Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid was recently named to the Steering Committee and the Advisory Board for the Berlin Seminar, a DaimlerChrysler initiative to create a scientific forum for chief executive officers of major corporations around the world.

Others on the Steering Committee, chaired by Paul B. Baltes of Berlin's Max Planck Institute for Human Development, will be Alberto Martinelli of the University of Milan; Arnold Picot, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich; and Ulrich Steger, International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne.

The DaimlerChrysler Berlin Leadership Seminar 2000 will focus on "Lifelong Learning: Navigating Corporations into the Age of the Incomplete Mind" and will be held Nov. 16-17 in Berlin.

During eight workshops over the two-day conference, participants will focus on three factors that make it more difficult for people to depend on their education and professional qualifications to carry them through their entire careers without additional training and education in midlife and later.

The organizers describe the three factors as longer life spans, rapid cultural-technological change and globalization.

The seminar is "designed not only to outline this new historical condition facing us in the 21st century, but also to present building blocks to navigate this new scenario of life."

Each of the chief executive officers and scientists attending the Seminar will be asked to nominate one or two young professionals to participate in a follow-up, week-long institute to further explore the topics and "increase cooperation among young elites from the worlds of business and academe."