At a time when a lot of office space in downtown Des Moines sits vacant, Allied Insurance President Kirt Walker is doing his part to fill it up.

The company spent much of 2004 retooling its former home at 701 Fifth Ave., preparing to restock it with employees. Instead of sitting vacant, as had been expected when Allied started constructing its new headquarters, the old building now holds 685 workers. Allied also leased 20,000 square feet in the Hub Tower at Seventh and Walnut streets for an information technology project that involves 150 people.

At latest count, the company occupied more than 900,000 square feet of office space in Greater Des Moines, with expectations of further expansion into a projected new building on Locust Street some day or into a building it owns at the corner of Fleur Drive and Bell Avenue.

Within the insurance world, Allied’s financial numbers were even more impressive. The value of the company’s direct written premiums soared by 12.5 percent in 2004 compared with about 4.5 percent for the insurance industry as a whole; the Allied sum hit $2.66 billion compared with $2.36 billion in the previous year.

Under Walker’s direction, the company posted a trade combined ratio of about 90.4 percent compared with the industry average of 100. The number reflects the percentage of each incoming dollar spent on claims and expenses, and a 90.4 means Allied made nearly 10 cents of profit for every dollar taken in through insurance activity. The industry as a whole broke even by that measurement and relied on investment returns for all of its profits. Allied’s performance represents a stunning improvement from its own 97.5 percent figure in 2003.

For his impact on local employment, his business results and the reputation he has built among the city’s business and charitable communities during only 17 months as president, the Des Moines Business Record selected Walker as Central Iowa’s CEO of the Year for 2004.

Walker became president of Allied September 1, 2003, after a steady climb through the company that took him across the the western half of the United States. A farm boy from Algona, he attended Ellsworth Community College, graduated from Iowa State University and started working for AID Insurance Co. – the predecessor to Allied – Jan. 6, 1986, as a personal lines underwriter.

During the next 17 years, Walker worked for the company in Missouri, Colorado and California. Along with his wife, Cindy, and their two daughters, Walker moved here from Sacramento to take the top spot at Allied.

As he has settled into the job, goals have been raised and the pace of activity has increased at Allied. A few months ago, Walker said the company hoped to expand its operations into Virginia in short order, then move into Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania by September 2005. The Virginia phase has been achieved, and now he has advanced the timetable and expects Allied to begin operations in the other four states in March or April.

“We said, you know what, we can do better” than the original goal, Walker said.

During 2004, the company added about 250 Central Iowa.employees. Allied and its parent company, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., employ 1,855 people at the 1100 Locust St. headquarters building, which opened in May 2003. Another 280 work in Allied’s print and mail center in Urbandale.

Walker said Allied will expand its national workforce by 2,000 people in the next five years, doubling its size. It’s not known how many of those jobs will be in Central Iowa, but Walker said he expects the company to add more than 300 jobs here in 2005.

The steady expansion fits into a plan to help make Nationwide number three in the U.S. property and casualty insurance industry by the end of 2009.

All of that business activity hasn’t kept Walker from devoting time and effort to community work, though. He served as co-chairman of the 2004 capital campaign for the Central Iowa chapter of the American Red Cross — which hit its goal of $1 million, enabling the organization to buy property for parking — and is the chairman of the American Heart Association’s Heart Ball fund-raiser set for Feb. 19. The annual event is expected to draw 500 guests who will each pay $250 to attend.

As a company, “for the first time in our history, the Nationwide family in Des Moines donated more than a million dollars to the United Way of Central Iowa campaign,” Walker said. The company matches every employee donation.

“We look forward to going over the $1 million mark within the next couple of years,” Walker said last fall during the United Way campaign. Once again, he and his company beat the timetable.

In Walker’s mind, the low point of 2004 and the highlight both centered on the same topic: the series of hurricanes that battered Florida.

“To watch that unfold and see what was going on with those people” was the tough part, he said. The silver lining came when Nationwide and Allied agents were able to go to the affected areas and help people with insurance claims. “Nationwide sent over 1,500 agents to Florida,” Walker said. “I’m from a town of 4,500; that’s like sending a third of Algona down there to help.”