L. William Seidman

Seidman, L. William (Lewis William Seidman)sēdˈmən, 1921–2009, U.S. government official and accountant, b. Grand Rapids, Mich., grad. Dartmouth (A.B., 1943), Harvard (LL.B., 1948), Univ. of Michigan (M.B.A, 1949). He joined Seidman & Seidman, the family accounting business, in 1949 and rose to managing partner in 1968, overseeing its growth into a national firm. Active in Republican politics, he left the firm to become President Ford's assistant for economic affairs (1974–77) and then was chief financial officer of Phelps Dodge Corp. (1977–82) and dean of Arizona State Univ.'s business school (1982–85). In 1985 he became chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., where he oversaw the closure of hundreds of failed financial institutions as a result in large part of bad loans made during a real estate bubble in late 1970s and early 80s. From 1989 he also headed the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency responsible for liquidating assets the government had acquired from defunct savings and loan associations. After leaving the FDIC and RTC in 1991, he was a commentator for CNBC.

See his Full Faith and Credit (1989).

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