Georgia State University Mourns Loss of Insurance Pioneer and Former Business School Dean Kenneth Black Jr.

March 8, 2005 (Atlanta) - Kenneth Black Jr., Regent's Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus of the J. Mack Robinson College of Business died peacefully on Monday, March 7th. He was 80.

Dr. Black's career at Georgia State University spanned over half a century, including appointments as Holder of the C.V. Starr Chair of International Insurance (1984-1992), Dean of the Robinson College of Business (1969-1984), and Chairman of the Department of Risk Management and Insurance (1953-1969). Although he officially retired from teaching in 1992, Dr. Black remained active with professional activities related to the RMI Department, the university, and the insurance industry.

Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1925, son of the late Kenneth Black and Margaret Virginia Wolf Black, he devoted over 55 years of his life to an outstanding career as an educator and insurance professional.

Dr. Black arrived in Atlanta in 1953 as a young scholar out of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, to establish the insurance program at Georgia State University. In 1959, he founded Educational Foundation, Inc. (EFI) to facilitate the development of industry funding in support of the program. Recognizing the high demand for enhancing professional leadership in the field of risk management, Dr. Black was instrumental in cultivating the development and growth of the Department of Risk Management and Insurance (RMI) to its present status as one of the largest and finest centers of risk management education and research in the world.

He developed the truly innovative concept of the "program chair" at Georgia State University. Rather than focusing on the specific activities of a particular faculty member, as typical endowed chairs do, he designed a program chair to support the entire RMI Department, serving as a source of working capital to attract and retain the best teaching and research faculty in the world; to attract excellent students with scholarships and fellowships; and ultimately, to entice future department heads who are respected leaders in both academia and in the insurance profession. In 1989, the Kenneth Black Jr. Chair of Insurance was founded in his honor.

From 1959 to 2001, Dr. Black was the editor of the Journal of Financial Service Professionals (formerly the Journal of the American Society of CLU & ChFC). Among his many other activities, he was editor of the Prentice Hall series on Risk, Insurance and Security, authored numerous articles in national professional and trade journals, and authored or coauthored fourteen books.

Dr. Black's collective revisions of the seminal textbook Life Insurance—originally authored by Dr. Solomon S. Huebner in 1915 as the first university-level textbook on the subject and now in its 13^th edition—are considered by many to be some of the most important contributions ever made to life insurance education. The 5^th through 10^th editions are coauthored by Drs. Huebner and Black. In the early 1980's, Dr. Black invited Harold D. Skipper, Jr., professor and former chair of the RMI Department at Georgia State, to be a coauthor on later revisions. Today, Life Insurance remains the most famous textbook of its kind and has been used by tens of thousands of CLU's. The text has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish.

In 1971, Dr. Black was nominated by Senator Richard B. Russell and appointed by President Richard M. Nixon as a member of the President's Commission on Railroad Retirement and also served as vice chairman of the Commission. He was a past president of the American Risk and Insurance Association, the Southern Risk and Insurance Association, the Southern Business Administration Association, the Atlanta Chapter of the American Society of Insurance Management, and the Georgia Chapter of the Society of Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters, Inc.

He served as a member of the Boards of Directors of Alexander and Alexander Services, Inc., Cousins Properties, Inc., Havertys Furniture Stores, Inc., the Swiss Re America Companies, and the USLIFE Corporation, among others. He was also elected as vice chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Insurance Society, Inc. and served as the Society's chief executive officer from 1988 until 1992.

Among the many honors and awards Dr. Black received are: the Round Table of New York Lifetime Achievement Award (2001); the John Newton Russell Memorial Award (1999) presented by the National Association of Life Underwriters; Laureate, The Insurance Hall of Fame, International Insurance Society, Inc. (1993); the Dr. Kenneth Black, Jr. Distinguished Service Award established in his honor by the International Insurance Society, Inc. (1992); the dedication of the North Dakota Room, Gregg Hall Conference Center at the American College funded by an anonymous donor (1992); Regents' Professor Emeritus of Insurance and Dean Emeritus, College of Business Administration, Georgia State University (1992); the First Annual Distinguished Service Award from the Life Insurers Council (1990); the Solomon S. Huebner Gold Medal from the American College (1985); the Kenneth Black, Jr. Special Library Collection in Risk and Insurance established at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia (1978); Phi Beta Kappa; Beta Gamma Sigma; Phi Kappa Phi; Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year, College of Business Administration, Georgia State University (1970); the S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania (1950-53); and Order of the Golden Fleece, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1948). To honor Dr. Black's 80^th birthday (January 30, 2005), the Robinson College of Business dedicated the Kenneth Black Jr. Conference Room, located in the RMI Department.

Dr. Black held undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the CLU & CPCU professional designations. As a young man, he played professional baseball with the Norfolk Tars and Portsmouth Cubs.

Dr. Black was preceded in death by his wife Mabel Llewellyn Folger Black and is survived by his son Kenneth III and his daughter and son-in-law Kathryn Anne Black Shoji and Yasuo Shoji, and two granddaughters, Hayley and Lillian Shoji. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to the Kenneth Black Jr. Chair of Insurance through Educational Foundation, Inc. at Georgia State University.

For more information, contact: Tammy DeMel Associate Director, Communications and External Affairs J. Mack Robinson College of Business 404/413-7078 (voice) 404/702-9743