Neil Sherman Weiner

Neil Sherman Weiner, a longtime resident of the Kansas City area, passed away on January 28, 2007. He was born in Kansas City, MO on July 13, 1936, to Norman and Gertrude Weiner, now deceased. During his 70 years, Dr. Weiner held positions with various local companies including the Kansas City Board of Trade. Dr. Weiner grew up in Kansas City, attending Marlborough Elementary and Southwest High School where he graduated at the top of his class in 1954. At Southwest, he was the editor of the yearbook, The Sachem, and received the coveted Latin Award. Awarded a scholarship to the University of Chicago, he studied there and at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which he graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration. Dr. Weiner also attended the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School; Georgetown University; and Harvard University, from which he earned his doctorate in Economics. Before returning to Kansas City, Dr. Weiner worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, DC; Boeing Consulting in Seattle, WA; Union Bank in Los Angeles, CA and the federal Office of Management and Budget in Washington, DC. While at OMB, he authored “The Report of the President’s Commission on Federal Statistics: A summary of Recommendations, Views and Counterviews,” published in The American Statistician. He moved back to Kansas City and became a consultant for the Kansas City Board of Trade. When the Board of Trade sought to begin trading stock index futures contracts, he was the lead economist who worked to obtain the necessary approval from the federal CFTC (Commodities Future Trading Commission). His task was to demonstrate to the CFTC the economic value of trading the index, to protect an investor’s equity portfolio from market swings. An accomplished econometrician, Dr. Weiner performed the computations for the numerous regression analyses by hand. It was through his persistence that the CFTC finally granted it approval in 1982. This was an unheard-of accomplishment; before this, stock index futures had never been traded on an established exchange. Now, because of his pioneering economic work in this area, stock index futures are widely traded on number of exchanges around the world. To explain trading the index, Dr. Weiner thereafter wrote a book enti- tled Stock Index Futures: A Guide for Traders, Investors and Analysts, published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. in 1984. Dr. Weiner is survived by his two children, Heather Weiner of Seattle, WA and Garrett Weiner of Singapore; his two brothers and sisters-in-law, Stan and Suzi Weiner of Leawood, KS and Larry and Sandy Weiner of Bethesda, MD; his niece Tracy Beth Weiner of Chicago, IL; his niece and nephew-in-law: Caren Weiner Campbell and Barry Campbell of New York, NY; his nephew and niece-in-law: Scott and Wendy Weiner and their children, Alec and Alisa. Graveside services will be 12:30pm Tuesday, January 30, 2007 at Mt. Carmel Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Kansas City Hospice or the charity of the donor’s choice.