Motto: "If I don't know them, I sure would like to meet them."

Martinez insurance agent Tommy Norris lists meeting new people and being in a crowd of strangers among his favorite things.

His wife, Cindy, thinks he already knows everyone.

"We can't go anywhere without someone recognizing him," she said. "He does know a lot of people."

Mr. Norris started his career 22 years ago, fresh out of college, as a Prudential agent in Augusta. Insurance is the only job he's ever had.

He was urged on on several fronts to get into insurance, by an uncle who was a Prudential agent in south Georgia and by his father-in-law, who thought he had the personality for it.

The business on Baston Road is called The Norris Group. It is a group of three, including his wife.

His main clients are businesses and retirees. Mr. Norris said his primary source of revenue is from selling health insurance and group benefits, such as life insurance, vision and dental insurance. He also handles personal policies in life insurance and long-term care insurance.

Following his name on the sign in front of the office is an alphabet soup: CLU -- chartered life underwriter; ChFC -- charted financial consultant; and CLTC -- certified long-term care.

"I'm a believer in long-term care (insurance) because of what happened to my mother ... went through a lot of money taking care of her the last four years of her life," Mr. Norris said.

Long-term care insurance has been around for more than 25 years, but it has gained a lot of publicity in the past five years, he said.

"People buy life insurance if they are concerned about dying too soon. People who buy long-term care are concerned about living too long," Mr. Norris said. "If you aren't prepared for the end-of-life issues, you can go through a lot of money."

The Norris Group was in the top 10 with Prudential last year in sales of long-term care insurance.

Mr. Norris is a Prudential agent but has the freedom to represent other companies, too.

"I think the best thing about Tommy is he really cares about his clients," Mrs. Norris said. "He always goes for the best for the client. We don't push just one company."

In the mornings, Mrs. Norris is an assistant to the elementary school principal at Westminster Schools of Augusta. In the afternoons, she is the assistant to her husband.

Though he has spent more than 20 years building up a client base, Mr. Norris hasn't stopped making his sales calls.

"The key is to see a lot of people. And do what you say you're going to do," Mr. Norris said.

Catherine Riley has been his customer service representative for four years.

"He has a lot of clients that are older and they like to talk to him on a personal basis. They don't like to be on the phone with automated systems," Ms. Riley said. "He also goes to their house to meet face to face. They really appreciate that."

She also thinks he knows everyone.

"Whenever I go out, I'll mention his name and I get, 'Oh, yeah.' It is crazy," she said.

Mr. Norris is a self-described optimist.

"I think something good is going to happen all the time. People ask me how's business, I say getting better every day," he said.

The failure rate for new insurance agents is high.

"But the rewards are great," Mr. Norris said. He helped the local Prudential office recruit agents for a time.

"You got to do what they tell you to do. Follow the management, make a lot of calls and see a lot of people. Keep going, don't give up. It takes awhile to build a clientele," he said.

The lifeblood of his business is the chamber of commerce and the networking potential it provides. He was the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Person of the Year for 2002.

In a roundabout way, the chamber got him into his current sport, tennis.

Love

The 45-year-old insurance agent began playing tennis a decade ago.

He had a neighbor who was the owner of a tennis facility. Mr. Norris told the neighbor he needed to join the chamber of commerce. His reply was that Mr. Norris needed to join the tennis club.

So he did.

"I wish I had started sooner," Mr. Norris said.

Tennis replaced basketball as his sport of recreation and competition.

"I used to play a lot of basketball at the YMCA. The crowd got too young for me. The guys at the gym like when the over-35 guy can still hang with them, that was as long as I could hang with them," he said.

Mr. Norris' involvement in tennis and basketball go beyond a love of competition.

His father, Lynn Norris Jr., died in the summer of 1984 after a stroke.

"He was diabetic, overweight, didn't recreate," Mr. Norris said of his father. "I see what he did. He worked all the time. He didn't take time out to exercise or take care of himself."

Mr. Norris said that's why he's chosen a different lifestyle.

"I'm` not going to work all the time and damage my health like he did," he said. "To be healthy you got to do something. To be a good provider, you got to be healthy. I'm just lucky I found tennis when I did. Some people say I would be tired of it by now if I played it all my life."

Mr. Norris is on a local team that will be competing in a USTA sectional event in Birmingham, Ala., in July. The team was second in the state but earned a berth to the next level through a wild card.

"When we went up to the desk to get our plaque for second place, they said they've got some good news," Mr. Norris said. "We're going to go with the expectations of doing well ... It gives you that competition that some of us like."

Mr. Norris has already competed in big sporting events. While in high school in Harlem, he was a pitcher and second baseman on two state champion baseball teams.

His record was 10-1 in his senior year.

"Do that now, and you're a college prospect," he said, although Columbia County then wasn't the "hotbed" for college baseball talent it is now.

One regret is not taking his baseball skills to the college level.

"I wish I had tried," Mr. Norris said.

Becoming 'Boss'

Mr. Norris' father, was known in Harlem as "Boss Hog," borrowed from the Dukes of Hazard television show. He even dressed up as the character for parades, his son recalled.

During his baseball days, Mr. Norris inherited a portion of that nickname, "Boss."

He is the younger of Lynn and Ann Norris' two children. His sister, Julie, is 15 years older, so he feels as though he grew up an only child.

Mr. Norris grew up around the town's grocery store, Norris Foodland, until his father sold it in 1976.

"I was 12 years old. I was just getting old enough to work there," Mr. Norris said. "I'd read all the comic books and then put them back on the shelf. I'd go back into the stock room to read comic books and eat candy, drink milk and eat pound cake. I was overweight, too."

Mr. Norris said his father wished him to become a lawyer because he wanted to be one himself.

His father loved politics and served three terms with the Columbia County Commission -- he was a commissioner at the time of his death in 1984.

Mr. Norris briefly entered politics, serving on Harlem's city council. He served 18 months of his two-year term but could not finish because he moved to Martinez.

"I like all of my friends who are politicians, but I don't want to get involved. I have no ambition on that end," he said.

When he graduated from Augusta State University in 1986, he had a business degree but wasn't sure of his career. He recalled his uncle in south Georgia who was an insurance agent with Prudential.

"He came to my high school graduation and told me that if I ever wanted to get into the insurance business just let him know. Back then, it went in one ear and out the other.

"I graduated college and still didn't know what I wanted to do," Mr. Norris said.

His uncle got him a job interview in Savannah, Ga., and the company hired him based on the uncle's recommendation.

"I was 23 years old when I joined Prudential, and that's the only job I've ever had," he said.

Seeing the Augusta Prudential office for the first time nearly made him change his mind, however. It was rooted in the 1970s, with shag carpet and wood paneling. His feelings soon changed.

"I worked long hours. I can remember I didn't feel comfortable approaching business owners during the daytime, so I'd be calling people after 5," Mr. Norris recalled.

So for most of the day, he didn't have clients. He found busy work and took a nap because he was working into the night meeting potential clients.

"I called on everyone I knew. People were nice about agreeing to meet with me at a young age," he said.

The first insurance he sold was to his high school baseball coach.

Mr. Norris said there was no local manager. When it came time for his training, the manager would come into Augusta once a week: "I just did what they told me."

Mr. Norris said he wished his father would have lived longer.

"My dad knew everybody. He would have been a real asset to me to help me meet people. I had to meet them on my own," he said.

After nine years, Prudential closed the Augusta office and sent Mr. Norris off on his own. He moved into a client's office space in 1996, which turned out to be a large production year.

"I needed it because I was real nervous about paying overhead," he said.

Mr. Norris owns his current office on Baston Road and rents out the additional space.

He's hoping one or both of his sons will express an interest in the insurance business. His youngest son will be a junior in high school. His oldest son has finished three years of college, studying psychology. He is transferring home to Augusta State from the University of Georgia.

Ms. Riley said Mr. Norris is a good boss: "No matter what's going on, he cares about me as a person and an employee. If I have a problem with a customer, he always backs me up."

Community ties

A few months before his father's death in 1984, 20-year-old Mr. Norris met his future wife, 23-year-old Cindy Bartles.

Since she was from Harlem, he knew of her.

"She was homecoming queen in 1978 when I was in eighth grade. I thought, wow, she's pretty," Mr. Norris said.

He was attending Augusta State when they met. They got married two years later.

"Cindy is the cautious one, sometimes she needs to hold me back," he said.

"I'm the practical one," she said.

They have two sons: Adam, 22, and Chandler, 17.

"He's a wonderful dad. He's always been involved, always played things with them. He always coached their teams," Mrs. Norris said.

When she got a job at Westminster, it was natural for the boys to attend school there.

"I had worn out the arm pitching batting practice to them, then they took up soccer," Mr. Norris said. "I needed counseling, man."

It wasn't an act.

"It was traumatic," Adam Norris said. "Nobody likes change."

Mr. Norris said he has embraced soccer now and enjoys watching his sons play.

Before his sons got into competitive sports, they did a lot of camping. From March to October, it was one or two weekends a month, somewhere in the South in a tent.

Mrs. Norris does not camp, he said.

"She's the hardest working woman I've ever met. She believes in one vacation a year. And I like to have a lot of vacations, long weekends," Mr. Norris said.

Mr. Norris has been bald -- by choice -- for the past three years.

He said just days before a vacation he would always get his hair cut short. Then once, he had it shaved.

"My wife said I needed to grow a goatee because I looked like a light bulb."

He stuck with it, and now people can hardly remember him with hair.

Mr. Norris said he sees himself as one of those people who never really retires. He plans on moving his office into the cottage in the backyard when it comes time to slow down and semi-retire.

"I see Tommy Norris as a future community leader," said Pete May, a friend and frequent tennis opponent. "And he's a good tennis player."

Mr. Norris was a member of the Martinez-Evans Rotary Club for 17 years. He has agreed to join the board of the National Barrel Horse Association, led by Mr. May.

Mr. Norris also is an advocate for Columbia County Clean and Beautiful, picking up roadside trash four times a year near his house. He gets his sons to help.

Meanwhile, Mr. Norris is planning a reunion. In the fall, he'd like to get together all of the people who once worked at Norris Foodland in Harlem.

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.