William Verity Jr.
| C. William Verity | |
|---|---|
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Verity 1987
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| 27th United States Secretary of Commerce | |
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In office October 19, 1987 – January 30, 1989 |
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| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Malcolm Baldrige Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Robert Mosbacher |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Calvin William Verity Jr. January 26, 1917 Middletown, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | January 3, 2007 (aged 89) Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Resting place | Woodside Cemetery, Middletown, Ohio, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Margaret "Peggy" Wymond Verity (b. 1917 - d. 1999) |
| Children | Peggy V. Power Jonathan G. Verity William W. Verity |
| Alma mater | Choate Rosemary Hall, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Religion | Episcopalian |
Calvin William Verity Jr. (January 26, 1917 – January 3, 2007) was a U.S. administrator and steel industrialist. He served as the Secretary of Commerce between 1987 and 1989, under President Ronald Reagan.
He was born in Middletown, Ohio, on January 26, 1917, to Calvin William Verity and Elizabeth (O'Brien) Verity. He roomed with John F. Kennedy at Choate, a Connecticut boarding school, starting a friendship with the future president.
Verity worked for most of his career at Armco Steel, a corporation founded by his grandfather, George M. Verity. He started there in 1940, and 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 the Office of Space Commerce to support the National Space Council. That office was an early version of the Office of Space Commercialization, an office created to promote the effective commercial use of outer space. According to Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, Verity kept a passage from Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged on his desk, including the line "How well you do your work . . . [is] the only measure of human value."
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