Mitch Hillman Named President/CEO of AAA Central Penn

Mitch Hillman was recently selected to be the new president and chief executive officer of AAA Central Penn. "I am looking forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead with confidence and enthusiasm," said Hillman, who took the position on February 1.

Hillman said his goals for the future of AAA Central Penn are the same as throughout his management career, "to continue to provide increasingly better service to our members, to make AAA Central Penn an excellent workplace and to manage the Club with fiscal responsibility and efficiency in order to achieve this."

Mitch’s successful career can be traced to a strong work ethic and management philosophy that has been ingrained in him from a young age. His favorite quotation is by Harry S. Truman: "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

Hillman was born in Atwater, Minnesota, a small farming community, to parents who lived through The Depression. His father was a hard-working steamfitter, who was always preparing for the next Depression. Mitch’s first job was when he was 10 years old, selling greeting cards door-to-door in Minneapolis, where he grew up.

"I did that for two years, from age 10 to 12," Mitch said. "When I was 12, I was old enough for a paper route and began an evening and Sunday route for the Star and Tribune. When I was 14, I switched to a morning route so I could work part time after school at Clara’s Do-Stop Diner for 50 cents an hour."

He continued to work through high school and then served in the U.S. Navy as an aircraft electrician working on anti-submarine aircraft. When his enlistment was up, Mitch entered the University of Minnesota, where he again worked - for Montgomery Ward - while earning a degree in English literature in 1968. After graduation, he became a management trainee for Target Stores Inc.

"Halfway through my college years, I met and married a young widow, Barbara, with three children, Rick, Randy and Teresa, all of whom I adopted," Mitch said. In 1972, their fourth child, Mitchell Jr., was born and Mitch was promoted to store manager for Target in Houston. The family relocated to Pennsylvania in 1974, when Mitch became store manager for Hills Department Stores in Camp Hill.

Hillman began his 30-year career in the insurance industry in 1977 as a life agent. In 1989 he joined the AAA Central Penn team as an insurance agent and in 1994, earned a Certified Financial Planner designation.

"I decided six months after I began with AAA that this was the place where I wish to grow old and gray, and here I am," Mitch said. AAA Central Penn’s insurance division prospered under his leadership and in 1996, Hillman was named Vice President of Insurance Operations.

Mitch’s wife passed away in 2001 after 37 years of marriage. Most of his children and eight grandchildren live in Central Pennsylvania, close to his Mechanicsburg home. "I now have a loving relationship with my fiancée, Tena Embick, and spend much of my free time with her," he said, adding that Tena, a retired teacher with two adult children, and he also share a love of their dogs - Mitch’s Clancy and Tena’s Ace and Tanner.

Mac Reeves, Board Chairperson, has expressed full confidence in President Hillman’s ability to lead AAA Central Penn into the future as the club grows the products and services offered to its ever increasing membership