John Shepard Reed (born 1939) is the former Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He previously served as Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, Citibank, and post-merger, Citigroup. He is currently the Chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Office of Corporation. ^[1]

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Argentina and Brazil.^[2] Reed earned his undergraduate degrees in a 3-2 program from Washington and Jefferson College (W&J) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), earning a B.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1961.^[2] He was also a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity while at W&J and MIT. He served two years in the U.S. Army before returning to get his master's degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1965. ^[3]

Reed was heavily responsible for pushing for the adoption of the ATM around the USA, and led Citicorp through a perilous period in the early 1990s. He was approached by Sandy Weill to merge with Travelers Group a year before the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (repealing the Glass–Steagall Act of 1932), allowing banking, insurance and securities companies to merge. The result was Citigroup, where Reed was later ousted in a management shakeup with Weill. Reed's departure was announced in a February 28, 2000 press release. In the aftermath of the November 2008 federal bailout of Citigroup, Reed was described as deeply skeptical of the "Wall Street financial engineering" that led to its collapse and "committed to consumer banking and sound commercial underwriting."^[4]

Reed was asked to be interim CEO of the New York Stock Exchange after the Richard Grasso over-compensation scandal. He accepted the job for a $1 salary and set up new governance rules as the NYSE became a public corporation.

Reed is on the board of directors at Altria Group. He is also the Chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Office of Corporation.^[1]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Corporation Member: John Shepard Reed ’61". MIT Corporation website
2. ^ ^{a b} "Reed, John". Education for a Lifetime. Washington & Jefferson College. Archived from the original on 2012-05-15. http://www.webcitation.org/67fS4JgX6. Retrieved 2012-05-15. 
3. ^ "John Reed nominated to chair MIT Corporation", MIT News, April 12, 2010
4. ^ Pearlstein, Steven (2008-11-24). "Too Big to Succeed?". The Washington Post (The Washington Post Company). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112400745.html?hpid=topnews. Retrieved 2008-11-24. 

• Augier, Mie. Making Management Matter: An Interview With John Reed. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2006, Vol. 5, No. 1, 84-100.
• "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Citigroup Announces the Retirement of John S. Reed Chairman and Co-Chief Executive", Citigroup news release, February 28, 2000 (archived 2008)

External links[link]

• Testimony before Senate Banking Committee

James Michael "Jim" Poterba (born July 13, 1958) is an American economist, Mitsui Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and current NBER president and chief executive officer.

Early years[link]

Poterba was born in New York City. He completed his A.B., summa cum laude, in 1980 from Harvard University and completed his Ph.D. in 1983 from University of Oxford. He was a Marshall Scholar.

Academic career[link]

Poterba started his career as an Instructor in Economics at MIT. He became Professor of Economics at MIT in 1988. Today, he is the Mitsui Professor of Economics and the Head of the MIT Economics Department. He became the president of the National Bureau of Economic Research on July 1, 2008.

Research[link]

Poterba is known for his research on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms. His research has emphasized the effect of taxation on the financial behavior of households, particularly their saving and portfolio decisions. He is also interested in the analysis of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans and in the role of annuities in financing retirement consumption.

He has also been Director of the NBER Public Economics Research Program since 1991. He has served as a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform and edited the Journal of Public Economics, the leading international journal for research on taxation and government spending, between 1997 and 2006. He has edited several economics journals. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.^[1] In 1999 Poterba was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences.^[2]

References[link]

• Biography of James M. Poterba
• CV of James M. Poterba
• Profile of James M. Poterba

External links[link]

• Personal website
• NBER Working Papers by James M. Poterba

Reed Douglas Mullin (born February 12, 1966) is the drummer for metal band Corrosion of Conformity (COC). He was the founding member with Mike Dean and Woody Weatherman. Mullin, along with Weatherman, also played in the Raleigh NC harcore band, No Labels. No Labels disbanded in 1984, while Corrosion of Conformity continued to evolve and gain popularity.^[1][2] He left COC on February 1, 2001.

Following his departure from Corrosion of Conformity, Mullin worked on several other projects, including a hardcore band called Man Will Destroy Himself, and frontman for the power pop band Brown.^[3][4]

In 2010 he rejoined COC with the Animosity era lineup (sans Pepper Keenan).^[5] As of October 2011, Mullin continues to record and tour with COC.^[6]

Discography[link]

Corrosion of Conformity albums[link]

References[link]

Woodroe Weatherman
Woody Weatherman with Corrosion of Conformity live at Reds, Edmonton, 2005
Background information
Birth name	Woodroe Weatherman
Born	(1965-07-29) July 29, 1965 (age 46)
Origin	Raleigh, North Carolina
Genres	Crossover thrash, hardcore punk, heavy metal, sludge metal
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, bass
Years active	1982 - present
Labels	Sanctuary Records
Associated acts	Corrosion of Conformity, No Labels

Woodroe "Woody" Weatherman is lead guitarist for the heavy metal band Corrosion of Conformity.

Woody was born on July 29, 1965 in Raleigh, North Carolina, and now lives in Virginia.

He started Corrosion of Conformity with Mike Dean and Reed Mullin in 1982 where they started as a punk band, but later transformed to a more metal sound with the addition of Pepper Keenan. For more information, see the Corrosion of Conformity page.

Woody also played bass guitar in the Raleigh band No Labels with Reed Mullin, Ricky Hicks and Wayne Kerr. They formed in February 1982, and faded away during 1984. He played on the 1989 Snake Nation album along with C.O.C. bassist Mike Dean and artist Brian Walsby.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Corrosion of Conformity Official website
• Gallery of Woody Weatherman with Corrosion of Conformity on Alberta Stars
• Interview with Woody on MT Radio

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2011)

Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (born 17 November 1954) is an Australian ex-criminal, who wrote a series of semi-autobiographical and fictional crime novels. The 2000 film Chopper was based on his life.

Early life[link]

Read was born to an ex-army father and a mother who was a devout Seventh-day Adventist. He was placed in a children's home for the first five years of his life. He grew up in the Melbourne suburbs of Collingwood, Thomastown, Fitzroy and Preston. He was bullied at school, claiming that by the age of 15, he had been on the "losing end of several hundred fights", and that his father, usually on his mother's recommendation, beat him often as a child. Read was made a ward of the state by the age of 14 and was placed in several mental institutions as a teenager, where, he later claimed, he was subjected to electroshock therapy.

Criminal activity[link]

When he was still young, Read was already an accomplished street fighter and the leader of the Surrey Road gang. He began his criminal career by robbing drug dealers, based in massage parlours in the Prahran area. He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims as an incentive for them to produce enough money so that Read would leave them alive.^[1]

Read spent only 13 months outside prison between the ages of 20 and 38, having been convicted of crimes including armed robbery, firearm offences, assault and kidnapping. While in Pentridge prison's H division in the late 1970s, Read launched a prison war. His gang, dubbed "The Overcoat Gang" because they wore long coats all year round to conceal their weapons, were involved in several hundred acts of violence against a larger opposing gang during this period. Around this time, Read had a fellow inmate cut both of his (Read's) ears off in order to be able to leave H division temporarily. While in his early biographies Read claimed this was to avoid an ambush by other inmates, by being transferred to the mental health wing, his later works state that he did so to "win a bet". The nickname "Chopper" was given to him long before this, from a childhood cartoon character.

Read was ambushed and stabbed by members of his own gang in a sneak attack, when they felt his plan to cripple every other inmate in the entire division and win the gang war in one fell swoop was going too far. Another theory is that James "Jimmy" Loughnan and Patrick "Blue" Barnes wished to benefit from a contract put on Read's head by the Painters' and Dockers' Union. Read lost several feet of intestine in the attack. Ironically, Jimmy Loughnan and Ned Clonan were longtime friends of Read's. Read was, at the time, serving a 16 and a half-year sentence after attacking a judge in an effort to get Loughnan released from prison.^{[citation needed]}

In 1992, Read was convicted of shooting Sydney Michael Edward Collins in the chest. The incident took place in Read's car, which was in the driveway of Collins' residence at Evandale, Tasmania. The bullet was recovered from the backseat of the vehicle as well as Collins' naming Read as the shooter. Pleading not-guilty, Read was found to be guilty of grievous bodily harm, a downgraded charge from attempted murder, and sentenced as a 'dangerous criminal' and detained for indefinite release at the Governor's Pleasure. He walked free early in 1998. In 2002, Mark Read was again questioned over the disappearance of Sydney Collins, who is still on the Australian Missing Person list after going missing under suspicious circumstances.

Described variously as witty, charismatic, sadistic and frightening,^{[by whom?]} Read has claimed to be involved in the killing of 19 people and the attempted murder of 11 others. However, many of his associates in the underworld^[who?] say he is prone to making up numbers to increase his own notoriety and the sales of his books, and Read himself has stated several times he would "never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn".^{[citation needed]} In a 2007 interview, Read admitted to being involved in the deaths of four people, all of which were on the grounds of self-defense, he said.^{[citation needed]}

Read has also spoken of his old mid 1980s to early 1990s rivalry with Alphonse Gangitano in the TV series Tough Nuts. Read explained he had a disagreement with Alphonse with regards to an old age neighborhood hero who Gangitano admired. It is alleged that Gangitano burst open the toilet cubicle door with a number of associates and began a serious assault on Read who made his escape but not before spreading his faeces into Gangitano's face.^[2]

Other activities[link]

In 2001, Read was featured in an advertisement on behalf of the Pedestrian Council of Australia warning of the dangers of drunk driving. Read is seated at a kitchen table undoing his shirt and, while pointing to the numerous scars and injuries on his body, says:

In 2005, Read embarked on a tour of Australia performing a series of shows titled I'm Innocent with Mark "Jacko" Jackson^[3] and later toured Sydney in a stage show with a new co-star, former detective Roger "The Dodger" Rogerson.

In 2006, Read appeared in another commercial speaking out against domestic violence. On 13 March 2006, he released a rap album titled Interview with a Madman. He also appeared in the 2002 Australian comedy Trojan Warrior.

Read allowed use of his name to a beer called "Chopper Heavy". The beer is produced in Rutherglen, Victoria, a town associated with Australia's most notorious outlaw, Ned Kelly.

He made the headlines again, on 15 December 2008, after being questioned by police about an alleged incident in Johnson Street, Collingwood. Read was attacked by a tomahawk-wielding man he said he had never met before. He said: "I ran to the panelbeaters and grabbed a pipe. I said, 'Come here now' and he jumped into a car and pissed off."^[4] Read suffered a minor injury to his arm after being hit with the blunt end of the tomahawk. Read was questioned by detectives at Richmond police station before being released without charge. His alleged attacker has not been found.

Author[link]

Read is an author of crime novels, selling more than 500,000 copies of his works.^{[citation needed]} In recent years, he has made recordings of voice narratives, which have also sold well.

Read's first book, Chopper: From the Inside, was collected from letters he sent while incarcerated in Melbourne's Pentridge Prison and published in 1991. It contains tales and anecdotes of his criminal and prison exploits. Further biographical releases followed in a similar vein. With the advent of Chopper 5: Pulp Faction, Read began writing fictional tales based on his experiences of criminal life. Attempts were made to ban a children's book written by Read titled Hooky the Cripple.

Public commentary and political views[link]

Read has frequently appeared on radio and television talk shows to promote his books. He had a column in Ralph magazine^{[citation needed]}, was regular columnist for the British magazine FHM, and Zoo Weekly.^{[citation needed]}

Read's success in selling tales of his criminal past has prompted widespread calls to amend the Federal Proceeds of Crime Bill (2001)—which confiscates the proceeds of drug deals and robberies—to also apply to indirect proceeds of crime, including book sales, TV appearances, and the like.^{[citation needed]}

Read has described his political beliefs as "to the right of Genghis Khan".^{[citation needed]} In his book Chopper 2, he lists American conservative G. Gordon Liddy and Bruce Ruxton, as his political heroes.

Cultural references[link]

A fictionalised version of Read was featured in several sketches on The Ronnie Johns Half Hour. Some of these sketches, such as "Harden The Fuck Up!". Read was portrayed by Heath Franklin. Read has said although the parody isn't totally accurate, he finds it funny.^[5]

Science fiction author William Gibson based a character (Keith Blackwell) in the final two books of his Bridge trilogy on Read. In the second book of the trilogy, Idoru, Gibson wrote in his acknowledgments:

"Anything I know about the toecutting business, I owe to the criminal memoirs of Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read (Chopper from the inside, Sly Ink, Australia, 1991). Mr. Read is a great deal scarier than Blackwell, and has even fewer ears."^[6]

Jim G. Thirlwell, in his 1995 Foetus release, Gash, wrote and performed a song titled "Steal Your Life Away" which included a somewhat Read-like persona, and included several quotes from Read's first book, including "I'm a garbage disposal expert", "You've got to stand at the edge of the grave for the rest of your life", "Me and my mental health don't agree most times", and "Why ask why?".

Film[link]

The 2000 film Chopper, starring Eric Bana as Read, was based on stories from Read's books and independent research, leading to events portrayed on screen that somewhat contradicted Read's version. For instance, Read claimed in early books to be vehemently against drugs, but the film portrays him as a casual drug user. In response, Read stated, "You have to have tried something to be able to say you hate it."^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Read married Australian Taxation Office employee Mary-Ann Hodge in 1995 while imprisoned in Risdon Prison in Tasmania for the shooting of Sidney Collins. The couple had one child, Charlie, and divorced in 2001. On 19 January 2003, he married long-time friend Margaret Cassar. They have one son, Roy Brandon.

Read contracted Hepatitis C during his time in prison through allegedly using a blood-stained shaver^[7]. In March 2008 he revealed he only has two to five years to live and requires a liver transplant. However, he has refused to countenance this, stating, "A transplant would save me, but why would anybody give 53-year-old Chopper Read a liver over and above an 11-year-old girl with liver cancer? They wouldn't – and I wouldn't ask. I need a transplant, but I don't want a transplant."^[8] He discussed this again in August 2009, when he was interviewed on ABC Local Radio and was quoted as saying "I haven't had a drop of alcohol for 18 months, I have cirrhosis of the liver... there's no cure for that".^[9][10]

In April 2012, Read announced that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and had been told he had about six weeks to live.^[11]

Personal bodyguard[link]

In 1998, Read met his bodyguard, Mark "Hammer" Dixon, after Read's release from Risdon prison in Tasmania. Working as a driver and body guard for Read's friend and colleague in crime, Charles “Mad Charlie” Hegyalji,^[12] Dixon eventually become Read's most trusted ally. In the March 2003, Read was travelling the country doing paid appearances and ended up in a venue where security was run by Dixon. After finishing a show and exiting to the car park with his entourage, a disgruntled patron ran at Read brandishing a claw hammer. Dixon threw himself in the line of the hammer's blow and then neutralized the attacker. As a result, Dixon became Read's full-time bodyguard.^[13]

Bibliography[link]

• Chopper: From the Inside (1991), ISBN 0-646-06543-2
• Chopper 2: Hits and Memories (1992), ISBN 0-646-10987-1
• Chopper 3: How to Shoot Friends & Influence People (1993), ISBN 0-646-15444-3
• Chopper 4: For the Term of His Unnatural Life (1994), ISBN 0-646-21014-9
• Chopper 5: Pulp Faction: Revenge of the Rabbit Kisser and Other Jailhouse Stories (1995), ISBN 0-646-25065-5
• Chopper 6: No Tears for a Tough Guy (1996), ISBN 0-646-29637-X
• Chopper 7: The Singing Defective (1997), ISBN 0-646-33923-0
• Chopper 8: The Sicilian Defence (1998), ISBN 0-9586071-0-9
• Chopper 9: The Final Cut (1999), ISBN 0-9586071-4-1
• Chopper 10¹⁄₂: The Popcorn Gangster (2001), ISBN 0-9579121-0-2
• Hooky the Cripple: The Grim Tale of a Hunchback Who Triumphs (2002), ISBN 1-86403-165-4
• The Adventures of Rumsley Rumsfelt (2003), ISBN 0-9579121-7-X
• Chopper 11: Last Man Standing: From Ex-Con to Icon (2007)
• Mark 'Chopper' Read: One Thing Led To Another (2010), ISBN 978-1-4050-4046-4

^[14]

Discography[link]

• Interview with a Madman (2006)
• The Smell of Love E.P. – Chopper Read and The Blue Flames (1997) Newmarket Records (Catalog New 3003.2)

See also[link]

Chopper Heavy

References[link]

1. ^ Chopper^{[dead link]}
2. ^ http://www.chopperread.com/interview.htm
3. ^ News and Gossip
4. ^ Chopper Read in 'tomahawk' street fight attack
5. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-3fpDYPT2M&feature=related
6. ^ Gibson, W. (1997). Idoru. United Kingdom: Viking Press. ISBN 978-0-14-024107-5. 
7. ^ http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/chopper-read-reveals-he-has-cancer-20120426-1xnil.html
8. ^ "Dying 'Chopper' refuses transplant". Sunday Mail (SA). 14 June 2008. http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23865899-5006301,00.html. 
9. ^ Chopper Read 'may die soon' - ninemsn.com.au, 14 August 2009
10. ^ 'No cure' for dying Chopper Read - ABC News, 14 August 2009
11. ^ Lowe, Adrian (27 April 2012). "Cancer-stricken Chopper 'has weeks to live'". The Sydney Morning Herald. http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/cancerstricken-chopper-has-weeks-to-live-20120427-1xomd.html. Retrieved 27 April 2012. 
12. ^ www.chopperread.com/myhistory.htm
13. ^ John Sparks, "Hammer Bash for Cash" 2010
14. ^ Books

External links[link]

• Official website
• Official page of his bodyguard Mark "Hammer" Dixon
• Mark Brandon Read at the Internet Movie Database
• Mark Brandon Read's self-portrait at the State Library of Victoria
• Andrew Denton, Enough Rope interview 2007