Grady, a Harvard Alum, Considered for Trump Cabinet Position

Robert E. Grady ’79 is in the running to become the Secretary of Energy or Secretary of Interior in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, according to Politico, making him the latest Harvard affiliate to be linked to Trump’s transition.

Grady, a partner at Gryphon Investors, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, was a speechwriter and adviser for President George H.W. Bush and served as an associate director for the Office of Management and Budget under Bush's administration.

The reports about Grady’s possible appointment comes on the heels of the news that Harvard lecturer and Dunster House resident dean Carlos E. Diaz Rosillo will join Trump’s transition team as “Executive Authority Adviser.” Rosillo teaches the popular course Government 1359: “The Road to the White House.”

Grady, who lived in Quincy House during his time at Harvard, graduated with a cum laude degree in History.

“He was really one of the most dynamic, energetic, smart, and popular students in our class. He was also a really good student, which was one of the things that stood out,” said John Donley ’79, a close friend of Grady’s at Harvard. “He was the only undergraduate [teaching fellow] I can remember.”

While at Harvard, Grady was a writer for The Crimson, writing mostly about sports. He was also heavily involved in student activism against the apartheid regime in South Africa, according to Donley.

“Bob is one of the smartest, most capable and charming people I know, and genuinely committed to public service,” Jonathan H. Alter ’79, a former senior editor of Newsweek who was on The Crimson with Grady, wrote in an e-mail. “He was focused on social justice issues at Harvard but even then was a Republican and he went on to work for a moderate Republican congresswoman (Millicent Fenwick of NJ) shortly after graduation.”

Donley, on the other hand, said, “I couldn’t have told if he was a Democrat or a Republican in college, but he was intellectually curious about policy.”

Both Donley and Alter said that if Grady were chosen to head either the Energy or the Interior department, his skills would benefit the Trump administration.

Donley cited Grady’s experience in the Bush administration, where he was instrumental in negotiating amendments to the bipartisan Clean Air Act.

“People think politics is polarized now, but it was also polarized then, and he did a good job of building a bridge,” said Donley.

“He’s much more conservative nowadays than I am, but his pragmatism and balanced approach to growth and the environment would make him a good fit for the Trump administration,” Alter wrote.

Grady did not respond to a request for comment.