KAUST Inauguration Symposium Speaker

Samuel Bodman

Samuel Bodman

(Frmr.) U.S. Department of Energy

Samuel Wright Bodman became the 11th U.S. Secretary of Energy in 2005 and for four years led a Department operating the world’s most powerful computers and responsible for basic research and technology development of vast scientific scope, with a budget in excess of $23 billion annually and over 100,000 federal and contractor employees. Previously, Secretary Bodman served as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury beginning in February 2004. He also served as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce beginning in 2001. An engineer by training, and a financier and executive with three decades of experience in the private sector, Secretary Bodman was well suited manage the day-to-day operations of these cabinet agencies.

Born in 1938 in Chicago, he graduated in 1961 with a BS in chemical engineering from Cornell University. In 1965, he completed his ScD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For the next six years he served as an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT and began his work in the financial sector as Technical Director of the American Research and Development Corporation, a pioneer venture capital firm. He and his colleagues provided financial and managerial support to scores of new business enterprises located throughout the United States.

From there, Secretary Bodman went to Fidelity Venture Associates, a division of the Fidelity Investments. In 1983 he was named President and Chief Operating Officer of Fidelity Investments and a Director of the Fidelity Group of Mutual Funds. In 1987, he joined Cabot Corporation, a Boston-based Fortune 300 company with global business activities in specialty chemicals and materials, where he served as Chairman, CEO, and a Director. Over the years, he has been a Director of many other publicly owned corporations. Since leaving federal office, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.

Secretary Bodman has also been active in public service. He is a former Director of M.I.T.'s School of Engineering Practice and a former member of the M.I.T. Commission on Education. He also served as a member of the Executive and Investment Committees at M.I.T., a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a Trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the New England Aquarium. Secretary Bodman is married to M. Diane Bodman. He has three children, two stepchildren, and eight grandchildren..

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