CREF celebrates golden anniversary; IU alumnus principal architect in 1952

By Jayne Spencer

The late Indiana University alumnus William Greenough, who received his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1935 and an honorary doctorate in 1966, was the principal architect in 1952 of the world’s first annuity based on stock investments—the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF).

CREF has become the largest singly managed stock portfolio in the world. He developed some of his ideas with the guidance and counsel in 1949 from Harry Suvain, professor of finance at the IU Bloomington campus. “We talked for some time and discussed an idea of his for investing the cash values of life insurance in equities,” wrote Greenough in his book,It’s My Retirement Money—Take Good Care of It: The TIAA-CREF Story, published in 1990.

Greenough later served as chairman of TIAA-CREF, from 1963-1979.

The story of CREF appears in the August issue of Participant.