Biography of William Siedman

L. William Seidman is Chairman of the Board of COMMAC, a company created to provide well managed financial institutions with an ongoing facility for selling commercial real estate mortgages. He is also the Chief Commentator on GE's TV cable network CNBC and Publisher of Bank Director magazine. He is a consultant to numerous organizations, including the law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, The World Bank, BDO Seidman, The Capital Group and as a director of Fiserv, Inc. Prior to that, he served as the fourteenth Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 1985 to 1991. He became the first Chairman of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) in 1989 and served until 1991. During his tenure at the FDIC, the agency handled over one thousand bank failures, and it took over the administration of the insurance fund of the S&L industry. While at the RTC, he supervised the creation of an 8,000 person agency handling over $400 billion in assets from failed S&Ls. He brought to the position a record of accomplishments as a businessman, educator and public servant. At the time of his Presidential appointment, he was completing his third year as Dean of the College of Business at Arizona State University. When he left, the Seidman Institute of Research was created in his honor. While at Arizona, he was Chairman of the Governor's Commission on Interstate Banking and wrote a business column for the Phoenix Gazette.

Mr. Seidman was President Ford's Assistant for Economic Affairs from 1974 to 1977. In this role he helped develop a series of proposals in deregulation of transportation and other industries. He served President Reagan as co-chair of the White House Conference on Productivity in 1983 and 1984.

On the business side of his career, Seidman was Vice-Chairman and Chief Financial Officer of the Phelps Dodge Corporation (a Fortune 500 company) from 1977 to 1982. He was a Director of Phelps Dodge, Prudential-Bache Funds, Catalyst Energy Development Corporation, The Conference Board and United Bancorp of Arizona.

Mr. Seidman was managing partner of Seidman and Seidman, Certified Public Accountants (now BDO Seidman), New York, New York, from 1968 to 1974. Under his stewardship, the firm expanded from a small family enterprise to become the eighth largest public accounting firm in the nation. Mr. Seidman also served as Chairman (1970) and Director of the Detroit Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago from 1966 to 1970.

As an educator, he is known as the father of the Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI. Grand Valley State is a state university with 12,000 students. He is also the founder of The Washington Campus, a consortium of 15 universities organized to help students and corporate executives understand operations of the White House, the Congress and the regulatory agencies.

Seidman is the author of two books: Productivity: The American Advantage and Full Faith and Credit. He holds an A.B. from Dartmouth (Phi Beta Kappa), an LL.B from Harvard Law School, and is an honors graduate with an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan. He served in the United States Navy from 1942-1946 earning battle stars and the Bronze Star Medal.