Walter B. Gerken

Mr. Gerken was chairman and chief executive of Pacific Life Insurance from 1975 to 1986, a period when the company grew to be one of the larger insurance companies in the United States. He was best known, though, for his decision in the 1960s to turn the company’s investment arm into a separate subsidiary that would manage outside money. That company, in 1971, would become the Pacific Investment Management Company, or Pimco, and under one of its main founders, William H. Gross, it grew to become the largest bond manager in the world. At its peak, Pimco oversaw more than $2 trillion in assets. Walter Bland Gerken was born on Aug. 14, 1922, in Manhattan before his family moved to New Rochelle, N.Y., where he grew up. He served in World War II as an Army Air Forces flight navigator and went on to Wesleyan University, where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in economics. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University in 1950. Mr. Gerken is survived by his six children and 14 grandchildren. His wife, Darlene, died in 2009.