Frank Raleigh Lautenberg

Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Automatic Data Processing, Inc., Lautenberg also served as the senior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey, to impoverished Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia who had arrived in the United States as infants. When he was 19, his father died of cancer. He had no formal Jewish education as a child; the family could not afford to join a synagogue and did not live very long in any single place.

He served overseas in the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II after graduating from Nutley High School. Then, financed by the GI Bill, he attended and graduated from Columbia Business School in 1949 with a degree in Economics. Lautenberg was the first salesman at Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) and went on to become its Chairman and CEO. He also served as Executive Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 1978 to 1982.

In 1982, he received the Democratic nomination over 8 other candidates for a US Senate seat from New Jersey for that year's election after spending a considerable sum of his own money. He won the election, defeating popular Republican congresswoman Millicent Fenwick by 52% to 48%. In 1988, Lautenberg ran for reelection, opposed by Republican Wall Street executive and former college football star Pete Dawkins. After trailing in early polls, his campaign, headed by Democratic consultant James Carville, ran an aggressive advertising campaign enumerating his legislative accomplishments and raising the possibility that Dawkins's candidacy was intended solely as a stepping stone to the presidency, as well as pointing out his lack of roots in New Jersey. He ultimately came from behind to win reelection, 54% to 46%.

Following reelection, Lautenberg became a member of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST), which was set up in September 1989 to review and report on aviation security policy in light of the sabotage of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. He was again reelected in the Republican landslide year of 1994, defeating New Jersey State Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytaian by 51% to 47%. He announced his retirement in 2000, and his fellow Democrat and businessman, Jon Corzine, was elected to replace him.

A little over a year after he left office, Lautenberg was called upon again to run for the Senate. He is considered one of the Senate's most liberal members. At age 87, he was at that time the oldest serving member of the Senate, and one of only two Senators to have returned to the chamber after having previously retired from it.