Alan Greenspan

Greenspan married twice — first briefly to Joan Mitchell and then in 1997, he married Andrea Mitchell, a NBC reporter twenty years younger. This was Andrea’s second marriage too.

He has a net worth of $10 million and he owns his own consulting company - Greenspan Associates LLC, where he works as a private advisor to various firms.

Alan Greenspan was born in the Washington Heights, New York City, to Herbert Greenspan, a stockbroker and market analyst in New York City and Rose Goldsmith. He was of Jewish descent.

He graduated from George Washington High School in 1943 and joined the prestigious Julliard School to study clarinet which he had been playing with his high school mate, Stan Getz.

He earned a B.S. degree in economics in 1948 and an M.A. degree in economics two years later from New York University. He then enrolled to Columbia University for advance economic studies, but later dropped out.

While studying at the New York University, Greenspan joined the Wall Street investment bank ‘Brown Brothers Harriman’ under Eugene Banks, a managing director, in the firm's equity research department.

From 1948 to 1953, he served as an economic analyst at ‘The National Industrial Conference Board’. The board was a business and industry association in New York City.

In 1954, he became a partner with William Townsend in the consulting firm, ‘Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc.’ When Townsend died four years later he bought out his share and became the president of the company.

In 1968, he was introduced to Richard Nixon by a friend and helped Nixon during his presidential election campaign. However, he turned down positions in the administration after Nixon won the election.

He was appointed to the Commission for an All-Volunteer Armed Forces, commonly known as the Gates Commission, in March 1969. The Gates Commission recommended that the military draft be abolished.

In 1987, ‘The Dow Jones Industrial Average’ fell a record 508 points. Greenspan who had just taken over command at the Fed, acted quickly to ensure liquidity in the markets.

The Asian economies experienced a financial crisis and economic slowdown in 1987. He lowered the U.S interest rates to protect the economy, and hiked it two years later when the Asian economies recovered.