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3 June 1933 – 1 July 2017 · chief executive 1977 – 1998
Ian Rolland was the rare chief executive who ran his hometown's largest company for the whole of a working life. Born in Fort Wayne on 3 June 1933, he graduated from North Side High School in 1951, studied at DePauw and the University of Michigan, and began at Lincoln National Life in 1956. He rose steadily: president of Lincoln National Corporation in 1975, chief executive in 1977, chairman and chief executive in 1992, retiring in 1998 after forty-two years. As chief executive he moved the company's great Lincoln collection out of the headquarters basement and into The Lincoln Museum, which opened in 1995; when the museum closed in 2008, it was Rolland who chaired the statewide campaign that raised $9.5 million and kept the collection in Indiana — it rests today as the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection at the Allen County Public Library and the Indiana State Museum, and the Rolland Center for Lincoln Research opened at the library in 2022. Indiana gave him the Sachem Award, its highest honour, in 2012. He died at home in Fort Wayne on 1 July 2017, aged eighty-four, after Parkinson's disease.
Sources:
- Ian M. Rolland's obituary (Fort Wayne Newspapers, via Legacy.com) and Trine University's notice of 5 July 2017 — the birth, schooling, the 1956 start and the 1975/1977/1992 title path, the museum campaign, the Sachem Award and the 2017 death.
- Businesses — "Lincoln National Life Insurance Company" (the collection's history in the company), cross-referenced.