Edward B. Rust Jr. is a native of Illinois and a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan.  He earned his Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration degrees in 1975 from SMU Dedman School of Law.

Rust is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of State Farm Mutual® and its principal affiliates.  He joined State Farm in 1975 at the company’s Dallas, Texas, regional office.  He became president and chief executive in 1985 and was elected chairman of the board two years later.    

Rust is vice-chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a member of Business Roundtable and The Financial Services Roundtable.  He serves on the boards of America’s Promise Alliance and the James B. Hunt, Jr., Institute for Educational Leadership. He is former chairman of the Business-Higher Education Forum and Business Roundtable’s Education Initiative. He served on the National (Glenn) Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century and on the No Child Left Behind Commission.  Rust is nationally recognized as a leader of business community efforts to improve the quality of education in the United States.

Rust was co-chair of Business Roundtable for more than seven years.  He is also past chairman of the American Enterprise Institute, The Financial Services Roundtable, the National Alliance of Business and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.  He currently serves as a trustee of The Conference Board, the Committee for Economic Development, and Illinois Wesleyan University.

Rust is also a member of the boards of directors of Caterpillar, Inc., Helmerich and Payne, Inc., and McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Rust and his wife, Sally, have one son.