Horace Rowan Gaither Jr. (1909 – April 7, 1961), was a

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

attorney, investment banker, and a powerful administrator at the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he served as

assistant director The role of an assistant director (AD) on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have ...

of the

Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 3 ...

M.I.T. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sci ...

In 1948, he helped found the

Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

and served as a trustee until 1959. In 1958 and 1959, he served as the 1st Chairman of the

MITRE Corporation The Mitre Corporation (stylized as The MITRE Corporation and MITRE) is an American not-for-profit organization with dual headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts, and McLean, Virginia. It manages federally funded research and development centers ...

Board of Trustees. From 1959 through his death, Gaither was a general partner and co-founder of Draper, Gaither & Anderson, one of the first

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firms on the west coast of the U.S., together with William H. Draper Jr., a retired Army general and Frederick L. Anderson, a retired Air Force general. He was hired by

Henry Ford II Henry Ford II (September 4, 1917 – September 29, 1987), commonly known as Hank the Deuce, was an American businessman in the automotive industry. He was the oldest son of Edsel Ford I and oldest grandson of Henry Ford. He served as president ...

to help set the priorities of the

in 1947, chairing the study committee that wrote the "Report of the Study for the Ford Foundation on Policy and Program." He was later president of the Ford Foundation. He is best remembered today as the author of the controversial 1957

Gaither Report ''Deterrence & Survival in the Nuclear Age'', commonly referred to as the Gaither report, is a US government report concerning strategy to prepare against the perceived threat of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. It was submitted to the Unit ...

on the vulnerability of American defense. He died in 1961 of lung cancer.

References

1909 births 1961 deaths American venture capitalists Lawyers from San Francisco Law in the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1900s-stub