Arnold A. Saltzman

Arnold Asa Saltzman (October 1, 1916 – January 2, 2014) was an American businessman, diplomat, art collector, and philanthropist, based in New York.

Saltzman was born on October 1, 1916, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Russian immigrant father, Isidore, and his wife Dora. It was a Jewish family and he had two sisters. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School.

He graduated from Columbia University in 1936, at the age of 19 or 20, majoring in economics and government. While there he earned a top-level award for his performance on the Debate Council. He married his wife, the former Joan Roth, in a Jewish ceremony on November 21, 1942. They raised three children, born between 1945 and 1951. They went on to live in Sands Point, New York.

His first job was taken in 1936 with the Premiere Knitting Company, the family sweater business. He then entered government service, working for the Roosevelt administration as a member of the National Industrial Mobilization Committee. He was in charge of the Military Price Control Section of the Office of Price Administration, with $8 billion of defense and Lend-Lease spending under his purview. He was on the Procurement Policy Board, which had representatives from each large government agency. By 1944 he was an ensign in the United States Coast Guard. During the Korean War, he served in the Office of Price Stabilization.

Saltzman returned to business, becoming vice president and then president of Premiere Knitting. He became vice president and a director of Botany Industries (an outgrowth of Botany Mills) from 1959 to 1962. Saltzman was president of the Seagrave Corporation starting in 1961. He took a company that mostly made fire-fighting equipment and diversified it via acquisition and other changes into one that did leather processing, made paint and industrial finishes, constructed low-cost houses, and sold mortgages. He remained president of Seagrave into the 1970s.

...
Wikipedia