Wharton School

Peter P. King, 68, of Ambler, owner of King Surety, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday, June 17, at home. Mr. King graduated from Abington High School and attended St. Joseph's University. During the Vietnam War, he served in the Army Security Agency, then the Army's signal intelligence branch, in Chitose, Japan. After his discharge, he studied business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and worked for an insurance agency. In 1974, he established the King Co., an insurance and bond agency located in Fort Washington and later in Jenkintown.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania yesterday denounced Friday's issue of the Penn student newspaper for unbalanced and "inappropriate" reporting that it said gave a "negative impression" to 3,500 alumni who visited the Penn campus last weekend. "The Wharton School strongly believes in freedom of speech and of the press, but it also believes in news reporting that reflects all facets - the positive as well as the negative - of the university," said the school's officials in a statement released yesterday.

Thomas P. Gerrity, an international business consultant who has served on the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been selected as the new dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Gerrity, 48, the president of CSC Consulting of Boston, a division of Computer Sciences Corp. of El Segundo, Calif., an information-technology specialist, is to assume the post July 1. He succeeds Russell Palmer, who announced last June that he would step down after seven years in the dean's post.

Herbert R. Northrup, 89, of Haverford, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a labor specialist who developed groundbreaking theories on race in the workplace, died of a stroke Monday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. In the 1960s, while chairing the department of industry at Wharton, Dr. Northrup edited The Negro and Employment Opportunity. The book concluded that economics, not civil rights, was the chief factor underlying racial tension in the United States.

Bill O'Brien, Republican candidate in Philadelphia's Fourth Councilmanic District, makes us believe that there is life after Frank Rizzo's death for the city's GOP. This Manayunk lawyer and former staffer to the late Sen. John Heinz comes at you with a briefcase full of ideas for attacking city woes, an impressive record of community involvement and an obvious appetite for public service. In short, voters of this district could do much, much worse. Their dilemma, and ours in making an endorsement, is that Mr. O'Brien faces an even more impressive opponent in the Democratic nominee, investment broker Michael Nutter.

Although the new Steinberg Conference Center won't seat its first class of executives until January, on Russell E. Palmer's books it is an investment already reaping big returns. That explains why Palmer, dean of the Wharton School, sounded like an ebullient new father last week when discussing the $24 million addition, which was dedicated Friday on the Penn campus. "We're going to have 5,000 executives through here next year," Palmer said. "So, as far as corporate contractual space is concerned, we're sold out even before we open.

They didn't have fax machines, cell phones or personal computers when they founded the conference 25 years ago. They didn't have much money either - only about $5,000 to put on a half-day event in a classroom at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. But Merritt Brown, Benautrice Roland Jr. and two other Wharton students did have a dream - of leaving a legacy for future African American business students at Penn. "We wanted to give black students at Wharton, as well as prospective students, a sense that business success is an attainable goal," Brown said.

Investigators yesterday released a composite drawing of the man they believe murdered Wharton School student Shannon Schieber last spring. The sketch was rendered with the help of a woman who was raped in Center City in August 1997. DNA tests that were completed last month linked the woman's attacker to a second rape that August and to Schieber's murder in May. Lt. Kenneth Coluzzi called the sketch "a very substantial step in the investigation. " The suspect is either "an extremely light-skinned black male or a very dark-complected or tan white male," about 25 years old with a thin build, who stands 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, said Coluzzi.

The deans of two of the University of Pennsylvania's most prestigious schools - law and business - announced independently yesterday that they will step down when the academic year ends in the summer of 1999. Colin S. Diver, 54, who has been dean at Penn's law school for a decade, said he had achieved the goals he set out for the school, and planned to return to teaching there full time. Thomas P. Gerrity, 57, dean of the Wharton School for eight years, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and explore more thoroughly some of his theories in the field of management.

It is intended to be at once tall and short, futuristic and old-fashioned, striking and modest, imposing and welcoming. In a true test of design magic, the architects who unveiled sketches yesterday for a $128 million education building at 38th and Walnut Streets in University City have tried to accommodate every conflicting desire the Wharton School's faculty, students and administrators have uttered over the last few years. Faced in brick and Indian red sandstone, capped with copper roofs, the new building will stand a modest three stories high where it fronts Locust Walk on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Marvin N. Demchick, 87, a founder in 2006 of the Academy in Manayunk, died Friday, April 13, of cancer at the Hill at Whitemarsh, where he lived. The Academy, near the Miquon station of the SEPTA Norristown line, "provides a curriculum for children who have learning differences," a daughter, Wendy Demchick-Alloy, said in a phone interview. Because of the Academy, Tess Alloy, a high school senior with dyslexia "among other learning challenges," has received acceptances from four colleges, Demchick-Alloy said.

Joseph Donnelly, of Lansdale, the chief financial officer for NBC Broadcasting, and a tireless advocate for Philadelphia region Catholic schools, died Friday, March 9, at Saint Luke's Hospital in New York City. Mr. Donnelly, 52, had suffered a heart attack Feb. 28 in New York and died from complications, his family said. Mr. Donnelly, who had previously served as the chief financial officer of Comcast Corp.'s programming division, was instrumental in that company's growth into a cable powerhouse and also played a key role in the company's successful merger with NBCUniversal in 2011, said Brian Roberts, the chairman of Comcast Corp.

Tennis great Andre Agassi and officials of a California real estate company created an unusual joint venture last year to help successful charter schools find affordable and sustainable buildings. On Tuesday, they will celebrate their first charter-school investment: KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy at 2409 W. Westmoreland St. in North Philadelphia's Tioga section. "KIPP is the gold standard when it comes to operating charter schools and educating these kids," Agassi said in an interview Monday.

Frank L. Coulson Jr., 65, of Bryn Mawr, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, died Tuesday, Nov. 22, of lung cancer at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore. In 1974, Mr. Coulson joined the Philadelphia office of Goldman Sachs, an investment, banking, and securities firm. He was elected to partnership in 1990 and began a daily commute from the Main Line to the firm's Wall Street office in New York, arriving at 6:30 a.m. He continued to commute until the end of October, said his wife, Sarah Miller Coulson.

Morris Hamburg, 89, of Society Hill, emeritus professor of statistics and operations research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, died of strokes Monday, Nov. 14, at Bryn Mawr Terrace. Dr. Hamburg began teaching at Wharton in 1946 while earning his doctorate in economics. Though he joked that the lecture system was "the mysterious process by which the notes of the professor are transferred to the notes of the student without passing through the minds of either," he was an enthusiastic teacher, said his son, Neil.

Robert J. House, 79, of Center City, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who was a founder and principal investigator of a global project on leadership and organizational behavior, died of heart failure Tuesday, Nov. 1, at Hahnemann University Hospital. Dr. House joined the Wharton faculty in 1988. From 1993 to 2003, he was active with the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research project at Wharton and he coedited three books compiled from the research.

A little money can go a long way in turning what seems like a good idea by a college student into a product or service that can be used by customers. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania just got a lot more money with which to provide small grants to its students. The business school announced last week it had created the Wharton Innovation Fund, which will provide about $125,000 in grants annually in amounts ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Wharton alum Alberto Vitale , the former chairman and chief executive of publisher Random House , is supplying the cash.

Raymond C. Saalbach, 92, a longtime administrator at the University of Pennsylvania, died of complications of pneumonia Wednesday, Sept. 21, at Methodist Hospital. Born in Coatesville, Mr. Saalbach grew up in Collingdale and attended Collingdale High School, where he participated in plays and musicals. After graduating, he enrolled at what was then West Chester State College, where he majored in education. For two years, he taught at the Pennington (N.J.) School. While there, he wrote one-act plays that were performed by students.

CBS recruiter Bryn Berglund had some internship advice for the 100-or-so eager Penn undergrads in the Wharton School auditorium: "You need to work hard, and you need to be nice. " Jobs may be Job 1 at Wharton, where the event took place Wednesday evening, but students had also come to see a new TV show and its star. She was living proof that the recruiter's advice was solid. "Be a fighter. Don't take no for an answer," Beth Behrs told the students. "You have to work it. " She didn't have to confirm the nice advice.

The Wharton School received a $12 million gift from alumni Bruce I. Jacobs and Kenneth N. Levy to establish a quantitative financial research center and a prize for quantitative financial innovation. Quantitative finance involves use of specific, measurable securities or investment factors, such as a company's cost of capital, to help identify promising investments. Wharton said today the center, in addition to supporting innovation, would promote research in good corporate governance and ethics.