DEATH

Mr. Davis, Founder of LDI

Leonard Davis, founder of the Colonial Penn Group, founder of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics and philanthropist, died on January 15 at the age of 76. Mr. Davis founded Colonial Penn Group in 1963, which became one of the country's largest insurance underwriters for older Americans. Mr. Davis--along with his wife Sofie--was instrumental in the founding of the Leonard Davis Institute. The institute was established in 1967 in response to a growing national need for high quality research and education to inform policies critical to the financing and management of the nation's increasingly costly and complex health care system. The Leonard Davis Institute remains one of the only research institutes in the country that integrates medicine, nursing and management expertise and applies it to solving the health care issues of the day.

He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Penn in 1972. The citation read:

With the bold, forthwright spirit of a man with a cause, Leonard Davis pioneered group health insurance for the aged against formidable odds. As an initiatior of a new field and the founder of a needed range of services for retired persons, he assisted a large, neglected group, showing that the practical visionary is our best Samaritan.

Of strong and imaginative socal conscience, he early ascertained that problems in health care could be helped through coordination with the resources of management sciences. The resulting Wharton M.B.A. program in Health Care Administration and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics have made our coalescence of medicine and management a prototype for similar multidisciplinary efforts in other fields and at other universities.

His own healthy outlook and his vigorous energy have illustrated to the less fortunate and the skeptical that taking chances is the most useful of new beginnings. The Trustees of the University, believing themselves fortunate to have his counsel, ask that he be recognized with the honorary degree, Doctor of Laws.

Mr. Davis is survived by sons Alan and Michael; and four grandchildren.


Almanac, Vol. 47, No. 20, January 30, 2001

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