BURLINGTON, Vt.—As Richard Smith, president of the Vermont Captive Insurance Assn., looked toward his first VCIA conference, he sounded a bit awed by the teamwork that makes the event happen.

“The team here is amazing,” he said, speaking of the VCIA staff and the association’s members.

“These are members who are either service providers or captive owners, whatever, but they’ve got real full-time jobs,” Mr. Smith said. “But they’re the ones who really pull the seminars together, the sessions, the keynote speakers. Everything we do really rests on their shoulders, and they do a tremendous job for us. And, of course, the staff here. They’re sort of the mortar and the bricks.”

Since taking his position with the VCIA in October, the organization’s president also has been struck by the teamwork he sees within the captive insurance industry. “It’s really interesting just what a close-knit community the captive insurance world is,” he said. “People really pull together, they work cooperatively.”

Mr. Smith came to the VCIA from Vermont state government, where he had been deputy commissioner of the Vermont Public Service Department. He replaced Molly Lambert, who left the Burlington-based VCIA after seven years as president to become the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s state director for rural development for New Hampshire and Vermont.

Mr. Smith also had served as Vermont’s deputy commissioner of economic development, which gave him some exposure to the state’s captive industry, as well as an opportunity to work with Ms. Lambert.

“Following Molly Lambert is no easy task, because she set an extremely high bar,” he said. “I’ve known her for years. When she was secretary of commerce I worked under her and just think the world of her.”

Going forward, while Mr. Smith wants the VCIA and the state to explore emerging captive markets and continue innovating in terms of technology and regulation, he said the primary goal is to continue doing what the state already has done so well.

“The No. 1 goal is really continuing the work of Molly and the board and the folks in the regulatory world here in Vermont, doing the things we always do to attract the type of quality captives we always do,” he said. “From my perspective, maintaining Vermont’s gold standard is our No. 1 goal.”