Jerry Florence, 57; National and Local Fundraiser Became an AARP Executive

Jerry D. Florence, a top executive of AARP and a major fundraiser for national and local causes, has died. He was 57.

Florence, a onetime baseball player with the Chicago White Sox organization, died Nov. 28 at his home in Bethesda, Md., of a heart attack.

The veteran management executive joined AARP, formerly the American Assn. of Retired People, two years ago as director for member value and later became group executive officer for membership and director of the AARP Foundation.

The foundation, he explained in a speech at the annual conference of his Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity last March, is the charity arm of the AARP and helps people over 50 in finding jobs, managing money and filing income tax forms. The foundation also provides legal help to secure seniors’ rights.

Recently, Florence had planned the annual AARP member conference in New Orleans, which was scheduled to begin Sept. 29. When the event had to be canceled because of Hurricane Katrina, Florence oversaw the dismantling of a year’s planning by his staff.

As part of his AARP duties, Florence worked to help the news media understand and disseminate information on Social Security and Medicare’s complex new prescription drug benefits, along with other programs for senior citizens.

“In the black community, it’s critical for people to know that Social Security is one of the best resources available,” he said in August at the National Assn. of Black Journalists Convention in Atlanta, where he distributed the first AARP Reporters Source Book. “In fact, without Social Security, the poverty rate would jump from 22% to more than 57% for older African Americans.”

At that conference, and in other talks, Florence also asked the media to help spread the word about AARP as a source of information on various programs to aid senior citizens.

Throughout his career, Florence was active in national and local nonprofit organizations. Nationally, President Clinton named him to the Museum Services Board of the United States in 1999.

A board member of the Smithsonian Institution, Florence raised more than $12 million for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

When he lived in the Los Angeles area in the 1990s, he served as president of the nonprofit Infinity Fund for brain tumor research at UCLA, was a board member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and was vice chairman of the Los Angeles Urban League.

He also headed two organizations formed to improve conditions in South-Central Los Angeles after the 1992 riots: Food from the Hood at Crenshaw High School, and Nissan Foundation USA, created by the automaker to aid development in the riot-torn area.

A native of Wichita, Kan., Florence earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Wichita State University and a certificate in executive management from Penn State University. He later became a major fundraiser for Wichita State University.

Florence started his career as a baseball player in the Chicago White Sox organization. In 1966 he signed with the Sarasota White Sox and later played for the Duluth-Superior Dukes.

His first job outside the ballpark came in 1973 as a research chemist for General Electric. But he soon switched to management, and by the time he left GE in 1983 he was manager of market planning.

Florence worked for General Motors from 1983 to 1993, rising to general director of marketing and product planning for its Cadillac division.

He moved on to Gardena-based Nissan Motor Co. in 1993 and spent five years as its vice president of communications, brand marketing and strategic development.

After working briefly as senior vice president of communications for Sempra Energy in San Diego, Florence in 1999 co-founded E-MedNet Inc., a provider of online medical records, in Los Angeles.

He served as president, chief executive and chairman of the company through 2003.

Florence is survived by his wife of 31 years, Winifred; his parents, Alsie and Rosa Florence of Wichita; his son, Michael, of Bethesda, Md.; and 10 siblings.

The family has asked that, instead of flowers, donations be made to one of three organizations for which Florence served as a board member: the AARP Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution or the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.