Stephen "Steve" Golub '74

8 comments on Stephen "Steve" Golub '74

1. Stephen was thoughtful and intelligent. After seeing how much he benefitted from a French, lycée education, I was glad that our two daughters had the same opportunity. When I was dating Stephen, he introduced himself as a Marxist to my very capitalist father. They had quite a heated debate but my father admitted that Stephen made some good points. A few years later he ran into Stephen at the Department of Treasury and asked me (and maybe him, as I wasn’t there), “What is a Marxist doing working for the Treasury.” Stephen explained that his views had changed. I’m not sure that is the case so much as he just didn’t have to be a Marxist or a Keynesian to have a great deal of humanity and work on issues that mattered.

2. and a bunch of scary students from Bennington chanting Williams was a hyper-capitalist entity. It existed to make a profit. Still unclear what they meant, but the event was memorable. And fun.

3. I share fond remembrances of Steve Golub. We were in contact in the early years after law school/grad school. Steve worked at the Federal Reserve as a staff economist and I was beginning my legal career at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. We had some lunches over at the Fed cafeteria, which has a beautiful view of the Potomac. As it turned out, he had worked at the CFTC during grad school and knew some of the staff economists that I worked with.

   I got back in touch with Steve during the last few years due to an odd circumstance. I left the CFTC at the beginning of 2008 and became of counsel at the Washington office of K&L Gates. One of our clients was a hedge fund manager who had collected several pieces of Steve’s father. In recent years, somebody tried to swindle the hedge fund manager with some purported undiscovered new pieces of Steve’s father. These were forgeries and the guy ended up in prison. When I came across this story, I got back in touch with Steve and he indicated that he had been involved in the case to some extent and it was apparently a rather trying time. He said that he would get in touch if he got down to the Washington area, but alas that was not meant to be.

   I always marveled at Steve’s bilingualism. I still remember borrowing his notes from an econ class that I missed. Not only were the notes super comprehensive, but he would switch from English to French and then back – in the same sentence!

4. Thomas Alleman wrote:
   Thank you for sharing the sad news about Steve Golub. Steve was in my entry – for reasons that have long since escaped me, he became known as Oiseau (French for bird) or simply Waz. I remember the conga drum but had forgotten the Free Tumblers. He was on the Morgan ME trivia team and I vaguely remember that he went to Bomo later. Odd what sticks in the memory. And so it goes.

5. Dwight Cook sent his condolences.

6. Grace Paine Terzian reminisced:
   I knew Steve, but I don’t know exactly why or how we overlapped. I recall a nice guy with impressive, wild hair. Wry smile, I believe. Maybe he took art history classes?
   I love that this brilliant economist had parents who were accomplished artists. Sounds like a family with balanced brain halves.

7. Billy Suda wrote:
   Sad indeed. A great mind. He wrote to me twice while I was head agent. Longish thoughtful letters. Saw an op-Ed he wrote for the WSJ. He noted his thinking had changed and he respected market theory. I attended a forum that he’d organized maybe sophomore year a Marxist prof from Columbia and a bunch of scary students from Bennington chanting Williams was a hyper-capitalist entity. It existed to make a profit. Still unclear what they meant, but the event was memorable. And fun.
   Oh, and Steve who kicked that event off with a few comments and interjected questions or comments, seemed to enjoy the whole vibe. Sparking controversy AND getting people to reconsider issuers and gain a bit of self-awareness. Guess that was early evidence of the pedagogue in him.

8. Paul Stekler reported:
   My old college friend Steve Golub passed away this week after battling cancer. In our pandemic world, the memorial today was on zoom. Sign of the strange times. Steve and I were the two youngest students by far in our Williams College class. He was in our college band, the Free Tumblers, banging on a conga drum with long crazy black hair and no shirt on, just a red vest. He was the son of famous artists, Nancy Spero and Leon Golub, living in a loft off of Broadway and the 70’s that totally confused me in it’s NY looseness that was totally unlike my mainstream New Jersey suburban home. He was a Marxist and I helped elect him and Joe Goodman, a conservative from Albany, a Jewish ticket, to run the waspy college’s student council. He became an economist, teaching at Swarthmore for many, many years, where I took this photo a long time ago. A beloved teacher, a good husband and father, and a really wonderful guy.