Distinguished Alumni Award Winner Profile

Victor E. Henningsen, '30BA, '31MS, was born at Graettinger, Iowa, May 5, 1908. he is currently vice president and actuary of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, a firm he joined in 1932. Mr. Henningsen is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, was named president-elect of the Society in 1963 and has served in various executive positions of the Society since 1949. He was elected Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at the University of Iowa. He is married and the father of four children. The Henningsens make their home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His Distinguished Service Award Citation reads:

Victor E. Henningsen became, at 25, one of the youngest men ever elected an officer of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Now, as Vice President and Actuary of that company, he is an acknowledged leader in the insurance world. Later this year, he will become the President of the Society of Actuaries—the first graduate of the University of Iowa to be elected to this highest office in the actuarial profession.

An able scholar of the principles of actuarial science, he is a source of special strengths in his profession. As a man of high conscience in the affairs of his community, and a devoted servant in the causes of youth and of education, he has earned the respect and affection of those whose interests he has served and shared as good citizen and colleague.

For his outstanding accomplishments in all these things, he has earned the University's applause. But not for these alone. Through his leadership among fellow graduates of this University, his own company has been joined by many companies and individuals in extending a rising tide of support for students of outstanding promise in mathematics at this University. His actions have helped spark a broader and higher dimension of actuarial study on this campus, which is a fountain head of education in this field of great moment to the nation's life and work.

It may be said that in the growth and progress of his own professional career, Victor Henningsen is taking his profession upward with him. His University proudly acknowledges the leadership of his example with the Distinguished Service Award.