Fred Malek

Frederic Vincent "Fred" Malek (born December 22, 1936) is the former President of Marriott Hotels and Northwest Airlines and former assistant to United States Presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush. Malek served as a National Finance Committee co-chair of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign and has played a role in every Republican nominee for President over the past four decades. In 2011, he received the Horatio Alger Award.

Malek was born in Berwyn, Illinois of Czech and Croatian descent, the son of a beer truck driver. He was raised in Chicago. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from West Point in 1959, and served in Vietnam with Army Special Forces as an airborne ranger. He received his M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1964 and worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co.. He and two classmates made a pact to purchase a business together; two would work and support the third while he scouted out opportunities. In 1967, he left McKinsey and, with his partners, purchased Triangle Corp., a struggling hand tool manufacturing company in Orangeburg, South Carolina.

Malek served in the Nixon administration in several different roles, including Deputy Under Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under Secretary Robert Finch, as special assistant from 1970–73 and deputy director of Nixon's re-election campaign. Malek served as deputy chief of the Committee to Re-elect the President in 1972.

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