Peter George Peterson

Peterson was born on June 5, 1926, in Kearney, Nebraska. He was the eldest of three children born to Venetia "Venet" Paul (née Pavlou) and George Peterson (né Petropoulos). His parents were immigrants from southern Greece. He had one younger sister, Elaine, who died of croup when she was one year old, and a brother, John, who was the youngest. His father arrived in the United States at age 17, worked as a dishwasher for Union Pacific Railroad and roomed in a caboose. In 1923, George opened and then ran a Greek diner, Central Café, in Kearney, after changing his name from Georgios Petropoulos. Peter began working at the cash register at age 8. Expelled from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for plagiarizing a term paper in his freshman year, Peterson enrolled at Northwestern University and The Kellogg School, graduating in 1947 with highest academic honors, summa cum laude. Peterson was first married from 1948 to 1950 to Kris Krengel, a journalism student at Northwestern University. He joined Market Facts upon graduation, a Chicago-based market research firm, in 1948. In 1951, he received an MBA degree from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business before returning to Market Facts as an executive vice president.

Business career

Peterson joined advertising agency McCann Erickson in 1953, again in Chicago, where he served as a director. He joined movie-equipment maker Bell and Howell Corporation in 1958 as executive vice president. He later succeeded Charles H. Percy as chairman and CEO, positions he held from 1963 to 1971.

In 1969, he was invited by philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III, CFR chairman John J. McCloy, and former treasury secretary Douglas Dillon to chair a Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy, which became known as the Peterson Commission. Among its recommendations adopted by the government were that foundations be required annually to disburse a minimum proportion of their funds.

Post-Washington career

Peterson was chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers (1973–1977) and Lehman Brothers, Kuhn, Loeb Inc. (1977–1984).

In 1985, Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman co-founded the private equity and investment management firm the Blackstone Group, and for many years Peterson was its chairman. At Blackstone, he made a fortune, including the $1.9 billion he received when it went public in 2007, that funded many of his charitable and political causes.

Peterson was married three times and divorced twice. In 1953, he married former Brown University psychology professor Sally Hornbogen Peterson, a trustee of the Dalton School and a graduate of Northwestern University, with whom he had five children: John Scott Peterson, James Jim Peterson, David Peterson, Michael Alexander Peterson, and the writer Holly Peterson. They divorced in 1979. The next year, Peterson married Joan Ganz Cooney, the co-creator of the popular American educational children's television series Sesame Street.

In his autobiography, Peterson recalled his business and private life and blamed himself for the failure of two of his three marriages but expressed pride for having grown close to his children.

Peterson died on March 20, 2018, at age 91, of natural causes at his Manhattan home. He is survived by his children, his wife Joan, and nine grandchildren.

From 2007 through 2011, Peterson was reported to have contributed $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, to promote the cause of fiscal responsibility.

Peterson opposed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 because it cut corporate and other taxes by raising the debt. "Mortgaging our fiscal future for trillions in temporary tax cuts will hurt our economy over time, and every C.E.O. should know that", he said. "True business patriots need to advocate for their country as well as their company."