AUDITOR AND COMMISSIONER OF SECURITIES & INSURANCE

TROY DOWNING

CURRENT OCCUPATION: Businessman CAMPAIGN WEBSITE: www.troydowning.com

Arrow-Circle-Right Briefly introduce yourself. I attended New York University and later worked as a Research Scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. I was a teacher in the Information Technology Department and taught there before leaving to found a startup company. In the late 90s, we merged our company, WebCal, Inc., into the nascent Yahoo! Inc. in a pooling of interests merger. I was then involved in Angel Financing and mentoring of other technology companies. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, I joined the military. I enlisted in a Combat Search and Rescue squadron and did two tours to Afghanistan. Then, I expanded my real estate business and helped build a national commercial real estate portfolio. We started syndicating real estate securities through the independent broker/dealer networks. We built our own insurance company and it eventually became a national company operating as an MGA and program manager with multiple partners in both traditional insurance and CLIP programs. Arrow-Circle-Right What makes you the

pro-business candidate for this

office? I’m the only candidate who’s been in business, who has built companies, who has run companies and who has mentored others trying to build their companies. I am the only candidate in this race who understands that free-markets, innovation, and entrepreneurism is the only system in which prosperity exists.

As Auditor, I will fight to defend and to educate consumers. I will fiercely pursue bad actors who would intentionally defraud or mislead the consumer while also striving for a strong pro-business culture in the Auditor’s office. We will look closely at regulations, statute, and administrative rules and focus on those that clearly protect the consumer and cull those that simply stifle business. I believe that an educated consumer is best at choosing what is best for them. I will strive to help educate the consumer and give them tools to better understand what the risks and rewards are when making a choice.

Arrow-Circle-Right What kind of experience

will you look for in top staff to supplement your own, especially

as it concerns insurance? It’s important to know what you don’t know. I built an insurance company from the ground up. I understand the issues and pain points that I experienced building that. I will seek others with broad insurance experience that expands and supplements my own. I will look for professionals who have worked, in both the private and public sector, on health insurance, life insurance, malpractice insurance… All of the areas that will help supplement my own knowledge and experience. My goal is to find highly experienced professionals who have seen what the pitfalls and pain points are in building and growing a successful business in the insurance industry. Equally important, I want professionals who have seen how bad actors mislead or defraud consumers. The more time you’ve spent in business, the better you are at knowing where to look for those who do not toe the line of what is required and expected.

Arrow-Circle-Right The auditor’s office at

times becomes a catch-all for proposals aimed at government accountability. What’s your view of this office’s authority and its

limits? My vision of the office is as a beacon in transparency. We will pursue transparency in all things government and will encourage transparency whenever possible. Where we draw the line is putting unreasonable requirements for any business or professional to insure or produce that which they have no ability to affect. In other words, we will not assert the authority to require someone to produce the product or specifics of another if they have no authority to do so. What you can expect in my tenure, is a pro-business, protransparency, consumer protection office. We will not seek to gain control or authority where it is not clearly defined in the statute. We will actively work with the legislature to build, define, debate, and perfect legislation that falls within the guidelines of the culture and ideals described above. Our goal is to be staunch stalwarts in consumer protection, and partners in business helping to collaborate and make Montana as probusiness as we can. stop