sold $394 billion in assets of 747 failed thrifts. This approach became a model for banking resolution plans in Sweden, Thailand and elsewhere. Mullins remained popular with Congress and the President. In 1989, Mullins was appointed by President Bush as assistant Secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance. While at the Treasury, Mullins co-wrote a paper on high-yield debt defaults which received the inaugural Smith Breeden Prize. On May 21, 1990, Bush nominated Mullins to a 14-year term on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of H. Robert Heller. Mullins was seen as the Fed's "resident intellectual" due to his background as a professor in finance and economics. In 1994, Mullins resigned to join John Meriwether's new hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management (LTCM). Although his term was to come to a close, the resignation was viewed as unexpected. At LTCM, Mullins joined what Business Week termed a "dream team" of financial experts and academics, including Nobel laureates Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton. Roger Lowenstein, author of When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, argued that some prospective investors in LTCM were swayed by the presence of Mullins. Just as the celebrity of Scholes and Merton caused investors and trading partners to exercise less diligence, Mullins' addition as a "marquee" name added gravitas to the firm. Following that fund's collapse in 1998 and dissolution in 2000, Mullins left LTCM and worked for financial services companies. Mullins' career in government was effectively ended by the collapse. In 2008 he was chief economist of the hedge fund Vega Asset Management. David Wiley Mullins, Jr. died unexpectedly during an emergency heart surgery in Naples, Florida, on February 26, 2018. Notes References Further reading "Brady Report" Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms (1988): Report of the Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms. Nicholas F. Brady (Chairman), U.S. Government Printing Office. External links Statements and Speeches of David W. Mullins 1946 births 2018 deaths Harvard Business School faculty MIT Sloan School of Management alumni People from Memphis, Tennessee Vice Chairs of the Federal Reserve Yale University alumni Clinton administration personnel George H. W. Bush administration personnel