Richard Darman


Richard Gordon "Dick" Darman was an American businessman and government official who served in senior positions during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Early life

Darman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, the son of Eleanor F. and Morton H. Darman. His father was a textile mill owner.
Darman graduated with honors from Harvard College in 1964 and from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1967.

Career

Darman was regarded as provocative and intelligent by Washington insiders but was criticized by some economists for being too focused on the budget deficit and was sometimes blamed for convincing Bush to renege on his promise of "," which is widely believed to have contributed to Bush's defeat in the election of 1992. Darman had previously tried to stop Bush from making the promise during the 1988 campaign.
Prior to serving as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under the first President Bush from 1989 to 1993, Darman held other governmental positions, including: Assistant to the President of the United States and White House Staff Secretary ; Deputy Secretary of the Treasury ; and Assistant Secretary of Commerce. He also was a member of the faculty of Harvard Kennedy School on three occasions between 1977 and 2002.
Since May 1, 2003, Darman had been Chairman of the Board of AES Corporation, an electric utility company.
From 1993 until his death in 2008, Darman was a partner and managing director of The Carlyle Group. During that period, Carlyle went from being a small firm with 26 employees to one of the world's largest and most successful private equity firms.
Darman was a trustee of the Loomis Sayles Funds, the IXIS Funds, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He served as Chairman of the Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Personal life

He married Kathleen Emmet on September 1, 1967; they had three sons, William T. E., Jonathan W. E. and C. T. Emmet Darman.
Darman died on January 25, 2008, at the age of 64, following a battle with acute myelogenous leukemia.