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Edward B. Rust Jr. is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, Bloomington, Illinois. He is also president and chief executive officer of State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, State Farm Life Insurance Company and other principal State Farm affiliates.

A native of Illinois, Rust joined State Farm in 1975 at the Dallas, TX, regional office. He became president and chief executive officer in 1985 and was elected to the additional post of chairman of the board in 1987.

A graduate of Bloomington High School in 1968 and then a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Rust holds both juris doctor and master of business degrees from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. He serves on the boards of directors of Caterpillar Inc., Peoria, Illinois.; and Helmerich and Payne, Inc., Tulsa, OK.

He is also on the board of McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., New York, NY and is one of two co-chairs of the Business Roundtable. The chairman, Harold McGraw III is CEO of McGraw-Hill companies..

Rust is chairman emeritus of the Illinois Business Roundtable. He is former chairman of several other 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 of Life Insurers.

Nationally recognized as a leader of the business community’s efforts to improve the quality of education in the United States, he is former co-chairman of the Business Coalition for Excellence in Education and served on 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 21st Century.

He 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.

He is a 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. Rust is a member of the Texas and Illinois bar associations.

• http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_45/b3654191.htm