Paul Ritter kept his family’s business going, taking over for his father, Pete, in back, and grandfather, Carlton, in front.
When Paul Ritter graduated from Fresno State University in 1981 he considered a number of career options that his education in the insurance business would give him. He quickly saw that his best option was to come back to Tracy to work in the family business.
It turned out to be a fulfilling career for Ritter, whose retirement last week concluded 101 years in Tracy for the Ritter family’s business.
“I wasn’t sure if this was what I wanted to do for sure, but I thought, not many people get a good shot at a third-generation business. It turned out to be a good fit,” Ritter said. “It’s a very social job and I like that part very much. It also was an automatic connection to all of my college friends all these years, and high school friends that I had here.”
Ritter Insurance Agency is part of Tracy history that prominently features Paul Ritter’s grandfather, Carlton Ritter, and father, Pete Ritter.
Recalling his family history from more than a century ago, Paul Ritter described how his grandfather had worked on the family farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York before he came to the Tracy area as an agricultural seed salesman. After he became acquainted with Stockton real estate broker C.C. House, Carlton became the sales manager for a new development in Tracy, Parker Acres, representing Tracy’s expansion north of 11th Street.
He soon met and married Margaret Dwyer, whose father, Thomas Dwyer, was Tracy’s first mortician, and in 1923 Carlton Ritter opened his own real estate and insurance company. The Ritters raised their four children in town while Carlton became active in business and as a community leader, establishing his real estate and insurance office in what was then known as the Crystal Room in the Tracy Inn. He would eventually move to a new office on B Street between 10th and 11th streets in 1957.
The Ritters supported the establishment of Tracy Community Memorial Hospital, selling bonds for the project, and in 1944 they donated 10.6 acres of land at Bessie Avenue and 23rd Street for a city park, known as Tracy Ball Park for about seven decades before it was renamed Ritter Family Ball Park in 2018.
One of their sons, Pete Ritter, a 1953 graduate of Tracy High and U.S. Army veteran, having served in Korea, came into the business in 1957 and purchased it from Carlton in 1966, focusing mostly on real estate. He owned land at the north end of town, including a parcel along Tracy Boulevard where he built Carlton Plaza at Tracy Boulevard and Kavanagh Avenue in 1992 at a time when it was one of the few business-oriented buildings north of Grant Line Road.
Paul Ritter is a 1977 graduate of Tracy High and while attending Fresno State he joined Hartford Insurance Company, which had regional office in Fresno, and worked in the underwriting department while going to college. He earned his real estate broker’s license upon graduating from college. Since joining his father’s business in 1981 he has focused almost exclusively on insurance. He said it’s a job that’s challenging and rewarding.
“If you can get people through a very bad day — because the day they need insurance that’s a very bad day for them — if you can get them through a bad day and feel like when it’s all said and done that they’re going to be taken care of as best as they possibly can that’s very satisfying.”
He added that the business always offers something new to learn.
“It’s never boring. Every call that comes in is different. You sometimes get the routine requests, and sometimes you get the requests that you never would have ever thought. Occasionally sometimes the claims are even more colorful.”
He recalled a woman who bought renter’s insurance and then compiled a long list of expensive jewelry plus some South African Krugerrand coins, and then reported that she was burglarized with all of her valuables stolen. When repeated interviews revealed inconsistencies in her descriptions of the stolen items she broke into a nervous sweat, abruptly left the interview and was never heard from again.
“It turned out to be a very elaborate hoax that we busted up, because she had done it a few times before,” Ritter said. As the years went by he learned to be on-guard against other types of scams.
“I’m sure 95% of claims are legitimate, but insurance companies are always on the watch for that 5%.”
The best times in the business, he said, were when he and his father worked together.
“I’ve never not wanted to come to work. It’s always been fun. I really enjoyed it when my dad was here,” he said. “His friends would come in and have coffee and he was very active with the coffee group that back then met at the Tracy Inn and then Perko’s. It was quite enjoyable. I was lucky enough to have lunch with him every day almost for almost 30 years.”
Ritter tried to retire from the business 3 years ago, but Acrisure of California, which took over the business, asked him to come back on a part-time basis, which soon turned into full-time. Now he plans to stay retired.
“It’s time to see a few things and spend more time with my wife (Kathleen). She’s been very patient, to say the least,” he said.
Ritter added that the while he’s retiring, he expects the business to continue uninterrupted, with Alma Martinez-Burrell taking over the personal side of the insurance business and Charles Manne taking over the commercial side.
• Contact Bob Brownne at [email protected], or call 209-830-4227.
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