Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) was the 70th Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, elected in 2002. He served one term and did not seek re-election in 2006; his term ended January 4, 2007.  Romney is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, formally announcing his candidacy on February 13, 2007. Romney made his announcement at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Romney is the former CEO of Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, and the co-founder of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm. In 1994, Romney led an unsuccessful Senate campaign against incumbent Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy. He also served as the CEO and organizer of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Biography

Mitt Romney was born March 12, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan. He is the son of Lenore Romney and former Michigan governor, Housing and Urban Development Secretary, American Motors chairman and presidential candidate George W. Romney. Romney has three siblings: Lynn, Jane, and G. Scott. He was named after hotel magnate J. Willard Marriott and Milton Romney, a relative who played football for the Chicago Bears.

Romney married his wife, Ann Romney, in 1968. They have five sons (Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben and Craig) and ten grandchildren. Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998.

Early life and education

Romney graduated from the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills (now Cranbrook Kingswood School). He met his future wife, Ann Davies, when she was at the Kingswood School. Romney is an Eagle Scout.

After attending Yale University for two quarters, Romney served for 30 months as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France. Upon returning from France he transferred to Brigham Young University, where he was valedictorian, earning his B.A. summa cum laude in 1971. In 1975, Romney graduated from a joint JD/MBA program coordinated between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar. He graduated cum laude from the law school and in the top 5 percent of his business school class.

Business career

After graduating from Harvard, Romney went to work for the Boston Consulting Group, where he had interned during the summer of 1974. From 1978 to 1984, Romney was a vice president of Bain & Company, Inc., another Boston-based management consulting firm. In 1984, Romney left the company to co-found Bain Capital, which quickly became a highly successful private equity investment firm.

In 1990 Romney was asked to return to Bain & Company, which was facing financial collapse. As CEO, Romney managed an effort to restructure the firm’s employee stock-ownership plan, real-estate deals and bank loans, while increasing fiscal transparency. Within a year, he had led Bain & Company through a highly successful turnaround and returned the firm to profitability without layoffs or partner defections.

During Romney’s tenure, the firm founded, acquired or invested in hundreds of companies including Following his year at Bain & Company, Romney returned to Bain Capital. During the 14 years he headed the company, Bain Capital’s average annual internal rate of return on realized investments was 113 percent.Staples, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Brookstone, Domino’s, Sealy Corporation and The Sports Authority.  Romney left Bain Capital in 1998 to head the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee.

CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee

Romney served as president and CEO of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games held in Salt Lake City. In 1999 the event was running USD$379 million short of its revenue benchmarks. Plans were being made to scale back the games in order to compensate for the fiscal crisis. The Games were also damaged by allegations of bribery involving top officials, including then Salt Lake Olympic Committee (SLOC) President and CEO Frank Joklik. Joklik and SLOC vice president Dave Johnson were forced to resign.

On February 11, 1999 Romney was hired as the new president and CEO of the Salt Lake City Games. Romney revamped the organization’s leadership and policies, reduced budgets and boosted fundraising. He also worked to ensure the safety of the Games following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by coordinating a $300 million security budget. Despite the initial fiscal shortfall, the Games ended up clearing a profit of $100 million. Following the conclusion of the Games, President George W. Bush praised Romney’s management.

Romney contributed $1 million to the Olympics, and donated the $825,000 salary he earned as President and CEO to charity. He wrote a book about his experience called Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games. (ISBN 0895260840)

Massachusetts political campaigns

Campaign for United States Senate, 1994 election

In 1994, Romney won the Massachusetts Republican Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate after defeating businessman John Lakian in the primary. Some early polls showed Romney only slightly behind Senator Ted Kennedy. One Boston Herald/WCVB-TV poll taken after the September 20, 1994 primary showed Romney ahead 44 percent to 42 percent, within the poll’s sampling margin of error. According to figures in the 1996 Almanac of American Politics, which relies on official campaign finance reports, Romney spent over $7 million, with Kennedy spending over $10 million, mostly in the last weeks of the campaign. (This was the second-most expensive race of the 1994 election cycle, after the Dianne Feinstein vs. Michael Huffington Senate race in California.) Kennedy won the election with 58 percent of the vote to Romney’s 41 percent. The 17-percentage point winning margin was the smallest in Kennedy’s nine election contests for the Senate through 2006.

 Campaign for Governor, 2002 election

In 2002, Republican Lieutenant Governor Jane Swift was expected to campaign for the governor’s office. Swift had served as acting governor after Republican Governor Paul Cellucci resigned upon being appointed U.S. Ambassador to Canada. Swift was viewed as an unpopular executive, and her administration was plagued by political missteps and personal scandals. Many Republicans viewed her as a liability and considered her unable to win a general election against a Democrat. Prominent GOP activists campaigned to persuade Romney to run for governor. One poll taken at this time showed that Republicans favored Romney over Swift by more than 50 percentage points. With growing speculation that Romney would challenge Swift in a bruising primary battle, Swift decided not to seek her party’s nomination.

Massachusetts Democratic Party officials claimed that Romney was ineligible to run for governor, citing residency issues. The Massachusetts Constitution requires seven consecutive years of residency prior to a run for office. Romney claimed residency in Utah from 1999 to 2002, during his time as president of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee. In 1999 he listed himself as a part-time Massachusetts resident. The Massachusetts Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission, which eventually ruled that Romney was eligible to run for office. The ruling was not challenged in court.

During the general election Romney ran on a reform platform; a major issue in the election was the state budget crisis. Supporters of Romney hailed his business record, especially his success with the 2002 Olympics, as that of one who would be able to bring in a new era of efficiency into Massachusetts politics. Romney contributed $6.3 million to his own campaign during the election, at the time a state record. Romney was elected Governor in November 2002 with 50 percent of the vote over Democratic candidate Shannon O’Brien, who received 45 percent.

Governor of Massachusetts, 2003–2007

Romney served one term as governor. He was sworn in as the 70th governor of Massachusetts on January 2, 2003, along with Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey. On December 14, 2005, Romney announced that he would not seek re-election for a second term as governor, fueling speculation about a run for the White House in 2008. Healey became the Republican nominee for the 2006 Massachusetts gubernatorial race and subsequently lost to Democrat Deval Patrick. Romney’s term ended January 4, 2007. Romney filed papers to establish a formal exploratory presidential campaign committee the next to last day in office as governor.

Campaign for United States President, 2008 election

Since 2004, Romney has been discussed as a potential 2008 presidential candidate. On January 3, 2007, his next to last day in office as governor of Massachusetts, Romney filed to form a presidential exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission.

On February 13, 2007 Romney formally announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. Romney made his announcement at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

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