Mr. Andrew Taylor Call is a graduate of the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, and is currently a second year law student. As an undergraduate he specialized in the historical developments of American commercial and economic history. With a rapidly developing passion for American business history, he composed a Fourth Year History thesis on Illinois pioneer Jacob Bunn and the development of the industrial and commercial sectors of Illinois during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
After an additional year and a half of revision and data addition, Mr. Call had the thesis published by an independent publisher as a full biography, in 2005. The book is called Jacob Bunn: Legacy of an Illinois Industrial Pioneer (please visit www.bunnlegacy.com for further details regarding the contents of the book). The book contains what has been said to be the first account of the Bunn political machine behind the Lincoln presidency, as well as information on the Bunn commercial network which included everything from the Lincoln presidential campaign to the Sangamo Electric Company‘s presence in nearly every country on earth.
In 2002/2003 Mr. Call designed and initiated a business interview project that involved designing six standardized questions to be presented to various retired business executives and entrepreneurs. Each of the six questions was designed to elicit recollection of career experience and memoir. By 2003 he had conducted six interviews with business leaders representing the energy and defense, railroad, petroleum, institutional securities, real estate, and land development sectors, as well as the California agribusiness sector.
Mr. Call became associated with the ANBHF in 2004 when he nominated Jacob Bunn for Laureate status within the American National Business Hall of Fame. Jacob Bunn became a Laureate in March of 2005. Mr. Call became the Special Advisory Representative for the ANBHF in March, 2005, and has conducted an information collection project for the ANBHF with the Lincoln Electric Company of Ohio.
Also in 2004, Mr. Call was selected to be a research fellow with Capital City Historic Research and Associates, Inc., of Springfield, Illinois, where he researched and co-authored a biography of prominent Illinois industrialist and civic visionary, Dr. George Pasfield.
In 2005 Mr. Call founded American Business Legacy Emissaries (ABLE), an educational program, established under the authority of the ANBHF, for the purpose of designing, coordinating, and delivering lectures on business ethics and heritage at high schools around North America.
Mr. Call was elected to the Board of Directors (Executive Committee) of the ANBHF in March, 2006. He is a member of The Newcomen Society, Phi Delta Phi (International Legal Fraternity), serves on the National Advisory Board of the James Monroe Memorial Foundation, and has served twice as a Judge on the James Monroe Memorial Foundation Scholarship Program. He established the Jacob Bunn Award at the University of Virginia to be given annually to one student who composes an outstanding senior thesis on American business or economic history. Mr. Call also established the Andrew T. Call endowment at Alderman Library (University of Virginia) for the purpose of financing the acquisition of business related texts, letters, photographs, and records.