As we celebrate our 60th anniversary, we wanted to go back to the beginning & tell you just how Gallen Insurance started. Our agency was established in 1957 by Joseph J. Gallen, however the history of insurance goes back even further in the family to Joe Sr’s father, Alexander Joseph Gallen (known as AJ). Joseph Sr. worked with his father at an insurance agency but shortly after his father passed away he was fired. At this time, Joe Sr. decided to go into business on his own & founded Joseph J. Gallen Insurance. Gallen was and still is a main street insurance agency writing both personal & commercial insurance. Ann Gallen Moll was the first of Joe’s children to begin working at the agency in 1978. His son, Jack, joined in 1979. In 1981 Joe Sr. and Ann purchased 50% of Berkleigh Insurance and Ann remained working at the Berkleigh office until 1985 when the second half of Berkleigh was purchased. The two offices merged into our current location at 2237 Lancaster Pike Shillington, PA & thus became known as Gallen Insurance. The family continued to join the agency with the addition of Joe Jr. and Mark in 1985. Joe hired his son-in-law Donald H. Moll (current owner of B&G Glass) in 1986 and son David Gallen in 1989.
As both family & business became more interesting around 1988, Joe Sr. decided to step out of the business for 6 months to see if the family could agree long enough to run a business. Ann was elected President by her 4 brothers. In 1989 the agency hired its first health insurance producer. Joe Sr. officially retired at the age of 65 in 1991.
All of Joe Sr. & Melba Gallen’s children Teresa (Terry) Ernst, Michael Gallen, John (Jack) Gallen, Ann Moll, Joseph (Joe) Jr. Gallen & Christopher (Chris) Gallen have been a part of the agency’s history. Currently, Ann Moll, Joe Jr. Gallen & Dave Gallen still work for the agency. Recently Dave’s son, Ben Gallen joined the team as the first grandchild of Joe Sr. & Melba to work at Gallen on a full time basis.
Our ever popular sign has been changed by our famous “Sign Guys” starting with Sam Moll, son of President Ann Moll, Ben Gallen, son of Dave Gallen, who passed the job down to his brother Grant and our current ‘Sign Guy’ is Owen Gallen, son of Chris Gallen.
We have a feeling there will be many more Gallen grandchildren & great-grandchildren to have a role here at the agency as we continue to be your local, trusted & family owned agency. However, let’s not forget our amazing employees outside of the family. Our current staff consists of 21 employees. We have 17 full time employees and 4 part time that make up our wonderful staff.
Join us in celebrating our 60th Anniversary, we look forward to seeing you at our Open House on Monday, September 18th, 2017!
