Elevator Pitch Competition

John Shaffer

John is a State Farm agent in Pensacola, FL. He started his career as an Electrical Engineer; selling his engineering firm, Shaffer Systems, to General Electric in 2003. GE moved him back to Pensacola for a regional Engineering Manager role and he fell back in love with the area. It was an easy decision to settle here - eventually joining Merrill Lynch as a Financial Advisor. After completing Merrill Lynch’s sales training program a year early, he was chosen in the Fall of 2007 to start his first State Farm agency in downtown Pensacola.

Out of over 19,000 State Farm agents, he was one of only 200 agents chosen to open a second agency in July of 2016. He now has 14 employees who consistently win some of State Farm’s top awards. He has mentored 6 team members to become successful agents themselves and has another 4 on his team aspiring to be entrepreneurs as well.

John is married to his college sweetheart, and they have 2 sons in college.