(Reuters) - Austin Kiplinger, a journalist who took over the financial publishing firm founded by his father and helped create the first magazine devoted to personal finance for US families, has died at age 97, his company said in a statement on Saturday (Nov 21).
He died on Friday at a hospice in Rockville, Maryland, of cancer in his brain, according to his son, Knight Kiplinger.
Austin Kiplinger's father, W.M. Kiplinger, in 1920 founded Kiplinger Washington Editors Inc, which today produces the magazine Kiplinger Personal Finance, the business forecast publication The Kiplinger Letter and the Kiplinger Tax Letter.
The website Kiplinger.com operated by the company features every-day financial advice, such as how to navigate Medicare, retirement, investing and taxes.
A native of Washington, Austin Kiplinger graduated from Cornell University and went on to serve in the U.S. Navy where he piloted torpedo bomber planes in combat in the South Pacific during World War Two.
After the war, he helped his father in 1947 launch a Kiplinger magazine that was the first publication devoted to personal finance for American families, according to the statement from his company.
Striking out on his own the following year, he moved to Chicago where over the next several years he worked for the Chicago Journal of Commerce and the ABC and NBC affiliates.
After returning to his father's company, Kiplinger wrote and narrated a series of radio commentaries in the 1960s for the U.S. government-run Voice of America to educate listeners on such economic topics as home mortgages, consumer credit and stock investing.
In 1967, he took over as editor in chief and board chair when his father died. He headed the company until he retired gradually from full-time involvement in the 1990s, when his son, Knight, succeeded him.
Kiplinger Washington Editors Inc remains the last major Washington-based company still owned and managed by its founding family, according to the company's statement.
Austin Kiplinger had a lifelong involvement in the US National Symphony Orchestra, and served as a trustee, board president and later an emeritus trustee for the orchestra.
