Tuesday, November 29, 2005
George T. Conklin, Jr., Guardian Life CEO and former neighbor, dies at 90
George Conklin, CEO of Guardian Life and Former Neighbor, Dies at 90
George Taylor Conklin, Jr. was our neighbor for 57 years. He joined the Guardian Life Insurance Company in 1939, and remained in that landmarked 1911 building with the magnificent mansard roof, at the corner of 17th Street and Park Ave South, for the entire of his business life. A 25-year-old economist fresh out of Dartmouth with an AB, second in class, he also brought a joint MCS (Master of Commercial Science, precursor of the MBA, discontinued in 1953) from its Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business, superb credentials for an investment research analyst. Little did he know that for the next half a century he would be sharing our destiny, both as an executive of the area’s major employer (he rose to be its CEO), and board member of local enterprises such as the Central Savings Bank and Chemical Bank, which morphed into the Chase Morgan giant.
The young man’s career progressed, despite intervening military service. George Conklin was appointed Assistant to the dynamic President of the Guardian, James A (no period after the middle initial) McClain in 1944, and progressed to the Director of Research in 1946. He pursued a parallel academic track, earning a Ph. D. from Columbia in Finance, and another from NYU in Economics, in the interim also taking courses in the Austrian School of Economics from the refugee scholars at the New School. John Angle, one of his successor CEOs, recalls that Conklin was a follower of Benjamin Graham, author of the seminal Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor (4th ed. revised by Warren Buffet). He became an Adjunct Professor at NYU and continued for many years.
At the Guardian he became head of the Investment Department in 1949, moving through the management ranks to Executive VP, then member of the Board of Directors and head of its Investment Committee, eventually to President in 1969, CEO in 1971 and Chairman of the Board in 1977. He retired from active service in 1980, and from the Board of Directors at the end of 1995.
Over the years George Conklin also served as an officer, President or Chairman of such professional organizations as the Conference of Business Economists, American Economist Society, American Statistical Association, and National Bureau of Economic Research and the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry Association. The President of NBER, Martin Feldstein, former head of President Reagan’s Board of Economic Advisors, remembers that George was a Director and later Chairman of the NBER, who would always be there to defend the independence of the Bureau. Another NBER director, Lawrence R. Klein, Nobel Prize laureate of 1980, remembers visits with George Conklin and Avram Kisselgoff, a fellow economist. A working colleague and friend was Franco Modigliani, another Nobelist. George Conklin’s opinions were sought at various Congressional Committees, and he appeared before industry and trade association meetings, his remarks reported in the Wall Street Journal.
George Conklin also served as a Director of Guardian subsidiaries and mutual funds, Teachers Annuity and Insurance Association, Central Savings Bank, Adelphi University, The Life Insurance Council of New York, Woodlawn Cemetery and The Solomon Brothers Center for Study of Financial Institutions.
Mutually Beneficial, a textbook by Robert E. Wright and George David Smith (NYU Press, 2004), pursuing the history of life insurance in a century of changes, using the Guardian as the case study, places George Conklin as the new arrival in a staid and hierarchical executive establishment. The company was founded by German republican revolutionaries, refugees from the 1848 revolution, George was reserved young tall academician with a penchant for practical jokes, and President Daniel Lyons was a crusty actuary. But the two found each other. Edward K. Kane, retired Executive VP, General Counsel and a fellow member of the board, remembers the triumvirate that expanded on the vision opened by the trail-breaking McClain, and cleared the company’s path to a more than a ten-fold growth in its later years – two actuaries, Lyons and Irving Rosenthal, and the economist, Conklin. George Conklin advanced economic research and was one of the industry’s leading edge figures in the investment community. He moved the company into the computer revolution and new management and decentralization concepts.
“George Conklin’s contributions to Guardian were manifold and his legacy will always be remembered,” said Dennis Manning, Guardian’s President and CEO. “He led the company into a new and larger world and dynamically upheld Guardian’s goal of enriching lives.”
The date of George Conklin’s death was November 4, 2005. He passed away at home in Port Washington, LI, with his family. The survivors include widow Julie Pokorny Conklin, a former Guardianite, and four children, Sandra Conklin-Wright, George T. Conklin III, Heather Conklin Raduazzo and Holly Conklin Graham, nine grandchildren and one great-grandson.
George Taylor Conklin, Jr. was our neighbor for 57 years. He joined the Guardian Life Insurance Company in 1939, and remained in that landmarked 1911 building with the magnificent mansard roof, at the corner of 17th Street and Park Ave South, for the entire of his business life. A 25-year-old economist fresh out of Dartmouth with an AB, second in class, he also brought a joint MCS (Master of Commercial Science, precursor of the MBA, discontinued in 1953) from its Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business, superb credentials for an investment research analyst. Little did he know that for the next half a century he would be sharing our destiny, both as an executive of the area’s major employer (he rose to be its CEO), and board member of local enterprises such as the Central Savings Bank and Chemical Bank, which morphed into the Chase Morgan giant.
The young man’s career progressed, despite intervening military service. George Conklin was appointed Assistant to the dynamic President of the Guardian, James A (no period after the middle initial) McClain in 1944, and progressed to the Director of Research in 1946. He pursued a parallel academic track, earning a Ph. D. from Columbia in Finance, and another from NYU in Economics, in the interim also taking courses in the Austrian School of Economics from the refugee scholars at the New School. John Angle, one of his successor CEOs, recalls that Conklin was a follower of Benjamin Graham, author of the seminal Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor (4th ed. revised by Warren Buffet). He became an Adjunct Professor at NYU and continued for many years.
At the Guardian he became head of the Investment Department in 1949, moving through the management ranks to Executive VP, then member of the Board of Directors and head of its Investment Committee, eventually to President in 1969, CEO in 1971 and Chairman of the Board in 1977. He retired from active service in 1980, and from the Board of Directors at the end of 1995.
Over the years George Conklin also served as an officer, President or Chairman of such professional organizations as the Conference of Business Economists, American Economist Society, American Statistical Association, and National Bureau of Economic Research and the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry Association. The President of NBER, Martin Feldstein, former head of President Reagan’s Board of Economic Advisors, remembers that George was a Director and later Chairman of the NBER, who would always be there to defend the independence of the Bureau. Another NBER director, Lawrence R. Klein, Nobel Prize laureate of 1980, remembers visits with George Conklin and Avram Kisselgoff, a fellow economist. A working colleague and friend was Franco Modigliani, another Nobelist. George Conklin’s opinions were sought at various Congressional Committees, and he appeared before industry and trade association meetings, his remarks reported in the Wall Street Journal.
George Conklin also served as a Director of Guardian subsidiaries and mutual funds, Teachers Annuity and Insurance Association, Central Savings Bank, Adelphi University, The Life Insurance Council of New York, Woodlawn Cemetery and The Solomon Brothers Center for Study of Financial Institutions.
Mutually Beneficial, a textbook by Robert E. Wright and George David Smith (NYU Press, 2004), pursuing the history of life insurance in a century of changes, using the Guardian as the case study, places George Conklin as the new arrival in a staid and hierarchical executive establishment. The company was founded by German republican revolutionaries, refugees from the 1848 revolution, George was reserved young tall academician with a penchant for practical jokes, and President Daniel Lyons was a crusty actuary. But the two found each other. Edward K. Kane, retired Executive VP, General Counsel and a fellow member of the board, remembers the triumvirate that expanded on the vision opened by the trail-breaking McClain, and cleared the company’s path to a more than a ten-fold growth in its later years – two actuaries, Lyons and Irving Rosenthal, and the economist, Conklin. George Conklin advanced economic research and was one of the industry’s leading edge figures in the investment community. He moved the company into the computer revolution and new management and decentralization concepts.
“George Conklin’s contributions to Guardian were manifold and his legacy will always be remembered,” said Dennis Manning, Guardian’s President and CEO. “He led the company into a new and larger world and dynamically upheld Guardian’s goal of enriching lives.”
The date of George Conklin’s death was November 4, 2005. He passed away at home in Port Washington, LI, with his family. The survivors include widow Julie Pokorny Conklin, a former Guardianite, and four children, Sandra Conklin-Wright, George T. Conklin III, Heather Conklin Raduazzo and Holly Conklin Graham, nine grandchildren and one great-grandson.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 11:09 AM 
