- William Verity Jr.
William Verity, Jr. (
January 26 1917 -January 3 2007 ) was a U.S. administrator and steel industrialist. He served as theSecretary of Commerce between 1987 and 1989, under PresidentRonald Reagan .Biography
Born as Calvin William Verity, Jr., a native of
Middletown, Ohio , Verity worked for most of his career at Armco Steel, a corporation founded by his grandfather. ["C. William Verity Jr. -- Former Commerce Secretary, 89". "New York Times" 6 Jan. 2007, late ed.: A16.] He retired from Armco in 1982.Between 1980 and 1981, Verity was a chairman in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In 1981, he served as chairman of Reagan's bipartisan task force on Private Sector Initiatives (PSI). In 1983, he was appointed to be a member of PSI's Advisory Council and later served on PSI's Board of Advisors. Between 1979 and 1984, he co-chaired the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade Economic Council, a private sector council of American and Soviet businessmen.
During Verity's time at the
U.S. Department of Commerce , he established the Commerce Hall of Fame in 1988 to honor good employees of the department. In 1988, he also created theOffice of Space Commerce to support theNational Space Council . That office was an early version of theOffice of Space Commercialization , an office created to promote the effective commercial use ofouter space .Verity and his wife Peggy had two sons and a daughter together.
Peggy Verity died in 1999.Verity died on January 3, 2007 in
Beaufort, South Carolina . He is buried in the family plot (Section 15), Woodside Cemetery, Middletown, Ohio. [ [http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/16385284.htm "dead link"] , attempted retrieval2008-07-07 ] dead link|date=July 2008 He was 89.References
External links
* [http://www.nndb.com/people/471/000061288/ William Verity profile, NNDB] .
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