Connection to NWC

Michael Meloch’s NWC memories go back to his youth when he would listen with his mother to The Hour of Decision on KTIS and hear about Northwestern College. His wife, Karin, served for 10 years as Northwestern’s women’s soccer coach and since 1997 has run the Ultimate Goal youth soccer camp every summer on campus.

Education and career

“Math was the only subject that I enjoyed doing in college,” Meloch noted. When he earned his bachelor’s degree in math from Bethel University, one of his professors encouraged him to take the actuarial exam. “The exams were very difficult to pass and they weeded out many—including me,” Meloch humbly recalled. Still interested in insurance, he moved to the underwriting department and found a better fit. Although he never pictured himself as a business owner, “God had other plans for me,” he said, and Meloch now runs TPAC Underwriters, Inc., a managing general underwriting firm in Minneapolis.

Family and interests

Meloch met Karin on a blind date in December 1994; they were engaged two months later and married the following September. They are parents to four children, Jeremiah (14), Matthew (12), Madeline (9) and Gabriella (3). “Coaching is a passion for both Karin and me,” Meloch reported, “and we are usually found in the community on various baseball diamonds or soccer fields.”

Values to live by

In July 2010 Meloch’s home in Shoreview, Minn., was struck by lightning and nearly burned to the ground. The family escaped unharmed, but “we lost about ninety percent of all our possessions,” he said. “This made a significant impact on our life, to not hold too fast to the things of this world but to store up our treasures in heaven.”

Worshiping at church two days after the fire, his congregation sang Chris Tomlin’s Indescribable, which includes the line, “Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go?”

“What do you do?” Meloch pondered. “Do you believe it? When you lose everything, what do you replace?” The family chose to move rather than rebuild on the same site, but they have appreciated the perspective gained and enjoy a different kind of simplicity in their lives.

Ultimately, Meloch’s faith was strengthened through his family’s experience. “As we were watching our home burn, my wife prayed Isaiah 41:10. It was perfect, absolutely perfect. God will strengthen, help and uphold. He was saying, and always is, ‘Don’t fear; I’m still God.’”