William Wolman

William Wolman, now retired, served as Business Week's chief economist for 10 years, and is known for his ability to enliven economics stories.

He and The New York Times' legendary Leonard Silk helped pioneer the coverage of economics as news.

Mr. Wolman, a Montreal native, supervised the magazine's coverage of economics and finance, and his guidance led to some major awards. One example is the magazine's 1980 "Reindustrialization of America" special issue, which garnered Mr. Wolman a National Magazine Award for best single-topic issue as well as a Deadline Club Award, a John Hancock Award and a University of Missouri Journalism Award. Mr. Wolman also won a Champion Tuck Award for the magazine's 1984 exploration of the U.S. deficit.

"We want to be constructive... " Mr. Wolman said of the deficit story. "There is not much of a general sense of how serious the problem really is or what 'sacrifices' or actions are necessary to deal with it and to remove 'deficit fear' from the financial markets."

Mr. Wolman, who earned a doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 1957, also appears regularly on CNBC, where he has provided commentary since 1989.

In fact, Mr. Wolman was an early pioneer in business news programming, serving as executive editor of "Business Times," a daily television program that aired on ESPN, from 1983 to 1984.

Mr. Wolman originally joined Business Week in 1960, and left and rejoined the magazine twice.