Mitt Romney has dipped into many different careers in both the private and public spheres. He served as the 70th Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 2002 to 2006 without seeking re-election, the CEO of Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, co-founded Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm, and was president and CEO of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Low estimates of Romney's net worth are in the range of $250 million. He and his wife Ann have five sons (Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben and Craig) and ten grandchilden and have homes in Massachusetts, Utah and New Hampshire. Romney is currently campaigning for the Republican Convention's nomination for President in 2008.

Early Life

Born Willard Mitt Romney on March 12, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan, Mitt entered a family active in politics. His father, Georg W. Romney, was a Governor of Michigan, Housing and Urban Development Secretary, American Motors chairman, and presidential candidate. His mother, Lenore Romney, was a 1970 U.S. Senate candidate. The Romneys practiced Mormonism, a religion Mitt holds to this day. Mitt graduated from the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills (now Cranbrook Kingswood School), where he met his future wife, Ann Davies. He attended Stanford University in California for two quarters, spent 30 months in France as a Latter Day Saints missionary. Upon returning, Mitt married his high school sweetheart and left Stanford for Brigham Young University in Utah, earning his B.A. summa cum laude as valedictorian in 1971. In 1975, he graduated from a joint JD/MBA program at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. From the Law School he graduated cum laude and from the Business School he was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top five percent of his class.

Private Sphere Business Ventures

Upon graduating from Harvard, Romney went to work for the Boston Consulting Group, where he had interned in the Summer of 1974. From 1978 to 1984, Romney served as vice president of Bain & Company, Inc, another Boston-based management consulting firm. In 1984, left to co-found Bain Capital, a highly successful private equity investment firm (which Romney now refers to as a venture capital firm). In 1990, Romney returned to Bain & Company to save it from financial collapse; within a year, the company was back on its feet. The next year, he returned to Bain Capital, the company which, in his 14 years as head, had a rate of return of 113% on realized investments in such companies as Staples and Domino's, making it one of the top 5 private equity firms in the country. In 1998, Romney left Bain in order to serve as the head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee.

CEO & President of the 2002 Winter Olympics

With the 2002 Olmpic Winter Games Romney was able to apply the business-minded efficiency for which he was known for at Bain. In 1999, the event was under $379 million on revenue benchmarks. Scaling back the games in order to compensate was seen as necessary. On top of that, bribery charges were brought against the President and CEO of the Committee Frank Joklik, forcing he and the vice president to resign. On February 11, 1999, Romney stepped in as president and CEO. Romney erased a $379 million operating deficit, organized 23,000 volunteers, galvanized community spirit and oversaw an unprecedented security mobilization in lieu of the September 11th attacks. Despite all the setbacks, the Olympic Games cleared a $100 million profit; Romney himself contributed $1 million to the event, and donated his three years salary of $825,000 ($275,000/yr.) to charity.

U.S. Senate Run

Romney's pursuits, however, have been far from restricted to the private sphere. In 1994, Romney won the Massachusetts Republican Party's nomination for U.S. Senate. In oppposition to the incumbent Democrat Ted Kennedy (link), Romney proved to be more than the typical token candidates threw at the deeply rooted Kennedy, with a poll showing Romney holding a 44% with Kennedy holding 42%. This was in part, some say, to family scandals with which Ted had been implicated. The election had Kennedy pointing to Romney's inconsistencies on abortion and once attacking the Church of Latter-Day Saints' views on blacks and women. Romney dispelled most attacks, but nonetheless was defeated by Kennedy in a 58 to 41 percentage, the closest call in Kennedy's nine Senate elections.

Governorship of Massachusetts

In 2002, prominant Republicans persuaded Romney to run for Governor of Massachusetts, the incumbent Republican Governor Jane Swift's (link) administration plagued by scandal. Democrats claimed Romney could not run, as he was not a legal resident of the state for the required 7 years due to his time in Utah for the Olympics. Eligibility, however, was confirmed and Romney was allowed to run. Proposing a platform based on reform, Romney championed a controlling of the state budget crisis, touting his successful business record and the nationally recognized handling of the Olympics. Romney was able to grab 50% of the vote over his Democratic challenger Shannon O'Brien, who received 45%.

Romney was sworn into office on January 2, 2004. In his first year, Massachusetts' projected $3 billion deficit was converted into a real $1.2 billion, with the help of an unexpected $1.3 billion capital gains tax windfall and $500 million in unanticipated federal grants. He raised fees for marriage licenses, professional, registrations, firearms licenses and other such fees by $500 million. Additionally, $277 million was cut from the state's local education aid budget, and $130 million from the higher education budget. In a very Democratic-like move, Romney signed into law the largest tax increase in state history as a mandate for state citizens to purchase health insurance (a la Hillary Clinton's 1993 plan). Romney's term ended in January 2007 and opted out of his salary.

Ideology & the 2008 Presidential Campaign

On January, 3, 2007, just days before he left office as Governor, Romney filed the preliminary papers for a presidential hopeful. On February 13, 2007 Romney formally announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. Romney, in this early stage of the election, has not been crystal clear on where he stands on the issues. Some have called him a flip-flopper, going back to Ted Kennedy in his Senate run. Romney, in 1994, supported Massachussets abortion rights for women after having a sister-in-law die as the result of an illegal abortion. Yet, in 2007, Romney got back into party formation when he told interviewer Larry King that after learning about the idea of cloning human embryos for stem cell research he is now pro-life. This is a very personal decision for Romney, whose wife Ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. In 1994, he claimed he would support equality for gays and lesbians, yet, he opposed both same-sex marriage and civil unions in Massachusetts.