If it wasn’t for Brian Kowitz, the Atlanta Braves may never have won the 1995 World Series.
Kowitz, who today runs Baltimore County-based Heller Kowitz Insurance Advisors, made his debut with the team on June 4, 1995, and set foot on the Braves' team plane for the first time six days later. Just before takeoff, he started to smell smoke. Kowitz was hesitant to speak up at first, but eventually decided to yell "stop the plane" right before departure.
“If that plane had taken off, it might not have gone well. There was a fuel leak and we would’ve suffered from smoke inhalation, or maybe even worse,” Kowitz recalled. “My claim to fame is that I saved that plane from crashing, and there were seven Hall of Famers on that flight.”
Kowitz's career in baseball didn't last long — he earned a World Series ring after playing in just 10 games for the Braves that season — but his Major League Baseball connections are still paying off. His 23-person insurance firm is set to expand to the city where Kowitz made his debut under the leadership of one of his teammates on that plane: Ryan Klesko. The former All-Star will open a production center in Atlanta and find new clients for Heller Kowitz. Klesko is the perfect person for the job, Kowitz said, noting he is an Atlanta legend known for hitting a home run in three consecutive World Series games in 1995.
“He is totally plugged in with business owners, CEOs, athletes and musicians down there; he is a bona fide superstar,” Kowitz said. “He is going to get in front of the right people, and then send them to us so we can find them the best insurance.”
The new Atlanta office, combined with growth in the firm’s Baltimore County business, has Heller Kowitz on target to hit $4 million in revenue this year. Kowitz expects that number to triple over the next five years through acquisitions and more production centers, which center around business development and refer business back to the firm’s main office. The firm should be ready to open its next office later this year or in early 2026, and Kowitz said some possible locations are Michigan, Florida and Houston.
This isn’t the first time that Kowitz has started a business. He was forced to retire from baseball in 1996 after an injury while playing for the Toronto Blue Jays. He decided to go into the mortgage business and started his own firm in 2004 with two other people. The firm eventually grew from three people to 200 before it sold in 2011 for millions of dollars.
The money he made from the sale wasn’t enough to retire, but it was enough to get him out of the mortgage business. For his next venture, Kowitz wanted to go into insurance, an industry that relies more on who you know.
“I was frustrated in that business (mortgage) because I wasn’t using my contacts and relationships in Baltimore from being born and raised here,” Kowitz said.
He ended up connecting with Steve Heller, an experienced insurance professional with a background in property and casualty insurance. Kowitz’s connections and Heller’s experience ended up being a winning combination. Kowitz went to Boys Latin School, and his contacts helped start a relationship with a local private school, which was a big milestone. The company also insures Ravens players, baseball players and plenty of Kowitz's former teammates.
Heller Kowitz wants to keep hiring former athletes while it continues expanding, as a way to break into circles of influence in cities across the country. The company hired a former Philadelphia Phillies player three months ago, and is looking to add a former University of Alabama football player to the team.
“We want to go after and hire these people who have very big circles of influence and can bring them to us,” Kowitz said. “They can open production centers and start bringing in business, or we could go out and start buying smaller companies or just their books of business.”