1930: A Feb. 5 memo offers employees their first continuing education opportunity: “It has been decided to hold a series of classes one night each week throughout the year covering the scope of the compensation insurance business in a practical way.”
1931: Our management announces that dividends, if any, from the 1930 policy year will be delayed six months as “many employers in various lines of business … advised that … conditions are so uncertain they would not even attempt to estimate their future payrolls.”
1932: On April 16, we begin our move one block west to 450 McAllister St. H.T. Higginbotham, office manager, urges “that each person will do his share to maintain a high standard of office cleanliness and an orderly arrangement of physical equipment.”
Announcing that there will be no salary increases before June 1933, Gov. James Rolph becomes actively involved in reducing expenses. Use of automobiles where train service is available is forbidden. Railroads were claimed to be less expensive, and also paid to the state a tax of 7 percent on gross revenue.
1933: Still in the grips of the Great Depression, the State of California announces on Oct. 31 that there is insufficient cash to meet current disbursements and it will issue interest-bearing warrants. H.C. Miller, our comptroller, assures employees that our organization is “self-supporting and, as always, will meet all of its obligations, externally and internally, from its own funds.”
After a 15-year career, Frank Creede announces his intention to return to private law practice. Wesley G. Cannon is named manager on April 1.
1934: Clark B. Day, our Manager from 1923-27, returns to the job Dec. 1. His stepfather, Frank Merriam, is the newly elected governor of California. An Executive Group consisting of J.J. Gallagher, Hugh Higginbotham, I.R Cockroft, and I.W. Ash is created in April.
1939: State Fund marks its Silver Anniversary. Large newspaper advertisements run indicating that we have paid $34 million in dividends during its 25 years of existence.
John C. Stirrat becomes General Manager on Feb. 17, after Manager Clark Day and Chief Counsel Carroll Bucher are implicated in an alleged fraudulent claim scheme. Day and Bucher are both dismissed from their posts.