(courtesy of "Kat")

Robert A. Beck, former chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Prudential Insurance Co. of America, died Sunday in Vero Beach, Fla., of cancer of the esophagus. He was 71.

Beck joined Prudential in 1951 as an agent in Syracuse, N.Y. He managed agencies in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Jacksonville, Fla., before being promoted to executive general manager and vice president in the Newark corporate office. He became the company's 12th president in 1974.

He was elected board chairman and chief executive officer in 1978, and held those positions until his retirement in 1987. He was named chairman emeritus and served on the Prudential board until 1995.

Born in the Bronx, N.Y., Beck was a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and Syracuse University.

He was a U.S. Army veteran of World War II, enlisting as a private in 1943 and rising to first lieutenant before his discharge five years later.

During 1982 and 1983, Beck served on the executive committee for President Reagan's Private Sector on Cost Control and was a member of the President's Commission for Social Security Reform.

Beck said he guided his life by an axiom his father handed down to him: ''If you can't find a way, make one.'' His father, a career Army officer, had it inscribed for him on an Army entrenching tool, which Beck kept in his office.

Survivors include his wife, Frances Kenny Beck of Rumson and Vero Beach, Fla.; three sons, Robert Beck of Boca Raton, Fla., Arthur Beck of Delray, Fla. and Stephen Beck of New York City, N.Y.; two daughters, Kathleen Beck of Dallas, Texas, and Teresa Koenig of Columbia, S.C.; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

(The Miami Herald, Miami, FL, 5 May 1997, Page 4B - courtesy of Tedd Cocker)

(unknown newspaper)