By Wesley Walter 

Two new members of The University of Montevallo Board of Trustees were announced during summer 2023. 

The University of Montevallo announced on June 6, that Governor Kay Ivey had appointed two new members to the UM Board of Trustees.  

The two new trustees, Anita McDaniel Brueck and Judge Matt Fridy, both began their 12-year terms on the board in May 2023 and are both UM alumni. 

Brueck graduated from UM with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1977. She was a member of the Phi Mu sorority during her time at Montevallo and now funds the Brueck ’77 Endowed Scholarship for Phi Mu members.  

“I had grown up with my mother having come from Montevallo. Her family’s lived here for over 100 years,” Brueck said in a 2019 promotional video for the UM Day of Giving, “It’s a liberal arts oasis, just a wonderful place for me to grow up.” 

Following her time at UM, Brueck began working in the property insurance claims business. 

In 1985, she started the company ClaimSouth alongside her husband. In 1991, the Bruecks sold the company to a subsidiary of Swiss reinsurance company Swiss Re. After the sale, the Bruecks moved to Chicago where they began working with Sedgewick Claims Management Services Inc., an insurance company that provides loss adjusting and claims management services. 

Describing her work, Brueck said, “I handle multinational corporate claims, worldwide for some companies. Some really large ones—Microsoft, Lufthansa, Archer Daniels Midland Google. You name it and I’ve tromped through their books at one time or another and inspected their damages. ” 

Brueck retired in 2018 after 41 years in the property insurance claims business as the Senior Executive General Adjuster for Vericlaim Inc. a subsidiary of Sedgewick.  

Since graduating from UM with honors in 1998 with a degree in history, Fridy has been active in Alabama politics and law. He went on to earn a law degree from Samford University and served a one-year federal clerkship for U.S. District Judge Edwin Newlson beginning in 2001. 

Fridy worked as an attorney at Birmingham law firm Wallace Jordan, Ratliff and Brandt from 2012-21, focusing on constitutional law, agricultural law and appellate litigation. 

Fridy served as a Republican representative in the Alabama House of Representatives for District 73 which includes parts of Pelham, Alabaster and Montevallo. He was first elected in 2014, and was reelected in 2018 before resigning in 2020 upon being elected as a judge for the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals. 

Fridy has also worked at UM as an adjunct professor of business law from 2010-12, and has served on the Board of Directors for the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce, as the chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party and as a member of the Alabama Republican Executive Committee.  

He currently resides in Pelham with his wife Kimberly and their five children.  

The UM Board of Trustees has met once since the two new appointees took office in May. Board meetings are held in Reynolds Hall’s Merrill Room and all meetings are open to the public.