

was every bit a hometown hero if there ever really was one.īarry Reilly, superintendent of Bloomington’s District 87 schools, said he has “known Ed since his son, Barry, attended Bloomington High School in the early 90s,” when Reilly worked in the building. Needless to say, whether it was his glorious high school and collegiate wrestling days, the fact his father and grandfather had run the biggest company in town, or that he himself would go on to be chief executive of State Farm for a financially prosperous thirty years (1985-2015), Ed Rust Jr.
#When did ed rust retire driver#
was born in Bloomington, attended Bloomington high school, went to college at Illinois Wesleyan University (located in Bloomington), and eventually went on to succeed his father, Ed Rust Sr., as CEO of State Farm, a company which is a primary economic driver for and headquartered in, you guessed it, Bloomington, Illinois. Then came 2011, when he assumed the role of chief operations officer.

Twelve months later, he became assistant controller, then executive assistant in 1997, vice president and assistant treasurer in 1998, vice president and treasurer in 2001, and senior vice president in 2002.Ģ004 saw Michael Tipsord enter the highest executive ranks as he was named vice chairmen and chief financial officer that year.

The burgeoning Wesleyan alum certainly made an impression on leaders within State Farm, as he began a rapid ascension up their ranks that started with being named director of accounting for the company in 1995. During his earliest years at the insurance giant, he pursued further credentials to bolster his already impressive education, such as the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation in 1991 and the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) in 1995, moreover, he is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). The Career of Michael Tipsordīefore joining State Farm as assistant tax counsel in 1988, Tipsord was a private practice attorney. degree in 1984 magna cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Michael Tipsord attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where he was a member of the Alpha Iota chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity and graduated with a B.S. “It was a group of people who cared about me, who wanted me to do better, who wanted me to actually achieve more than they were able to achieve for themselves.” Illinois Wesleyan University “As I look back, I’ve come to appreciate my family, my teachers, my coaches, and that small, tight-knit community for what it truly was,” he measures. This assumption is further supported by the complete lack of academic alternatives established near Cooksville at the time and even to this day the aforementioned high school no longer operates as it was eventually renamed Ridgeview High School in 1989. Only because there are newspaper archives documenting Michael’s brother, Gary Tipsord, posing in a Fall 1984 team photo for the Octavia high school football team, we can only guess that Michael likewise attended Octavia throughout his adolescent years. They served as role models for me, they always challenged me to be my very best.” High School “Their determination earned them the distinction of being the first in their families to graduate college. “My mom graduated college at the age of thirty, while expecting my younger brother and having two children under the age of eleven to watch over,” he recalls. His father served during the Korean War and fortunately earned a degree through the G.I. Tipsord’s parents got married young, his mother was only eighteen years old at the time, and receiving an education would prove difficult for both. They instilled a sense of values regarding hard work, self-reliance, sacrifice, and respect for others.” “Even though two of them didn’t get past the eighth grade, each of them emphasized the value of education to me. “My grandparents lived through the great depression and I remember them all as extremely hard-working people,” he says.

Nonetheless, Tipsord is proud to share with Opportunity Nation that he appreciates having had his immediate family – including siblings, parents, and both sets of grandparents – all living very close by throughout his childhood. Born in 1959, sitting State Farm CEO Michael Tipsord was raised among the rural pastures of central Illinois, in a tiny village named Cooksville for reference, the most recent United States census counted 171 humans living there.
