how much can Gen AI be used. And you’re still seeing different carriers putting their toes in a little bit, but it needs to be done ethically, which the industry and Verisk are absolutely committed to. But there’s still, there’s so many unknowns right now. It goes back to my risk answer. There’s a definite upside. There’s also some risk here, and we’ve got to make sure that we have complete and accurate information. And carriers do it as well in order to make the best decision possible about how Gen AI and AI can be utilized, whether it’s an insurance company, whether it’s anywhere in the world. Fraud prevention is where you’re seeing some of the most incredible innovations, because as I mentioned, it’s so prevalent, 300 billion every year in fraud costs Americans. So you’ve got the digital image forensics that I mentioned, the ability for ensuring that the premium that is being charged to the consumer is the right amount. And you always hear stories of people who try to beat the system. And in insurance, I cringe because I know that, okay, well, you may beat the system, but the cost to administer your policy and pay your claims, they get spread around and everybody is impacted by every single action of fraud. Innovations around garaging and radius confirmation. Where is that? Where is that mobile garage? You know, how far are they driving, especially in the commercial auto space in comparison to where their offices, medical records and bill review. And I know some people get very, very concerned. I mean, privacy is a big issue. Veris takes it very seriously, but being able to understand what is happening within a medical file, what is fraudulent?
Medical fraud is a huge issue. They are billing every single client for the same exact tests, regardless of the symptoms they come in at? And as you can imagine, the volume of claims in the industry is incredibly high. And there’s only so many people to handle those claims. And there’s only so many claim systems to handle those claims. But providing predictive analytic solutions to help carriers identify claim fraud quickly and anytime it occurs is a huge area of focus as the industry and Veris continues to want to make the customer experience top shelf. So those, I would say the biggest innovations right now are in those two areas, AI/Gen AI and fraud prevention.
Zach: And what are some of the transformable leadership skills you think exist in both business and elected office?
Tracey: I think there are several. I would say that I was, I don’t want to say pleasantly surprised, but I so benefited from what I’ve learned in, in the business. World that I can apply to apply to my elected position and for my elected position that I could utilize within my professional position. So I think recognizing and understanding different perspectives, we all grow up where we grow up. When you’re younger, it’s a very insulated community, and you go to college, and then you’ve got a little bit more exposure to different. To people that aren’t. Are different from you. And then you go out into corporate America, and that happens, and it gets even more so, and then you go if you get involved in politics, it just exponentially adds, and I. And the importance of it can’t be stressed enough. Recognizing is the first step, but truly understanding different perspectives is critical, engaging and working with a diverse population. I mentioned the warehouse issue that we faced on the planning board. And one of the biggest concerns of the residents who lived along those cut through routes and were concerned about the large trucks was the safety of their children.
My daughter is 24, doesn’t live at home. That was not the first thought that I had as I started listening, I participated in these hearings, and but it’s understanding. And then we had an older person, an elderly person who had concerns about their property was on one of the corners, and it was getting destroyed. So it’s really understanding that, you’re gonna have your own thoughts and concerns, but being able to pick up and understand in what matters to others, both in business and in the professional business and in the elected space, is incredibly important. Being able to articulate complex matters in a straightforward manner. And I would say this is one that was invaluable, that I learned in my corporate career. It was invaluable when I moved, when I became part of the planning board, because while I can delve into details about planning and how much impervious ground there is and what the lighting requirements are, that’s not normal dialogue for a lot of people. Understandably, there’s many things I can’t talk about. So being able to take those really complex ideas, topics, subjects, and being able to explain it in a way that multiple different types of people can understand and then respond with questions and then form an opinion, overall communication. And I know that’s just important in life, but it’s really. I often shake my head because I think it’s a skill that is so overlooked. Like, there should be public speaking courses in every high school and college and trade school and armed forces, because it’s critically important to be able to communicate at different levels from a position standpoint, different topics, different environments. Public speaking is so, so important. And I always. I always used to say that I needed to join the toasters club organization around me, and I never did. But thankfully, I had some excellent coaches and mentors through my career. But that is just critical. And then forward thinking and strategic thinking capability. And it’s kind of like, for those of you who have children as they’re growing up, they think about the moment they’re in. They don’t think, okay, if I’m gonna run. They just think I’m gonna run across the street. They don’t take the next step in that thinking, okay, well, if I run across the street and there’s a car coming, I’m probably gonna get hit and hurt or maybe, God forbid, I die. It’s being able to, think where you are in time and place today, but thinking about understanding and being able to envision what the next steps look like.
Zach:
And last question. Have you ever met Tom Brady or any of the other patriots?
Tracey Vasile: I actually have. Rob Gronkowski and Christian Fourier live in my neighborhood. I’ll tell one quick story to wrap up our time here. The last Super bowl that we won, obviously, there’s always the big parade in Boston. And that night, I happened to go to the supermarket, and I was in the meat section. I’ll remember it to this day. And Matthew Slater was shopping, and I looked at him and I congratulated him, and I said, Matthew, what are you doing here? It’s kind of a big day. And he said it was my day to do the grocery shopping. You see them often around town. They’re very much a part of the community, and they’re very gracious to the community. They’re amazing. When they young children approach them, they’re gracious. But, yeah, I’ve met a number of them, and I’ve never had a bad experience.
That was my conversation with Tracey Vasile, senior vice president of client strategies at Verisk and a member of the planning board, Foxborough, Massachusetts. Hope you enjoyed it.
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