Name Alexander Trowbridge | Succeeded by Cyrus R. Smith Party Democratic Party | |
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Born December 12, 1929Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. ( 1929-12-12 ) Children Stephen TrowbridgeCorrin TrowbridgeKimberly Trowbridge ParentBarbara Verdaguer (stepdaughter)Charles Hutzler (stepson) Died April 27, 2006, Washington, D.C., United States Spouse Nancey Horst, Eleanor Hutzler Trowbridge Parents Alexander Buel Trowbridge, Jr., Julie Chamberlain d'Estournelles Similar People Lyndon B Johnson, Paul Philippe Cret, Jon Spector, William Shakespeare, Arthur W Radford | ||
Alexander Buel Trowbridge III (December 12, 1929 – April 27, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. He was the United States Secretary of Commerce from June 14, 1967 to March 1, 1968, in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Biography
Trowbridge was born on December 12, 1929 in Englewood, New Jersey. He was the son of American University Professor of Russian History, Alexander Buel Trowbridge, Jr., and the grandson of the Alexander Buel Trowbridge, Sr., the former dean of the Cornell University College of the Architecture (1897-1902). His grandmother Gertrude Mary Sherman was the great-great-granddaughter of American founding father Roger Sherman. His mother, the former Julie Chamberlain, who was the executive director of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation from 1942 to 1961. Trowbridge's parents divorced, and he was raised by his mother.
As a young man, Trowbridge attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1947, before graduating from Princeton University in 1951. After World War II, he worked with various reconstruction efforts. After working with the International Intern Program of the United Nations in Lake Success, New York, he served in the Korean War in the Marine Corps.
Between 1954 and 1965, he was an oil businessman. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce. On January 19, 1967, he became acting Secretary of Commerce, and in June of that year he became U.S. Secretary of Commerce, a position he served in until March 1, 1968. He resigned to return to business, serving first as the President of the American Management Association before the joining Allied Chemical as a Vice-Chairman of the Morristown, NJ-based parent company and the Chairman of their Canadian subsidiary, Allied Chemical Canada Ltd. of Pointe-Claire (QC).
He later served as head of the National Association of Manufacturers from 1980 until 1989. In the early 1990s, he served as a member of the Competitiveness Policy Council.
As Secretary of Commerce, he proposed to re-merge of the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.
Trowbridge died in Washington, D.C. on April 27, 2006, at the aged of 76, after the suffering from a Lewy body dementia and the illness. He is buried at the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.