Barnett to serve President’s Advisory Council

Jan. 09, 2007

WAVERLY, Iowa — A vice president with a leading national insurance company group has been selected to serve the Wartburg College President’s Advisory Council.

Wartburg President Jack R. Ohle has appointed Rich Barnett of New Jersey to the President’s Advisory Council. PAC is comprised of chairpersons and at-large members from Wartburg national advisory boards, representing a wide range of expertise and disciplines.

PAC serves as an oversight group that reviews recommendations of the college’s national advisory boards. In addition, PAC offers counsel and acts as a sounding board on issues central to the entire campus. Wartburg established the national advisory board process in 2001 to provide an avenue for alumni and friends to remain connected with the college and for enhanced communication between the college and its constituents. The boards are advisory but have been instrumental in accentuating and helping to carry forward many important institutional goals. Nearly 150 alumni and friends nationwide participate on 10 advisory boards for athletics, Archives of Iowa Broadcasting, business, communication arts, diversity, leadership, library, Pathways Center, social work and vocations.

Barnett serves as a vice president within the Chubb Corporation, a holding company for a family of property and casualty insurance companies known as the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. Since inception in 1882, Chubb has grown to become the 10th largest property and casualty insurer in the United States and has a worldwide network of 120 offices in 29 countries. There, he serves as a director and the international field operations officer for Chubb’s worldwide surety operation.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Wartburg in 1984, Barnett joined EMC Insurance Companies in Des Moines. In 1986, he began his career at Chubb and has since held a variety of management positions throughout the Midwest and London. For the last seven years, Barnett has worked from Chubb’s world headquarters in Warren, N.J. Barnett’s wife, Beth (Biedermann) Barnett, is a 1983 Wartburg graduate. They are parents to Dane, a high school sophomore, and Brittanie, a first-year student at Wartburg.

A private, liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Wartburg enrolls 1,769 students from 23 U.S. states and 36 countries. The college ranks among the nation’s top comprehensive colleges on the basis of academic reputation in U.S. News & World Report’s 2006 edition of “America’s Best Colleges.” According to the publication, Wartburg is No. 1 in Iowa, No. 6 in the Midwest and No. 10 in the United States. Barron’s Best Buys in College Education lists Wartburg as one of 300 colleges that offer the best value for the student’s dollar. Peterson’s Top Colleges for Science includes Wartburg among 200 U.S. colleges offering outstanding programs in the sciences and mathematics.

Wartburg offers more than 50 majors, with the highest number of majors in biology, business administration, communication arts, elementary education and music, respectively. Wartburg is also home to Iowa’s oldest accredited social work program and is the only private college in the state that offers a degree in music therapy.