William Frenzel has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC since 1991, when he retired from the U.S. House of Representatives after serving his Minnesota constituency for 20 years.
Mr. Frenzel was the ranking minority member on the House Budget Committee and was the principal Republican economic spokesperson in the House. He was a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and its Trade Subcommittee and a congressional representative to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in Geneva for 15 years. In 1993, Mr. Frenzel was appointed special advisor to President Bill Clinton for NAFTA. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him to the Social Security Commission and in 2002, to the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN), which he chairs.
In 2000, Mr. Frenzel was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan. In 2002, he received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Hamline University.
Mr. Frenzel received his B.A. and MBA from Dartmouth College and served as a naval officer during the Korean War. He was president of the Minneapolis Terminal Warehouse Co., and other corporations, a member of the executive board of the American Warehousemens Association and served 8 years in the Minnesota legislature.
Mr. Frenzel is the vice chairman of the Eurasia Foundation, chairman of the Japan-America Society of Washington, chairman of the U.S. Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Policy Network, co-chairman of the Center for Strategic Tax Reform, co-chairman of the Bretton Woods Committee, co-chairman of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, chairman of the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, a member of the executive committee of the Committee on U.S.-China Relations and chairman of the executive committee of the International Tax and Investment Center. He is also a board member of Sit Mutual Funds, Northstar Education Finance and other organizations.
Mr. Frenzel and his wife Ruthy are the parents of three daughters and grandparents of two grandchildren.
