Inverness man had finger on pulse of financial world
An Inverness man, who had the ear of presidents and of securities officials alike, will be remembered Saturday, March 7.
Gordon L. Teach, who died Feb. 9 at his Inverness home at the age of 91, will be honored at the Inverness Golf Club, with visitation at 2 p.m. before a 5 p.m. service.
Among business leaders, Mr. Teach is best known for his leadership role with the National Association of Securities Dealers, or the NASD, the self-regulatory arm of the securities industry.
His son, Michael, recalls that his father was one of six executives from national stock brokerage firms, who met with President Richard Nixon during the late 1960s to reassert the role of the NASD amid threats of federal regulation.
"They set out to form a self-governing body, to take hold accountable their own members," says Michael Teach, of Chicago. "They wanted to be the traffic cop, in order for the industry to keep control of its own domain.
"Nothing like that existed at the time," his son adds. "It was fairly groundbreaking since the next closest industry, the banking industry, was federally regulated."
The NASD regulates trading in equities, corporate bonds, securities, futures and options, with authority over the activities of brokerage firms, their branch offices, and all the registered securities representatives.
Mr. Teach served as chairman of the NASD in 1970, one year before the body launched the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations stock market, or the Nasdaq.
At the time, Mr. Teach was moving up the ranks of Shearson Hammill & Co., before it merged with Hayden Stone, and ultimately became part of American Express.
He was a close friend of University of Chicago professor and economist Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winner who lead the so-called Chicago School of Economics, and a national economic policymaker, who often came for dinner at Mr. Teach's Inverness home.
Through his friendship with Friedman, Mr. Teach came to know and advise Presidents Nixon and Ford, his son says, during his many trips to Washington.
Michael Teach describes his father as a shrewd investor, whose knowledge of the stock market not only helped national leaders, but local clients as well.
One of his longest roles was serving on the board of the Resurrection Health Care System, which included Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines, and ultimately on its foundation board. Privately, he helped build the retirement fund of the Sisters of the Resurrection.