Tom Patton: Building Surety Programs That Hold Up When It Counts
Tom Patton
President
Tom Patton is the President of Evergreen Surety, a Denver, Colorado-based bonding-only agency he founded in 2020 to serve contractors, developers, and energy producers across the United States and Canada. With 15+ years of specialty surety experience and appointments with 15+ carriers, Tom builds bond programs for contractors that need bid, performance, and payment bonds for public work and structures specialized surety facilities for clients in oil and gas, renewables, and mining. His clients range from startups to companies generating billions in dollars of annual revenue.
A Certified Construction Industry Financial Professional (CCIFP), Tom brings a financial discipline to surety that goes well beyond placing bonds. He partners closely with clients’ CPAs, bankers, and attorneys to build programs designed to perform when called upon, and provides detailed financial statement analysis, KPI benchmarking, and contract review. He is also a leading producer of surety-backed letters of credit, a product that helps energy companies preserve liquidity rather than locking cash into bank-issued instruments.
Before founding Evergreen Surety, Tom built his expertise from the ground up, starting as a property and casualty agent before taking on the challenge of building a surety bond department from scratch at a regional insurance agency, with no existing accounts and limited institutional knowledge. In six years, he hired two account managers, wrote several million dollars in premium without any significant losses, and earned a reputation for taking on the accounts other agents couldn’t place. He founded Evergreen Surety in 2020 and built it from zero again during COVID.
Tom’s impact extends beyond client work. He is a past President of the Rocky Mountain Surety Association, a former board member of AGC of Colorado, a published author in CFMA and construction industry trade publications, and speaks regularly on bond education for the Colorado Department of Transportation and Denver International Airport. He is a member of NASBP, and Evergreen Surety is an SBA-appointed agency with the Bond Guarantee Program.
When he’s not working with clients, Tom is on a golf course or soccer field, hiking, or at a martial arts gym with his wife and kids.