Tommy Ruke

Founder | MCIEF 

M. Thomas Ruke CIC, CIW, TRS is our Country’s leading truck insurance educator. Known as Tommy, (AKA The Kingpin!), he has spent the last forty plus years dedicated to learning himself and then teaching all of us about big trucks, the motor carrier industry and the trucking insurance industry. Tommy (AKA The Pickle Man!) is a lifelong trucker as he grew up working for his father who owned and operated a truck line that hauled pickles.

After graduating from Wake Forest University with a degree in mathematics, Tommy spent ten years as an International Harvester dealer prior to entering the insurance field. In 1979 Tommy earned National Alliance’s Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) designation and in 1983 developed for National Alliance their trucking education program, which was a first in the trucking insurance education field. In 1988 Tommy led the American Association of Managing General Agents (AAMGA), developing their University and served as AAMGA University Chancellor for many years. He introduced the coveted Certified Managing General Agency (CMGA) and Certified Insurance Wholesaler (CIW) designations which transformed insurance education for the wholesale insurance industry. Tommy has worked for decades with numerous insurance companies, wholesale and retail agents, providing specialized truck insurance education, a practice which MCIEF continues today.

In 2012, Tommy founded the nonprofit Motor Carrier Insurance Education Foundation (MCIEF) to provide the very best trucking insurance education to each Foundation member. He has designed an extensive curriculum of classes for every experience level student applicable to all segments of the trucking insurance industry. For MCIEF’s most dedicated students Tommy has developed the Transportation Risk Specialist (TRS) designation, which is recognized as a premier trucking insurance educational achievement. Today MCIEF regularly reaches students in nearly every state and many foreign countries with unique, insightful and timely programs.

Tommy also has served as a professional advisor to law firms requiring professional testimony. A resident of Fort Myers, Florida, Tommy enjoys his grandchildren and all things “Wake Forest”.