Russell L. "Rusty" Olson, who oversaw the Eastman Kodak Co. pension fund for 29 years and worked at Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodak for a total of 48 years, has not been sitting idle since his retirement in June 2000.
He has been writing books to share his vast pension fund investment experience with others.
Mr. Olson's first post-retirement book, published in 2003, was "Investing Pension Funds and Foundations: Tools and Guidelines for the New Independent Fiduciary," published by McGraw-Hill, New York.
This year he published two books. The first, "The School of Hard Knocks: The Evolution of Pension Investing at Eastman Kodak," is a case history of how he and his team developed for Kodak, through trial and error, a successful pension fund investment program.
Along the way they pioneered such investment vehicles as venture capital and financial and commodity futures. The book details the political battles that pension executives of the era had to fight to win management acceptance of the pioneering concepts. One finance professor at The Wharton School plans to make it required reading for his MBA and undergraduate students. The book was published by The Rochester Institute of Technology Press, Rochester, N.Y.
The second book is "The Handbook for Investment Committee Members," published by John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York. As the name implies, the book tells fiduciaries of pension funds how to set up an investment program.
"I don't have any more books up my sleeve," Mr. Olson said. He does, however, continue to share his knowledge and experience through consulting and public speaking.
