BIP Winter 2024

Healthcare is Local

A fresh start for the Wisconsin state chapter

Led by Liz Dannenberg’s determination, Wisconsin’s NABIP chapter made a remarkable comeback, uniting members and reigniting a vibrant community.

Liz Dannenberg took a leap of faith when she decided to attend her first Capitol Conference a few years ago. The Mineral Point, Wisconsin, benefit advisor had never been to Washington, D.C. — and had never met anyone else in NABIP due to the Wisconsin chapter having dissolved. “I flew out completely blind, walked into the Region IV meeting and said, ‘Hi, I’m Liz from Wisconsin. We don’t have a chapter, and I have no idea what I’m doing here,’” she recalls. “People took me under their wing and welcomed and encouraged me.” Should she wish to revive the state chapter, Eric Kohlsdorf, now national immediate past spirit, Dannenberg took on the challenge of reviving the state chapter. “I’m super competitive, and there was a part of me that felt we were losing,” she says. “I felt Wisconsin could be a big, solid team and really represent.” Armed with a list of Wisconsin-based members still paying national dues and some funds remaining from the closed chapter, Dannenberg got to work. Over the next year, she learned the chapter’s history, recruited enough people to create a board and found an executive president, offered to help. Driven by her competitive

Region IV NABIP members posed for a photo outside Wisconsin’s capitol building during the regional meeting.

44 bip magazine Winter 2024