Stanley A. Weiss

His memoir Being Dead is Bad for Business was published by Disruption Books in February 2017.

Early life and education

Weiss was born on December 21, 1926, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father worked in local Republican politics.^{[citation needed]}

He joined the U.S. Army in January 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, and was discharged with the rank of Sergeant in August, 1946. Weiss credited President

During his time as a Georgetown student in 1951, Weiss was inspired by the John Huston film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to search for gold in Mexico.^[4]

Weiss had no experience in the mining business and struggled at first^[5] but developed his first key rule of business: Don't Die.^{[citation needed]}

Although he never found gold, he found rich deposits of manganese ore, often braving dangerous or isolated conditions to secure new supplies.^[6] His business succeeded and Inc. Magazine described Weiss's 1977 book Manganese: The Other Uses as the "definitive text on the non-metallurgical uses of manganese".^{[citation needed]}

Weiss diversified his businesses and in 1960, he founded

Working with entrepreneur Ara Oztemel, Weiss also played a role in fostering trade between the United States and Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War by cutting a deal to import Soviet chromium into the United States.^[10] The Soviet-American Trading Corporation was responsible for up to eighty percent of trade between the United States and the Soviet Union.^[11]

Weiss invested in

Weiss had also invested in other companies, including Footprint Ventures – a venture capital fund based in India that is run by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Neill Brownstein and his wife, Linda – and Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, run by BENS member Bill Rouhana.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-nuclear activism

With the support of John Kenneth Galbraith, a liberal economist and Harvard professor, Weiss became the Business Fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs for the 1977–1978 school year.^{[citation needed]}

Based in part on his work on nuclear non-proliferation at Harvard, in 1982, Weiss founded Business Executives for National Security (BENS),^[13] a non-partisan organization that represents the perspective of business leaders on national security issues.

In a February 2, 1983, interview on the Today show, host Jane Pauley asked Weiss why senior business leaders were becoming vocal about issues pertaining to nuclear war.^[14] His reply later became his signature catchphrase: "Being dead is bad for business".^{[citation needed]}

BENS initially focused largely on arms control and defense procurement. In a series of op-eds, Weiss drew attention to the dangers of nuclear proliferation and said The Pentagon was operating on outdated assessments of national security needs in justifying inefficient acquisitions and unnecessary bases. The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Act of 1990, which helped remove pork barrel politics from the base-closing process by appointing a U.S. government commission to recommend closures, was based on a concept proposed by a BENS member.^[15] BENS also influenced the passage of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.^[16]

In 1994, a BENS report that twenty-six of the twenty-seven bases recommended for closure under the BRAC process remained open or had reopened with new federal tenants helped speed the bases' closures back. Weiss was invited to address the issue on CBS’ 60 Minutes, where he called the actions "political pork at its worst".^[17]

Through Weiss’ leadership, BENS supported the CIA’s In-Q-Tel program, a venture capital firm to develop promising national security technologies for the CIA. He also led efforts to design a public-private partnership called the New Jersey Business Force,^[18] which mobilized private corporations in natural disaster recovery efforts and was active in recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, Weiss stepped down as the Chairman of BENS and assumed the title of Founding Chairman. That year, Weiss received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the US Department of Defense.

Political advocacy

After his Harvard fellowship, Weiss created and financed the

In 1991, Weiss became involved in a private sector-led, not-for-profit venture to reinvent America's public schools under President George H. W. Bush's "America 2000 Initiative"; the New American Schools Development Corporation sought to create new partnerships between business and government to improve US schools. Weiss and other members proposed "break-the-mold" designs for school reform.^[22] The ideas gained support within the Bush administration but failed due to opposition from the teachers’ unions.^{[citation needed]}

Writing and publishing career

Weiss nearly purchased the magazine Ramparts, which faced financial troubles in 1968.^[23]

Weiss had written op-eds on international affairs and national security issues since 1983.