Jack Campbell Elected Chair Emeritus of Cooper Foundation

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

The trustees of the Cooper Foundation have elected Jack D. Campbell Chair Emeritus, in recognition of his service, leadership, and commitment to the Foundation and the communities it serves. Jack Campbell is the longest serving Chair of the board of the Cooper Foundation, having served for 16 years.  He will continue to serve as a trustee.

Campbell has served as a trustee of the Cooper Foundation for more than 44 years, since May of 1974.  At that time he was General Agent of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.

He served as president of the American Society of Chartered Life Underwriters and Chartered Financial Consultants and was a long-time member of the board of directors of the National Bank of Commerce.  Campbell is a past president of the Nebraska Art Association and the Nebraska Humanities Foundation, and has served on the boards of the Nebraska Library Commission, the Lincoln City Libraries and Foundation, the Lincoln Community Foundation, and the Museum of Nebraska Art. He was a founding member of board of the Nebraska Cultural Endowment where he continues to serve as an Emeritus board member.  He chaired the City of Lincoln’s American Bicentennial Commission for 11 years, from 1974 through 1985, which commissioned Tem & Ptah, the granite sculpture by Jene Highstein, located on Centennial Mall.

The board elected Art Thompson, the foundation’s long-time president to succeed Campbell as Chair of the Foundation, and Victoria Grasso to succeed Thompson as President, effective January 1, 2019.

The Cooper Foundation was established in 1934 by Joseph H. Cooper, owner of the Cooper Theatres, a multi-state movie theatre business. Since its founding, the foundation has made grants of over $24 million in support of education, human services, the arts and humanities, and the environment.