About the Project > The Principals > George P. Shultz

 

George P. Shultz

George Pratt Shultz has had a distinguished career in government, in academia, and in the world of business. He is one of a handful of individuals who have held four different federal cabinet posts; he has taught at three of the United States' greatest universities; and for eight years he was president of a major engineering/construction company.

 

Mr. Shultz was born in New York City on December 13, 1920 and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He attended Princeton University, graduating in 1942 with a B.A. in economics. Shortly after graduation, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served through 1945. He then resumed his studies, this time at MIT, where he earned a Ph.D. in industrial economics in 1949. From 1948 to 1957, he taught at MIT, taking a year's leave of absence in 1955 to serve as a senior staff economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors during the Eisenhower administration.

 

In 1957, Mr. Shultz joined the faculty, as a Professor of Industrial Relations, of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business; he was named Dean five years later. From 1968 to 1969, he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

 

He returned to government when he was appointed Secretary of Labor by President Nixon in 1969. In June 1970, he became Director of the Office of Management and Budget. In May 1972, he was named Secretary of the Treasury, a post he held for two years. During this period, Mr. Shultz also served as Chairman of the Council on Economic Policy, negotiated a series of trade protocols with the Soviet Union, and represented the United States at the Tokyo meeting on the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade.

 

Mr. Shultz left government service in 1974 to become President and Director of the Bechtel Group, Inc., where he remained until 1982. While at Bechtel, he maintained his close ties with the academic world by joining the faculty of Stanford University and working on a part-time basis.

 

Mr. Shultz held two key positions in the Reagan administration: Chairman of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981-82) and Secretary of State (1982-89). During his tenure as Secretary of State, he played a key role in implementing a foreign policy that led to the successful conclusion of the Cold War and the development of strong relationships between the United States and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region including China, Japan, and the ASEAN countries.

 

After leaving office, Mr. Shultz rejoined the Bechtel Group as Director and Senior Counselor. He also rejoined Stanford as Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business and as Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 2001, Mr. Shultz was named the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

 

In January 1989, Mr. Shultz was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He is also a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize (1992), the West Point Sylvanus Thayer Award (1992), the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service (2001), the Reagan Distinguished American Award (2002), and The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training's Ralph Bunche Award for Diplomatic Excellence (2002). Other honors awarded in 2002 include the Elliot Richardson Prize for Excellence and Integrity in Public Service, The James H. Doolittle Award, and the John Witherspoon Medal for Distinguished Statesmanship. The George Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia was dedicated in a ceremony on May 29, 2002. Mr. Shultz was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association in 2005. He received The American Spirit Award from The National World War II Museum in 2006 and the Truman Medal for Economic Policy in 2007.

 

Mr. Shultz's publications include Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (1993), Economic Policy Beyond the Headlines (1977), Workers and Wages in the Urban Labor Market (1970), Guidelines, Informal Controls, and the Marketplace (1966), Strategies for the Displaced Worker: Confronting Economic Change (1966), Management Organization and the Computer (1960), Labor Problems: Cases and Readings (1953), The Dynamics of a Labor Market (1951), and Pressures on Wage Decisions (1950).

 

Mr. Shultz holds honorary degrees from Notre Dame, Columbia, Loyola, Pennsylvania, Rochester, Princeton, Carnegie-Mellon, CUNY, Yeshiva University, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Baruch College of New York, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tbilisi State University in the Republic of Georgia, Technion, and Keio University in Tokyo.

 

Mr. Shultz is the chairman of the Governor of California's Economic Advisory Board and the J. P. Morgan Chase International Council. He is the Advisory Council Chair of the Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency at Stanford University and he serves on the boards of directors of Accretive Health and Fremont Group.