Background
Gray was born September 2, 1923 in Hastings, Nebraska and graduated in 1943 from Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He later graduated from Harvard University with a Masters in Business Administration.
Gray was born September 2, 1923 in Hastings, Nebraska and graduated in 1943 from Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He later graduated from Harvard University with a Masters in Business Administration.
In government service Private sector In the 1960s and 1970s, he served as Washington operative for Hill & Knowlton. In those years, according to a case study by the Harvard Business School, H&K"s clients produced nearly 10% of the Gross National Product. In 1967, Gray joined the 50-person committee responsible for charting Richard Nixon"s path to the White House. After Nixon was elected president, Gray would often escort Nixon"s personal assistant, Rose Mary Woods to official functions.
After serving as deputy director of the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign, in 1980, Gray became Reagan"s first appointment as president when Gray was named co-chairman of Ronald Reagan’s Presidential inauguration.
During the Reagan Administration, Gray started his own firm, Gray and Company, in 1981. When he took the firm public in 1985, it became the first public relations-public affairs firm to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Three years later, he sold majority interest in the firm to Hill & Knowlton and became H&K"s Worldwide Chairman. Gray’s book, 18 Acres Under Glass, was published by Doubleday in the States and by MacMillan oversees.
With tales of the visits with kings and queens, to the extended hours spent with the Chief Executive, the book gives an inner look at the functions and sometimes dysfunctions of Washington.
Gray was featured in cover stories in Time Magazine and United States. News and World Report, named Marketer of the year by AdWeek Magazine, and was the subject of a fifteen-minute Monitor program on National Broadcasting Company. Gray died in Miami, Florida on April 18, 2014.