John Cunningham Whitehead (April 2, 1922 – February 7, 2015) was an American banker and civil servant, a board member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation (WTC Memorial Foundation), and, until his resignation in May 2006, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Early life and education Whitehead was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Winifred K. and Eugene Cunningham Whitehead. His family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, when he was two years old. While in Montclair he earned his Eagle Scout rank from Troop 12 of Montclair NJ. Whitehead graduated from Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania in 1943 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he commanded one of the LCDP landing crafts at Omaha Beach in the D-Day landing invasion of Normandy. In 1947, he received an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. Career Goldman Sachs Whitehead started his career at Goldman Sachs in New York City as an associate in the investment banking division. He quickly became a partner in the firm. He rose to become chairman over a total of 38 years at the firm and retired in 1984 as co-chairman and co-senior partner. U.S. Department of State Whitehead served as United States Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan administration from 1985 to 1989 under George Shultz and was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Reagan. In 1996, he was the campaign chairman for Michael Benjamin, who ran for U.S. Congress in New York's 8th congressional district. Philanthropy, affiliations and awards In 1986, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He was later elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988. He was chairman at different times of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the United Nations Association, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Harvard Board of Overseers. He was a director of the New York Stock Exchange and Chairman Emeritus of the Brookings Institution. He was a member of Kappa Beta Phi. He had a long association with the Rockefeller family, having held positions at various times with family-created institutions such as Rockefeller University, the Asia Society, where he was chairman emeritus and an honorary life trustee, the Lincoln Center, and the WTC Memorial Foundation. In these organisations, and previously when he was for a time on the family's powerful Trust Committee, overseeing the