Background
Skjåk Bræk was born in Eidsvoll, the second child of the local banker Gudbrand Bræk and his wife Elisabeth Fischer.
Skjåk Bræk was born in Eidsvoll, the second child of the local banker Gudbrand Bræk and his wife Elisabeth Fischer.
Ola studied law at the University of Oslo and earned his candidate.jur.
He was Minister of Industry in 1972–1973. degree in 1935. Ola Skjåk Bræk moved to Ålesund in 1950 to assume the presidency of Aalesund Nye Kreditbank, a savings and loan bank for the coastal region which eventually became merged into Sunnmørsbanken. He worked in this area - with leave for his time in the cabinet - until 1979, when he retired and moved to Trondheim.
He served in the position of deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from Møre og Romsdal during the terms 1965–1969 and 1973–1977.
He became Minister of Industry in the coalition cabinet formed by Lars Korvald after Trygve Bratteli resigned his cabinet after a referendum defeated his proposal for Norway to join the European Union. Skjåk Bræk ended up on the anti-European Economic Community side, and as such stayed in the Liberal Party after the party split in 1972.
He played an active role in the post-World World War II economic development in Western Norway and took political and professional interest in the appropriate use of Norway"s natural resources. Ola Skjåk Bræk published his memoirs Hva brast så høyt? () in 1990, expressing several concerns about Norwegian economic policy.