WCU Magazine Fall/Winter 2025

During a 47-year career as an actuary, John Buchanan ’79 liked to defy the stereotypes associated with his profession.

“People would say to me ‘You’re the most non-actuary actuary I know,’” says Buchanan, who prides himself on breaking the mold.

The Philadelphia native is nothing like the typical image of actuaries as serious figures bent over a calculator crunching numbers. You’re more likely to find him competing in salsa dancing competitions and making films.

When speaking to a crowd of colleagues at conferences, he liked to bring a bit of whimsy to his work. “I’m undoubtedly the first actuary ever to use audio clips from the Austin Powers movies — ‘Oh, behave!’ among others — when speaking to a group of over 400 actuaries,” recalls Buchanan, who lives in New York City. At a professional conference in Las Vegas, he used an Elvis Presley contest theme: “hunka, hunka burning losses” factored into the winning entry.

Buchanan retired in March 2025 as managing principal of excess and reinsurance at Verisk/ISO in Jersey City, NJ. A successful front-line pricing actuary and consultant in the United States and international reinsurance marketplaces, he developed products, research, and reference materials that became industry standards. Since then, he’s devoted himself to his avocations and to various “paying it forward” themes. One of those interests led him to establish the “What Would Ben Franklin Do?” Fund at West Chester.

Throughout his life, Buchanan was inspired by Franklin. He first encountered the statesman and fellow Philadelphian when he read his autobiography as a student at Central High School. “I really liked how Franklin had so many dimensions,” he says. “He had so many interests … and an ability to take something he had learned in one area, take it to another area, and create something completely new out of that.”

Franklin frequently has figured in Buchanan’s professional and personal activities. While serving on the climate change subcommittee of the Casualty Actuarial Society, he had the opportunity to produce a film about ways Franklin’s work tracking ocean temperatures had value in today’s study of climate change. Buchanan also sponsored competitions for high school and middle school students to encourage interdisciplinary thinking, including one that challenged students to explore how mathematics made them better dancers.

He hopes to inspire similar crossdisciplinary initiatives at his alma mater with the new fund, which he developed with Dr. Jessica OShaughnessy, dean of the College of Sciences and Mathematics (CSM), and Dr. Allison Kolpas, chair of the mathematics department.

Awarded by the dean with input from faculty, the fund is designed to spark student engagement and foster collaboration across different CSM departments and encourage cross-interdisciplinary thinking. That kind of work, Buchanan notes, will provide students with preparation to adapt to the changing workplace of the future.

The fund will support contests, research, student scholarships, technology, program costs, collaboration opportunities that stretch outside of WCU programs, and other expenses that the dean determines align with its philosophy.

Buchanan earlier established the Buchanan Scholarship Fund for a promising actuarial student.

He said his time at the University allowed him to develop strengths and skills outside his major and minors, mathematics, business, and accounting. He did that through electives and extracurricular activities that broadened his experience. Perhaps the most significant was being a DJ on WCUR, which he cites as formative in developing skills he would use after college.

“That experience really stretched me outside of what I would normally consider my comfort zone, and I used that for the next year, the next decade and for 47 years as an actuary,” Buchanan says.