International Conference and Annual Meeting  

April 21 – 23, 2005 Marriott San Francisco Hotel San Francisco, California, USA

“Mobilizing Thought Leadership”

Edward B. Rust Jr., Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies^®

            Edward B. Rust Jr. is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and its principal affiliates.

            State Farm is by far the largest auto and homeowners insurer in the United States, one of the largest life insurance companies and home to a fast-growing bank and family of mutual funds.  Based in Bloomington, Ill., State Farm’s 69,000 employees and 17,000 agents service more than 74 million insurance policies, bank and mutual fund accounts in the U.S. and Canada. 

            A native of Illinois, Rust joined State Farm in 1975, became president and CEO in 1985 and was elected chairman of the board in 1987.  A graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, he holds both juris doctor and master of business degrees from Southern Methodist University. 

            He serves on the boards of directors of Caterpillar, Inc.; Helmerich and Payne, Inc.; and McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.  He is co-chairman of The Business Roundtable and chairman emeritus of the Illinois Business Roundtable.  He is former chairman of several other national organizations, including the American Enterprise Institute, The Financial Services Roundtable, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and the National Alliance of Business.  He serves on the Board of Trustees of The Conference Board and is a former member of the board of directors of the American Council on Life Insurance.

            Nationally recognized as a leader of the business community’s efforts to improve the quality of education in the United States, Rust is former co-chairman of the Business Coalition for Excellence in Education and served on President George W. Bush’s Transition Advisory Team committee on education.  He is former chairman of the Business-Higher Education Forum, former chairman of The Business Roundtable’s Education Initiative, a director of Achieve, Inc., a director of the National Center for Educational Accountability, and served on the National (Glenn) Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21^st Century.

            Rust is a trustee of Illinois Wesleyan University and a member of the Business Advisory Council of the University of Illinois College of Commerce and Business Administration.  He is a former member of the advisory council of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, former trustee of The American Institute for Property and Liability Underwriters and a former member of the board of overseers of The Institute for Civil Justice.  He’s a member of the Texas and Illinois bar associations.