Robert K. Gray

Robert K. Gray (born September 2, 1922, in Hastings, Nebraska) earned a B.A. from Carleton College in 1943.

Gray was on active duty with the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946. In 1955, Grey was appointed Special Assistant for Manpower for the United States Department of the Navy. He was appointed Special Assistant to the President under President Dwight D. Eisenhower the following year. Two years later, in 1958, Gray was appointed Secretary to the Cabinet.

With the election of John Kennedy in 1961, Gray left government service and took over leadership of the Washington DC office of public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. Gray grew this office from a handful of employees to the second-largest office in the Hill and Knowlton system, peaking at over 100 employees in 1980. Clients included the first $1 million public relations account, the American Trucking Association, which was battling federal deregulation of its industry; the Navajo Nation, engaged in a fight with the Hopi Indians over disputed land in Arizona; and Motorola as it lobbied Congress on cellular telephony rules.

In 1980 Gray was co-chairman of the Reagan-Bush Inauguration Committee. Rather than take a role in government, however, he returned to the private sector. He left Hill and Knowlton in 1981 to start his own public relations and lobbying firm, Gray and Company. Gray lured several Hill and Knowlton clients and employees to his firm, which he housed in the aptly named Power House in the Georgetown section of Washington DC.