Jack Curtin, insurance leader was Notre Dame devotee; 67

JACK CURTIN

Calling Jack Curtin a fan of Notre Dame football does scant justice to the term. To Mr. Curtin, even the power of prayer was inextricably linked to his alma mater's fortunes.

"You have to understand that this series is a setup to increase prayer among the faithful of the Catholic Church," he told the Globe in 1996, discussing the rivalry between Boston College and the University of Notre Dame. "The whole idea is to have two football teams beat up on each other in order to reveal which side God is on. This increases the use of prayer dramatically."

While his faith may have deepened each autumn Saturday afternoon as he watched the Fighting Irish in person or from afar, Mr. Curtin's belief in his profession was constant during more than 40 years in the insurance business as he provided bonding for construction companies working on projects that included the Big Dig.

Mr. Curtin, a past president of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers, died of a heart attack last Saturday after returning home from celebrating a grandson's birthday. He was 67 and lived in Woburn.

"He was one of the most compassionate people I've ever known," said his son Jeremy, of Newmarket on Fergus, Ireland. "He was always able to see the positive in every situation, and he had a sense of humor that really drew people to him."

John J. Curtin grew up in Wellesley, and his father worked with Mr. Curtin's uncles in the family insurance business. Although he graduated in 1958 from St. Sebastian's School in Needham, some of his education took place half a world away.

"Jack had an interesting childhood," Pam Curtin said of her husband. "His father believed in travel. They went all over the Mideast - they climbed the pyramids, rode the camels, did the Casbah."

They also traveled to what was then Leningrad in the Soviet Union during the chill of the Cold War.

Mr. Curtin performed on stage in high school and college - "he was a bit of a ham," his wife noted - but it was his sister Jane, now of Connecticut, who turned acting into a profession, first as part of the original cast of the TV show "Saturday Night Live."

Upon graduating from high school, Mr. Curtin applied to two colleges: the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University. He ended up in Indiana and, after graduating in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in history, returned to Notre Dame often.

"He was a neurotic history buff," his wife said. "He read only history, and he should have been a teacher."

Through the years, he served on the board of Notre Dame's alumni association and regularly squired people around campus, either as part of his affiliation with the association, or just for fun with relatives and friends.

"It was the pageantry of Notre Dame that really got him, and he gave great tours," his wife said. "They were fascinating. I've probably been on 50 of them, and it's still interesting."

For four years after graduating from Notre Dame, Mr. Curtin served as an intelligence officer in the Navy, and then left as a lieutenant and returned home to join the family insurance business.

At a party one night, he met Pamela Hopkins "and that was it," she said. They married in 1967.

In 1975, Mr. Curtin and a few partners bought the insurance business from his relatives, and in 1989, he created a separate firm to handle bonding and surety business, to insure contractors.

Speaking with the Globe in 1990, Mr. Curtin discussed US government guidelines that mandate that 10 percent of federal funding for the Big Dig go to minority-owned construction firms. That created tremendous opportunities, he said, but many smaller firms were ill-equipped to benefit.

There was, he noted, a lack of "any real, efficient, consistent, dedicated, educational programs to prepare people who aspire to take advantage of these opportunities."

Mr. Curtin, whose company tried to help firms prepare for such an undertaking, added: "We owe them something, and we're going to do our part. We see lots of dollars floating in the air with these projects, and there may not be enough minority-owned firms to take advantage of them."

His expertise in working with companies large and small made him a sought-after resource among colleagues, said his son Joel of Nashua, who worked with his father.

"In the surety market, he was it," his son said. "People from all over the country called him for information."

Said his other son, Jeremy: "He was incredibly passionate about what he did, and the industry itself has lost one of its strongest advocates. He was incredibly bright, but he was able to talk with anybody."

Added Joel: "Whether a guy was worth a million dollars or worth $30, he'd give him a smile."

In addition to his wife, two sons, four grandsons, and sister, Mr. Curtin leaves a brother, Larry of Florida.

A funeral Mass was said. Burial was in Woodbrook Cemetery in Woburn.