Paul H. O'Neill

Paul Henry O'Neill (December 4, 1935 – April 18, 2020) was an American businessman and government official who served as the 72nd United States secretary of the treasury for part of President George W. Bush's first term, from January 2001 until his resignation in December 2002. Prior to his term as Secretary, O'Neill was chairman and CEO of industrial giant Alcoa and chairman of the RAND Corporation.

O'Neill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Gaynald Elsie (née Irvin) and John Paul O'Neill, an army sergeant. His father claimed that he was from Scotland and that he did not know where his family was anymore. A long time after his death, however, Paul discovered that he was actually from the Netherlands and was originally named Piet Kalfsterman; it is not known why his father lied to his family about his background.

Due to his father's transfers, the family had to change residences often. They lived in Illinois, Hawaii, New Mexico and Alaska. As a teenager, Paul worked part-time jobs including as a paperboy and as a clerk at a convenience store. He graduated from Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska in 1954. While in Alaska, he lived with his parents on Fort Richardson, a military base in Anchorage. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from California State University, Fresno, studied economics at Claremont Graduate University in 1961, and received a Master of Public Administration from Indiana University Bloomington, from a school renamed in his honor, the Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

O'Neill began his public service as a computer systems analyst with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, where he served from 1961 to 1966. He joined the United States Office of Management and Budget in 1967 and served as its deputy director from 1974 to 1977.

O'Neill along with Kenneth W. Dam and William A. Morrill resisted President Richard Nixon in 1973 when he tried cutting off federal funding to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in retaliation for it allowing anti-war protests over the Vietnam War. The three threatened to resign and reminded Nixon that the executive office could not rescind the federal grants, forcing him to back down. According to Frank Zarb, he, O'Neill, Roy Ash and Fred Malek mostly ran the government in 1974 as Nixon's authority was eroded with the Watergate scandal.

After President Gerald Ford lost the 1976 election, O'Neill took an executive job at International Paper in New York City. He was vice president of the company from 1977 to 1985 and president from 1985 to 1987.

O'Neill was chairman and CEO of the Pittsburgh industrial giant Alcoa from 1987 to 1999 and retired as chairman at the end of 2000. At the beginning of his tenure O'Neill encountered significant resistance from the Board of Directors due to his stance on prioritizing worker safety. One argued reason that he could remain in office was his level of CEO power. The company's market value increased from $3 billion in 1986 to $27.53 billion in 2000, while net income increased from $200 million to $1.484 billion.

In 1988, O'Neill joined the RAND Corporation as a member of its board of trustees and in 1997 was elected as its chairperson. He resigned after being appointed as the treasury secretary, but was appointed to RAND's board of trustees again in 2003 after losing his job. He also served on RAND Health's advisory board.

O'Neill's siblings included two brothers and a sister. He married Nancy Jo Wolfe, whom he had met while studying at Anchorage High School. He fathered four children including three daughters named Patricia, Margaret, Julie and a son named Paul Jr.

O'Neill died at his home in Pittsburgh on April 18, 2020, aged 84, from lung cancer. He is survived by a sister, a brother, his four children, twelve grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren.