Black Executive Ernest Shell

Ernest Shell, president of Golden State Minority Foundation, an organization that has helped provide more than 600 scholarships and grants to college students in Michigan and California, has died in Los Angeles.

Shell, 76, also was a vice chairman of the board of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co., one of the nation’s largest black businesses.

In 1946 Shell became only the second black to be designated a chartered life underwriter by the American College of Life Underwriters.

Shell joined Golden State in 1959 and was named to the executive board in 1967. He was appointed head of the minority foundation, a charitable branch of the insurance company, in 1974. He is survived by his wife, Juanita.