It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it looks like Ron Bloom ’77 is going to be the advisor to the Obama administration on the whole auto industry failure. Apparently he used to be an investment banker, but left to work for United Steelworkers.
His intention was not to write the great American novel or retire early. Rather, he went to work in Pittsburgh for the United Steelworkers, the nation’s largest manufacturing union.
With that move, Mr. Bloom, now expected to be President Obama’s pick for senior adviser to the Treasury Department on the auto industry crisis, did not exactly surprise his friends. In college, Mr. Bloom was outspokenly pro-union, and he had an aunt who was a leader of the teachers’ union and a great uncle who had been active in the bakers’ union.
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Michelle Galanter Applebaum, who got to know Mr. Bloom in the 1990s when she was a managing director at Salomon Brothers, said he was different from other investment bankers because of his unusual interest in helping workers, unions and beleaguered industries.
“He felt he could play a meaningful role of fixing it from the inside,” said Ms. Galanter Applebaum, who is now managing director of Steel Market Intelligence. “He is a passionate, committed guy, totally idealistic.”
Sounds like a pretty cool dude. Read more about him at the NYTimes.