'A most amazing team' for community

GRAFTON – It had likely been more than a decade since the Halloween decorations at the Eppinger household underwent such a swift removal.

By noon Nov. 1 the South Street house was back to normal, less than a day after more than 1,000 trick-or-treaters trekked through the neighborhood.

“Usually it takes me a while,” said Frederick H. Eppinger, who had packed away the holiday supplies Tuesday morning. “Traditionally, this would be a busy week.”

Mr. Eppinger was normally knee deep in Wall Street preparations the first week of November – the customary time period for releasing quarterly earnings for the Hanover Insurance Group Inc., where he was president and chief executive officer.

But after more than a dozen years in the top spot, he left the property and casualty insurer earlier this year, affording him more time with his wife, Patty, three children, three cats, two dogs, three horses and a hedgehog.

“This was a really good time for us to step back and balance things better,” Mr. Eppinger, 57, said. “We’re resetting again.”

His respite was one reason Mr. Eppinger said he was surprised he and his wife were selected as 2016 recipients of the Isaiah Thomas Award for service to the community.

“I’m gone now” he said, chuckling. “They must have heard about our Halloween.”

The Isaiah Thomas Award is given to those in Central Massachusetts who have made outstanding contributions to society, especially over a number of years. Named for the Colonial-era printer, patriot and philanthropist, it was created in 1950 by the AdClub of Greater Worcester and incorporated into Telegram & Gazette recognition programs in 1999.

It will be presented to the Eppingers at an awards ceremony Friday at Mechanics Hall.

For more than a decade, the Eppingers have had a transformative impact on Worcester and beyond, displaying passion, philanthropy and dedication to making the region a better place to live and work, say those who know them.

“The combination has just been a tremendous gift to Central Massachusetts,” said Karen E. Ludington, president and chief executive officer of Children’s Friend Inc., a provider of adoption and mental health services.

“They are without a doubt the most amazing team I have seen in my time as far as the good of the community,” she said.

From his vantage as head of one of the region’s most prominent companies, Mr. Eppinger prodded the city’s economic development, championing the need for Worcester to develop a better identity and a more vibrant downtown.

He did that while also reviving a once-proud Worcester insurer that had fallen on hard times, with sagging earnings, poor morale and a lack of focus.

At the time of his 2003 arrival, Hanover was a regional insurer with a failing life and annuity business. Mr. Eppinger overhauled the company by exiting unprofitable segments, expanding its product portfolio and cementing robust relationships with independent agents.

Hanover posted $331 million in profits in 2015, up 17.6 percent from 2014.

Patty Eppinger, 54, has been one of the most sought-out citizens to serve on area nonprofits and charities, a bridge-builder who can shape goals from fuzzy ideas while crafting a 10-step implementation program.

"Lots of people fight to have her for their cause," said Ms. Ludington. "She's very much in demand."

A management expert who has taught at MIT and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Ms. Eppinger has been on the forefront of One City One Library, an initiative to expand library services, and a founder of the Worcester Education Collaborative.  A former chairwoman of the EcoTarium, she remains involved with the science center's nearly completed $9.1 million capital campaign.

“She’s not just the good-idea fairy,” said Christina M. Andreoli, president of Discover Central Massachusetts and vice president of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. “She’s got energy, intelligence and the drive to get the work actually done.”

The Eppingers have been together for more than 32 years, first meeting when he served as her accounting tutor while both attended graduate school.

Mr. Eppinger grew up in Spencer, the son of a poultry farmer, and graduated from Holy Cross and the Tuck School. Ms. Eppinger was raised in Virginia and attended the College of William and Mary and also received her master's degree from the Tuck School. Her father had a 50-year career for AT&T.

The Eppingers both worked at McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, and lived in Atlanta, Boston, Denver and West Hartford before moving to Grafton in 2004 after Mr. Eppinger was hired by Hanover.

“I think we’re more similar in some ways than complementary,” said Mr. Eppinger, a turnaround specialist. “We have parallel lives. One of the things that attracted me to her and hopefully her to me is that you think beyond yourself as a person.”

Ms. Eppinger said Worcester doesn’t have a waiting period when it comes to making a difference in the community. Unlike some metropolitan areas, she said Worcester has a “show me what you can do” attitude.

“When you go to larger cities, you have to establish yourself before you have any credibility,” she said. “Here, you establish yourself by doing something, which is really different.”

The differences they have made are significant, according to the selection committee for the award.

“With little fanfare, their individual as well as their combined efforts have significantly enriched economic development growth, education excellence, athletic spirit and cultural enrichment all throughout our city and Central Massachusetts region,” the committee said. “They have made a huge difference in enhancing our community and making it such a great place in which to live, work and play.”

In 2006, Hanover’s foundation donated $2 million to the restoration of the decrepit downtown Worcester theater that would become The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts.

In 2010, an investment arm of Hanover acquired for $5 million about half of the vacant portions of the former Worcester Common Outlets mall and a parking garage along Foster Street from Berkeley Investments. First proposed in 2004, Berkeley's $563 million CitySquare project had failed to get off the ground for more than five years when Hanover stepped in.

The theater today is a linchpin of the downtown while the area around Franklin and Front streets is dotted with cranes and scaffolding in support of the construction of luxury apartments, a new hotel and retail space.

“We needed a catalyst for the downtown,” Mr. Eppinger said of the theater. “To me, not doing it halfway was important. It had to be a draw, that it changed people’s perspective of the downtown.”

In regard to the CitySquare investment, he said it became clear that somebody or some organization connected to the city’s long-term success was better suited to take over the stalled project.

“The next 18 months are extraordinary,” he said. “With the hotel, the apartments and the retail going in downtown, it’s going to feel 1,000 times different.”

Much of that sentiment is testimony to the Eppingers, said David P. Forsberg, president and CEO of YOU Inc., a human services nonprofit.

The husband-and-wife duo worried about the big stuff as well as the "stuff in-between," he said.

"They weren't silver-bullet people," said Mr. Forsberg, former president of the Worcester Business Development Corp.  "It was block by block and 'what's next,' " he said.

The Eppingers' arrival in Worcester almost didn't happen.

Mr. Eppinger initially rebuffed a search firm in early 2003 when he was working as executive vice president of property and casualty field operations for the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. Citing three young children and unfinished business at the Hartford, he turned aside Hanover's feelers.

But when the job was still open several months later, he was more receptive to a subsequent pitch. Several relatives had once worked for Hanover and it had impressed him when he studied it in the early 1990s while working as a partner for McKinsey.

"It was very out of the blue," he said of the call, which came while he drove from Cape Cod to his West Hartford home.  "They hadn't talked to me in the interim. It felt like fate almost."

Mr. Eppinger said Worcester is a diverse and livable city marked by stable neighborhoods and a willingness among its residents to pitch in to get things done.

"There isn't a lot of territorialism," he said.  His wife agreed, adding, "If you ask for help, people step in."

Friends of the Eppingers said the couple have always been one to lend a hand.

Lynn Heilig of Boulder, Colorado, a 30-year friend and godmother to one of the Eppingers’ children, recalled Ms. Eppinger once taking a bridesmaid’s dress and fashioning it into a Cinderella outfit on behalf of Ms. Heilig’s 3-year-old daughter.

"There's an incredible generosity of spirit," she said.  "Patty just gets things done."

Mr. Eppinger, a 1977 David Prouty High School graduate, returned to Spencer this year, speaking to the school's National Honor Society. That gesture didn't surprise one of his friends from college.

"He made you feel like you were special and valued," said Len Leader, who met Mr. Eppinger at Holy Cross and was a member of his classmate's 1986 wedding party. 

Mr. Leader said Mr. Eppinger often invited friends to his parents' Spencer house for Friday-night dinner.

"He was not going to exclude anyone," Mr. Leader said.  "He would make you feel right at home."

Grafton remains the couple's home and there are no plans to alter that scenario, Mr. Eppinger said. Two children are in high school while another is taking a year off before enrolling at Duke University in 2017.

He did not offer specifics of what will come next, but said he's keeping tabs on Worcester's development scene.

"We're not going away," Mr. Eppinger said.  "We've got a lot left."