Member News

Alisa Walch: A Texan Returns Home and to the Classroom

Alisa Walch and her husband, Dan.

CAS members come from diverse backgrounds and influence the actuarial profession in numerous ways. Alisa (Havens) Walch (FCAS 2015) is a small-town girl from Texas who moved to New England to work in the insurance industry. She ultimately discovered that her heart was in academia back home in Texas. She is a CAS member with the ability to constructively influence on many young people, which could have a positive impact on the property and casualty profession in the future.

Walch grew up in Alpine in the Chihuahua desert of west Texas. “Alpine is small enough to have no stop lights or a Wal-Mart,” she said. For her undergraduate degree, Walch attended Texas Christian University (TCU), majoring in math and minoring in economics. In her junior year she discovered her passion for actuarial science. After graduating from TCU, she followed a professor’s suggestion and completed a Master’s degree in actuarial science at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin.

Following school and an internship, Walch worked at The Hartford in Connecticut for three years. An outstanding cultural contrast that she noticed from Texas is that, in Connecticut, there are Dunkin Donuts seemingly everywhere to satisfy New Englanders’ insatiable need for coffee. Being a small-town Texan living far from family made for a difficult transition. While she liked her coworkers and the actuarial work, she was not comfortable in the corporate environment. Walch and her boyfriend decided to move back to Austin where she would pursue teaching.

Walch initially set up an interview to return to UT at Austin but was told that faculty required a Ph.D. However, a friend helped Walch get a job at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, where she began teaching in the fall of 2011. During her first semester at Huston-Tillotson, she received a call that UT at Austin had reconsidered and had an opening in the spring. The growing actuarial program saw Walch’s experience at The Hartford as an opportunity to enhance the program. The timing was perfect, and she joined the faculty.

Although she teaches full-time, Walch has carved time to volunteer for the CAS. In 2014 she answered an advertisement for a case studies working group within the CAS University Engagement Committee. The volunteer opportunity aligned perfectly with what she wanted to accomplish in the classroom, and in the fall of 2015 she will be introducing a new class on property and casualty case studies. “I have been able to find CAS volunteering opportunities that match up with work goals,” Walch said.

Walch continues to strive to develop students into robust actuaries. “It is nice working with students to help them find out what they want to do and how to do it,” she said.

She is happy to be back in Texas doing what she loves, but she doesn’t forget her time spent “up North.” Her time in New England was relatively short but has had a lasting influence. Every Sunday before church, she stops at Dunkin Donuts to get coffee.