Employee Spotlight: Mark Rice

Above: BCBSND Manager of Key Accounts Management Mark Rice with his daughters.

In this employee spotlight, we feature Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota (BCBSND) Manager of Key Account Management Mark Rice.

Meet Mark Rice
Mark Rice has over three decades of sales experience, much of which have been selling medical and pharmaceutical devices. In early 2022, he got reacquainted with our Director of Sales Chris Kulesa, who knew he’d be a great fit for the manager position. After meeting for coffee, Mark was convinced he was a good match and started in November 2022.

The skills he brings to Blue
Mark believes his strongest skill is relationship building.

“I think strong relationships are obviously very important because it opens up communication avenues that you may not have ever seen before,” shared Mark. “Building working friendships – taking it a step further than working relationships – is probably one of the things that has added to my success in the past.”

A typical day at Blue
Each day, Mark prepares for a variety of meetings with his team and other leaders. As a new employee, he’s still learning about all of the different products and benefits Blue has to offer. On top of that, he’s learning about the culture, technology and jargon – an important part of a specialized industry like health insurance. 

Mark understands that knowing your product is a crucial part of sales as you have to be able to make the topic make sense for your customer. He said his many years of coaching, managing and trading has taught him that everybody is different. So, learning how to translate benefits and products into something different people can understand is a crucial part of the job.

What Mark likes best about #LifeAtNDBlue
In the industry, Mark has seen many salespeople get cycled out of their jobs after they’ve established contacts. That’s why he is impressed by the longevity and tenure of our sales employees at BCBSND. 

“Every week during our key account meetings, I get a list of who has birthdays and  work anniversaries. I see 40, 35, 32, 28 years and think, ‘That's pretty amazing!’”

Mark expressed that an even better part about #LifeAtNDBlue is the collaboration that happens every day. He said it often feels like a football team in their meetings. Mark’s team has 11 people on it and sometimes they’re doing completely separate jobs, but all are trying to “move the ball” down the field into the end zone. 

“It's fun to ‘huddle up’ and put our brains together to form a new strategy. Then we go out and do our separate jobs to get our task done and huddle up again,” shared Mark.

What Mark hopes to take away from Blue
Mark is an active volunteer in the community, having worked with nonprofits like M3 (a youth hockey organization), Heart of Clay (a Clay County Jail Ministry) and the Moorhead Legacy Education foundation. By interacting with senior leadership and learning from their experiences, Mark is growing as a leader himself. Following their example, Mark hopes to continue sharing his time and talents with his community.

What will you bring to Blue? 
See our available Careers.