Abraham S. Venable *69

Abraham Venable, retired executive director of urban affairs for General Motors, died Feb. 21, 2013. He was 82.

Venable graduated from Howard University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics in 1951 and 1953, respectively. He then had a varied entrepreneurial business career until 1963, when he joined the U.S. Department of Commerce. Starting as an economist, he rose to be an administrator of minority-business programs.

During the 1968–69 academic year, Venable was a mid-career fellow at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, a non-degree program. When General Motors established its minority business program in 1971, Venable was engaged as its head. He remained with GM until he retired in 1990, a pioneer in U.S. corporate minority-business programs.

After GM, Venable was with the Institute for American Business in Washington and Detroit. After 2000, he was a self-employed consultant.

He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Anna G. Venable; three children; and one grandson.

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