Aon Founder Patrick Ryan To Retire From Company In August

Patrick G. Ryan, founder and executive chairman of Aon Corp., announced his retirement, effective Aug. 1.

Ryan, 70, grew the small Ryan Insurance Agency he started in Chicago in 1964 into Aon, the largest broker in terms of brokerage revenue based on the Best's Review 2007 ranking. Aon now has 43,000 employees in more than 500 offices spread out over more than 120 countries.

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His agency became Ryan Insurance, which rapidly grew through acquisitions and developing new business. Through the 1980s Ryan made several significant acquisitions, including Frank B. Hall, Combined International Corp. and Rollins Burdick Hunter--acquisitions that allowed it to survive and thrive in the secular decline in traditional brokerage commission and the soft market of the early 1990s.

Ryan led Aon's recovery efforts after it lost 176 employees in the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which destroyed its New York offices. The company returned to lower Manhattan nearly two years later.

Ryan will continue as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University, and as chairman and chief executive officer of Chicago 2016, the effort to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics to Chicago.