PARSIPPANY, N.J. – Christine E. Kozak, national secretary of the Ukrainian National Association since 2002, passed away on June 27 at the age of 62. She was the UNA’s top life insurance professional and one of three full-time executive officers.
Ms. Kozak was born in Brooklyn and raised in Rutherford, N.J., where she was active in the Passaic branch of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization and attended the local School of Ukrainian Studies. She later resided in Texas and Florida before moving back to New Jersey in the mid-1990s.
She graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford with a B.A. in music education. She was employed for 13 years by the Orlando-Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau in Florida, a position in which she gained a strong background in customer relations.
Hired as an underwriter in the UNA’s recording department in 1996, Ms. Kozak became director of its insurance operations. She was elected in 2002 as national secretary, a position on the UNA Executive Committee, being re-elected in 2006, 2010 and 2014. She was a licensed insurance agent for 20 years, oversaw the staff of licensed insurance professionals at the UNA Home Office in Parsippany, N.J., and organized insurance courses for the UNA’s branch secretaries.
As national secretary, Ms. Kozak produced the UNA’s life insurance illustration software, co-created the resource center for branch secretaries and field agents, created the UNA rate book tutorial (on CD and online) and added new policies (20-year term life insurance, and immediate, short-term and mid-term annuities) to the UNA’s portfolio of products. She produced the “UNA and the Community: Partners for Life” magazines published in 2013 and 2014 that were widely distributed at Ukrainian festivals in the U.S. Under her leadership as national secretary, the UNA’s professional sales agency grew at its peak to 150 contracted professional agents.
She prided herself on the fact that the Ukrainian National Association “offers personal service to every member” and that the staff “goes above and beyond the call of duty in order to satisfy the UNA membership.” Indeed, in her reports to UNA conventions and annual meetings of the UNA General Assembly, Ms. Kozak often underscored those unique qualities of this fraternal insurance company founded in 1894.
Ms. Kozak leaves behind her mother, Lydia Kozak; daughter, Irene Yorey, with her husband, Mike, and their children, Justin, Connor and Tyler; and her brother, Andriy Kozak, with his wife, Chrystia, and their children, Katia and Damian. She was predeceased by her father, Zenon Kozak.
Also in mourning are Ms. Kozak’s co-workers at the UNA Home Office, as well as members of the UNA General Assembly, many of whom came to pay their last respects at the M. John Scanlan Funeral Home in Pompton Plains, N.J., and to pray at the memorial mass offered on July 1 at Our Lady of Consolation Roman Catholic Church in Wayne, N.J.
In lieu of flowers, the family has noted that donations in Ms. Kozak’s memory may be made to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.