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He was a trombone player who had a passion for marching, teaching and directing a drum and bugle corps in his native Massachusetts.

Now, the $22 billion UnitedHealth Group is banking on that same type of leadership and drive from James P. Cronin to help it in the battle to retain and attract business and individual medical insurance subscribers in Maryland.

Cronin, 40, was named CEO of its UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic subsidiary in November. Since then, he's been visiting United's offices around the state, heading a consolidation of headquarters offices in Rockville and planning marketing and service campaigns, with his first goal to ramp up market share in the Baltimore area.

"Statewide we're between 20 to 25 percent market share; we're No. 2 behind CareFirst," Cronin said. "We're strong in different pockets. We're very strong in Montgomery County — we have Montgomery County Public Schools. … We have the state of Maryland account. And we do have the city of Baltimore account. We have 150,000 employees in our federal accounts, and 50,000 employees in the state of Maryland account, which was just renewed … that's been 27 years straight. And we just won the account for Frederick Memorial Hospital's employee benefits.

"Our fundamental focus right now is Baltimore and we're looking to increase that into the 5 to 10 percent market share range there. There are a series of plans and actions we've been putting in place … we've expanded our marketing campaign — you'll see a lot of that going on.

"We're also targeting Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Howard County and the Eastern Shore to grow market share. And we're hiring more staff, including sales staff, and 130 people for our Frederick call center."

Cronin's region, with more than 3,000 employees, comprises Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., with more than 1.6 million subscribers, including about 800,000 in Maryland. He oversees a provider network of more than 200 hospitals and 25,000 physicians and other individual providers.

The Business Gazette talked to Cronin recently about how he rose to the CEO ranks and about the medical insurance industry.

One of the internal activities you've headed since you've been here was a retreat on the Eastern Shore where you built bikes as a team exercise?

Yes, that was part of an activity on getting our teams to act together as one. Most companies do similar events. We said rather than just a team work event, let's do something that benefits the community as well. So we built 18 bikes at the same time as part of the team work exercise and we donated the bikes to a boys and girls club.

You're also leading the effort to consolidate your offices in Rockville now, moving to King Farm. How many people will you have there?

About 400. There is still some buildout that needs to occur and we want to do it without disrupting employees. We were in three buildings and our lease was up in all of them at the same time, so the biggest component was getting all employees together in one location, that our teams can work together, it makes life so much simpler.

Where else is United in the state?

We have a presence in Elkridge, in Columbia … have over 300 staff in Elkridge. I've been there a number of times. We have small office in Annapolis, with our government affairs, regulatory team. We have a smaller office in Owings Mills, 15 to 20 employees. We have numerous different sites across the state — we have over 2,000 employees. We have large operations in Frederick. In Columbia we probably have [500] to 600 employees, part of our dental division … We have a small office in Hagerstown.

You said you're hiring people, so with the recession, in Maryland, have you been doing any cost-cutting at all, layoffs?

We view Maryland, D.C. and Virginia as a growth operation. While we get more efficient in certain areas, layoffs per se, we are reinvesting in different parts. So it is not as if we are adding staff, if one area is down two or three employees, we don't replace in that area but replace in sales. We're putting what we call provider advocates on the street, to make sure our experience with our provider community, facilities and physicians are better served from a service standpoint. So we are hiring actually 14 people full-time in Maryland to work with our provider community.

If a provider calls in, he may have difficulty getting through, getting an issue resolved, so there's someone who is basically feet in the street, walking around checking in with provider offices once every two weeks or once a month, asking how are things going, what can I help you with … educating on our capabilities, on our services, helping solve service problems — someone who is there as a local, rather than a standard 800 number or a Web site.

An article said United reported a 900,000 drop overall in the number of people enrolled in commercial health plans for the first quarter, and alluded to the number of people laid off from jobs as a factor. Have you seen that in Maryland?

Commercial health plans nationally are seeing a drop in membership due to layoffs and the impact of the economy on the finances of both individuals and companies.

What's in the marketing plan for Baltimore?

Posters, advertisements on buses, direct mail, that's one piece. [Then] there's outreach to our broker-agent community to educate them on our products, our product offerings, our value proposition and capabilities, some modifications to products in our larger end speculation for our 50-plus employer groups … there's some new, different options there.

What do you think about legislation under discussion in Annapolis, including plans that try to drive younger people into plans in order to lower the costs for groups as a whole?

That allows those individuals that aren't participating in the pool today to get engaged and take on insurance, those that, as many like to coin them, the young invincibles, who think they don't need coverage and maybe in these scenarios, those plans would make it more attractive for them to join. We're for anything that increases competition and lowers costs and there are numerous different variations of bills that are out there trying to do that.

You have your own health care IT initiative?

Yes, we have one to automate physician offices … it's all Web-based, you don't have to buy any hardware or software. Some physicians in Maryland already have it, and this is in line with what the president is pushing.

It's hard to speculate on what the future [for health care information technology] is going to look like, but it's one item in a series of solutions. If you look at the success of many of United Healthcare's capabilities, the tools that are currently out there, there are numerous portals out there for each one of our constituents, for our provider community, to manage, track claims … for employers, so they can check employees' change of status, dependent changes … and for employees, you have the ability to view your claims in real time online.

We have a personal health record online; you can see a status or statement of your activity for your health care. We've taken the lead in believing technology is an enabler in helping individuals better manage their overall outcome, and it's an enabler to better understand your health care experience, so you understand the transactions that are occurring and it simplifies the day-to-day transactions. We're a believer that technology, or the modernization of health care, will have a big impact.

I really believe the modernization of health care, to [President] Obama's principles, can have a huge influence to the way in which industry works …you look at other industries that are in those places and what they have been able to accomplish … information exchange, data exchange, transparency, I just view our industry at a good turning point and I think the administration is leading us in a very different direction, which is great.

But have your people brought you data to, say, show you that it has reduced costs, or actually helped increase subscriber revenue, or helped patient outcomes?

I would say it, as an organization, helps us manage our administrative costs.

And, since it's so much in the news, could you comment on the overall health care reform legislation debate?

United has long supported a public-private solution to the access and affordability crisis in America. The federal and state governments currently work with private health plans to administer the benefits to their Medicare and Medicaid members. We believe the best solution comes from a partnership to insure all Americans that will include an individual mandate with assistance from the federal government for those who cannot afford to purchase health insurance.

You actually grew up thinking you would be working for Pepsi-Cola for a career?

Yes, Dad worked for Pepsi-Cola for 40 plus years … that's why you're not allowed to drink Coke in the family [laughs]. And every relative has worked at Pepsi. I worked [high school, college years] on the production line, putting the bottles on, cleaning, driving the forklift. In the summers I was the second guy on the truck, who would carry cases into the local mom-and-pop shops. Lynn or Swampscott were the territories I had in Boston.

But after college a friend of mine was working for Fidelity, so I worked for Fidelity for nine months, then I worked for First Data, and then Putnam Investments. I was responsible for many different functions, mostly on the service side, the administration of funds, transactions, sales … I ran their fixed income trading team for short period of time.

Then I got a phone call, that Oxford Health Plans was looking for someone to help turn around their service organization for new brokers in the broker world and employer world, from a distribution, communication standpoint.

What's the secret in managing brokers … how did you turn that around?

I find it's really just direct, honest, simple, clear communications. They are partners … you need to work together to serve the best interests of the employer groups. You have to work together to get them to understand your capabilities, your product sets, your service, your differentiation and many times people try to work around them or don't partner enough with them. So it's really just setting clear expectations and executing on your promises. It's usually the fundamentals that win day in and day out.

What did you like about Putnam?

The fast pace. And Putnam was a great organization. Their philosophy was we would be the best in service. [It] really taught me as a young leader the importance of education, communication, handholding, partnership — it was always do the right thing from a customer standpoint, to always exceed customer expectations every single day.

James P. Cronin

Position: CEO, UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic.

Previous positions: Senior vice president, National Enterprise Client Services, UnitedHealth Group; vice president, sales operations and product development, Oxford Health Plans.

Education: Bachelor's, business administration, University of Massachusetts.

Residence: Rockville.

Family: Wife, Jennifer; and a St. Bernard.

Hobbies: Watching baseball and football.