Four generations. One mission. Better benefits administration.

In 1935, Abe Spetner — a St. Louis real estate investor who’d lost everything in the Great Depression — turned to selling insurance. Two years later, a heart attack left his widow, Rose Raskas Spetner, with three young boys and a fledgling agency. She took it over and became the first female insurance broker in St. Louis.

After serving as a Naval officer in World War II, Rose’s oldest son Kenneth joined the agency. Ken pioneered the use of life and health insurance to solve corporate continuation and estate-tax problems — work Transamerica honored in its 1994 retrospective “Dare Something Worthy: The Ken Spetner Story.” In 1986, Ken’s son Jonathan joined him, expanded the robust life insurance practice, and greatly grew the company’s employee benefits division.

In the late 1990s, Jonathan saw what the internet would mean for benefits administration. With his sons Aaron and Judah, he built BenManage — a platform that connects employer systems to deliver benefits at scale. Four generations, one philosophy: do what’s best for the client; the rest follows.