Joseph W. Sullivan III ’59

Born and raised in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe died there Oct. 2, 2020.

Coming to Princeton as Chattanooga’s McCallie School valedictorian, yearbook editor, and senior class president, he joined Cap and Gown, was sport director of WPRB, and graduated magna cum laude in history. He roomed senior year with Arnold, Capen, Hare, Larsen, Steffan, and Wolfe. By 1961 he had completed his Army active-duty obligation and married Knoxville native Mary Wayland. A journalism master’s degree from Columbia launched his career as The Wall Street Journal’s Capitol Hill reporter.

A major career change came in 1968 when he accepted a position as assistant to the president of the Chicago Board of Trade, working on the development of new products for diversification of the Board’s grain futures markets, and leading to the creation of a novel market for trading stock options and the formation of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. In 1973 Joe became its founding president, and in his five years at the helm the CBOE grew to become one of the largest securities exchanges in the world. In 1980 Joe turned his talents to Wall Street, co-founding the Option Group, developing options analytic software. He returned to Knoxville in 1992, becoming owner and publisher of Metro Pulse, an alternative weekly newspaper.

Joe is survived by his three children: Jennie, Ross ’87, and Charlie ’91. His wife, Mary, died in April 2019.