Among Gov.-elect Chris Christie's first moves in his transition was creating a Transition Task Force on Budget and Taxes, which will recommend ways to deal with the current year deficit, the projected gap for FY2011 and the state's long-term debt and looming costs for benefits for public retirees.
One of its chairs is Robert E. Grady, 57. He was born in Orange and raised (like Christie) in Livingston, though he has been living recently in the San Francisco area. He is a 1979 honors graduate of Harvard College, where he was an editor of the daily Harvard Crimson, and was a teaching fellow in international relations, and he holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was a legislative assistant and then chief of staff to Rep. Millicent Fenwick from 1979 to 1983. He was Gov. Tom Kean's communications director from 1983 to 1986.
Grady then moved beyond New Jersey to national politics. He was chief speechwriter and senior adviser for the 1988 Bush/Quayle presidential campaign. He then worked in the White House from 1989 to 1993 -- as deputy assistant to President George H.W. Bush and as executive associate director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Next, Grady moved on to non-government work. From 1994 to 2004, he lectured on public management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also got into venture capital -- first as a managing director at Robertson Stephens, a San Francisco-based technology investment bank, then starting in May 2000 as a managing director at the Carlyle Group, one of the world's biggest private equity firms, where he headed its U.S. venture and growth capital group and coordinated its global capital effort. He retired from the Carlyle Group this past June and joined Cheyenne Capital Fund, a private equity firm based in Denver, as a partner in October.
