2/4/03, Anheuser-Busch Professor of Management Science: Paul Kleindorfer

The Wharton School has announced the creation of the Russell L. Ackoff Endowment funded through support initially provided by the charitable trust of Anheuser-Busch. With a $1.2 million endowment, the fund will promote research and practice in risk management and systems science. In addition to the creation of the fund, Wharton Professor Paul Kleindorfer has been named the Anheuser-Busch Professor of Management Science.

"This is a very important move for the Wharton School. It provides our faculty and students with greater resources for the study of risk management and systems science," said Dr. Patrick Harker, Wharton dean. "We are grateful for Anheuser-Busch's support."

"The chair and the Russell Ackoff endowment reflect the long-standing ties of Anheuser-Busch to the Wharton School, as well as the fundamental contributions that Russell Ackoff has made to management and systems science," said Dr. Kleindorfer.

"We are pleased to see Russ Ackoff honored by the $1.2 million fund to promote research at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. We are also happy to endorse the selection of Paul Kleindorfer to the Anheuser-Busch Chair in Management Science, which Russ filled so ably for so many years," said August A. Busch III, chairman of the board, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.

The Anheuser-Busch Professorship in Management Science was first established in 1977 and has promoted the disciplines of management and systems science over the years. The chair was held by Russell L. Ackoff, now an emeritus professor, who was a pioneer in the application of systems thinking to management, who retired in 1986.

Dr. Kleindorfer is the Anheuser-Busch Professor of Management Science, Professor of Decision Sciences, Economics, and Business and Public Policy, as well as the chairperson of Wharton's Operations and Information Management Department. Dr. Kleindorfer and Howard Kunreuther, Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy, are co-directors of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center.

The endowment will be administered by Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. The mission of the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, founded in 1986, is to undertake research to promote effective risk management in industry and society. Based in part on Professor Ackoff's approach to “action research,” the center has been concerned since its inception with promoting a dialogue among industry, government, public interest groups and academics through its research and policy publications and through sponsored workshops, roundtables and forums. Potential near-term research initiatives in the Risk Center to receive funding from this endowment include:

Insurability and Risk Management: Industrial companies and their insurers can attempt to manage the risks they face through loss-reduction measures and risk-spreading techniques such as traditional insurance and new financial instruments such as catastrophe bonds. The Wharton Risk Center has been interested in developing strategies for integrating the use of these alternative approaches with enterprise-wide risk management systems.
Managing Environmental, Health and Safety Risks: The Risk Center has been concerned with the role of performance-based regulations, incentives, and third-party inspections and insurance in dealing with environmental, health and safety risks, and more recently with site security and terrorism risks. Current research focuses on the use of accident history data and the role of market mechanisms to evaluate alternative risk management approaches for implementing Section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
Financial Engineering and Risk Management: This research has been concerned with the use of new contracting and supply chain design methods to integrate long-term and short-term markets for capacity and output. This is accomplished by integrating supply chain management systems with financial engineering methods. A key element of the framework underlying this research is the application of systems theory to identify and quantify various sources of risk.

Anheuser-Busch Companies is a St. Louis based corporation with subsidiaries that include the world's largest brewing organization, one of the largest U.S. manufacturers of aluminum beverage containers, and one of the largest theme-park operators in the United States. Anheuser-Busch and its charitable foundation donate funds to hundreds of charitable organizations each year including colleges and universities, health care institutions, social service agencies, civic organizations and arts and cultural groups.