Beard Group is pleased to announce the 2022 Recipient of the Harvey R. Miller Outstanding Achievement Award for Service to the Restructuring Industry.
WILLIAM (BILL) BRANDT, JR.
Founder & Executive Chairman
Development Specialists, Inc.
Development Specialists, Inc.
Please join us in congratulating Bill Brandt, Jr. as this year's recipient of the Harvey Miller Award. Mr. Brandt is a longtime supporter of Beard Group and the Distressed Investing Conference. At this year's Distressed Investing Conference, Monday, November 28th at The Harmonie Club, we will honor and celebrate the extraordinary career of Bill Brandt, Jr.
For more than 45 years, Bill Brandt has been a fixture on the national stage in the fields of business, civic and political endeavors. A talented business strategist and political counselor, he is the founder and Executive Chairman of Development Specialists, Inc., better known worldwide as DSI and widely recognized as one of the foremost firms in the corporate restructuring industry. While Mr. Brandt and his firm have been and continue to be involved in some of the most celebrated and complex restructuring and insolvency matters in the arenas of business and government reorganization, for example, Mr. Brandt currently serves as the Chapter 11 Trustee in the largest cross-national insolvency pending in the United States, Chine Fishery Group, the firm also lends its expertise to other matters in the broader economic and political realms. An example of that was Mr. Brandt’s stewardship and resolution of the infamous Ohio “Coin Fund” scandal at the request of the Attorney General of the State of Ohio.
In 2015, Mr. Brandt finished his third consecutive term serving as Chair of the Illinois Finance Authority, having first been appointed by the Governor in 2008 and confirmed unanimously by the Illinois Senate that same year, and then subsequently reappointed as Chair in 2010 and 2012. The IFA is one of the nation’s largest state-sponsored self-financed entities principally engaged in issuing taxable and tax-exempt bonds, making loans and investing capital for business, nonprofit organizations and local governments. Mr. Brandt, again by gubernatorial appointment, was also a member of the Illinois Broadband Deployment Council, whose mission is to ensure that advanced telecommunications services are available to all of the citizens of Illinois. He is also part of the ownership group that controls Chicago’s second-largest daily newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times. More recently, in the political realm, Mr. Brandt was a member of the United States Electoral College for the 2016 Presidential Election, serving as an Elector from the State of Illinois.
Mr. Brandt has advised Congress on matters of insolvency and bankruptcy policy, and in that capacity was the principal author of the amendment to the Bankruptcy Code permitting the election of trustees in Chapter 11 cases. He was involved in drafting several amendments to the Bankruptcy Code revisions enacted into law in April 2005 as part of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which substantially rewrote the nation’s bankruptcy laws. Mr. Brandt also served as a member of the Commission empaneled by the American Bankruptcy Institute several years ago to address the reform of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and the nation’s corporate restructuring regime.
Referred to several years ago by one media outlet as one of the ten most influential political figures in Illinois, Mr. Brandt was a member of the President’s National Finance Board during the Clinton administration, and was elected a Delegate from the State of Florida to the 1996 Democratic National Convention. During that decade as well, and upon the invitation of business and political leaders in the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Brandt worked with various public policy, law and banking leaders in China on approaches to the reorganization and restructuring of some of that nation’s state-owned industries. In 2000, he was a member of the Democratic Party’s National Convention Platform Committee, and in 2002, he served on the Illinois Gubernatorial Transition Team, as well as on the State of California’s business delegation dispatched to Cuba to discuss politics, business and trade potential. In 2008, Mr. Brandt was again elected a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, this time from the State of Illinois.
As part of his longstanding commitment to higher education and to civic endeavors, Mr. Brandt chairs the National Advisory Council for the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Loyola University Chicago from 2007 to 2016, and is a Life Trustee of Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Mr. Brandt is also a member of the Board of Directors of New York-based The Honorable Tina Brozman Foundation for Ovarian Cancer Research (Tina’s Wish).
Mr. Brandt served several terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Bankruptcy Institute, as well as also serving, for a number of years, as a member of the Advisory Board for that organization’s Law Review. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for the ABI’s annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference, having earlier served for 15 years in a similar capacity for the ABI’s Bankruptcy Battleground West Seminar held each year in Los Angeles. Mr. Brandt was a member of the Executive Committee of the Bankruptcy Section of the Commercial Law League of America and served on their National Government Affairs Committee, as well as completing three terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Bay Area Bankruptcy Forum.
Mr. Brandt is active in the industry internationally, and is a member of the International Insolvency Institute, as well as INSOL, and was recently selected as a U.S. Participant in the 100-member cross-border consortium known as the International Exchange of Experience in Insolvency.
For 20 years, Mr. Brandt was a member of the private Panel of Trustees for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and briefly served as a member of the same panel for the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida in the late 1980s.
Mr. Brandt has written for publications spanning a broad spectrum of thought, ranging from Maclean’s, Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine, to Directors & Boards, Corporate Board Magazine, the Florida Real Estate Journal, and the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Law Review, published in conjunction with St. John’s University School of Law. He is the co-author of the “Due Diligence” chapter in the 2nd edition of Bankruptcy Business Acquisitions published by the American Bankruptcy Institute. He is a frequent lecturer and speaker on topics of corporate restructuring, bankruptcy and related public policy issues and regularly appears on CNN, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, Canada’s BNN, and the Arise America news network, as well as the CBS Radio and National Public Radio networks. He has been profiled and interviewed in a wide array of periodicals including, among others, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Business Week, The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Billboard Magazine and Bank Bailout Litigation News.
Among many other professional and trade organization memberships, Mr. Brandt is a member of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Urban Land Institute. His biography appears in a number of reference works including Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, and Who’s Who in American Law. For well more than a dozen years, his firm, Development Specialists, Inc., has been rated as one of the Outstanding Turnaround Management Firms in the world by the publication Turnarounds & Workouts, and he is routinely listed on annual rosters of the country’s top restructuring advisors. Mr. Brandt received his B.A. from St. Louis University and his M.A. from the University of Chicago, where he also completed further post-graduate work toward a doctoral degree.
For more than 45 years, Bill Brandt has been a fixture on the national stage in the fields of business, civic and political endeavors. A talented business strategist and political counselor, he is the founder and Executive Chairman of Development Specialists, Inc., better known worldwide as DSI and widely recognized as one of the foremost firms in the corporate restructuring industry. While Mr. Brandt and his firm have been and continue to be involved in some of the most celebrated and complex restructuring and insolvency matters in the arenas of business and government reorganization, for example, Mr. Brandt currently serves as the Chapter 11 Trustee in the largest cross-national insolvency pending in the United States, Chine Fishery Group, the firm also lends its expertise to other matters in the broader economic and political realms. An example of that was Mr. Brandt’s stewardship and resolution of the infamous Ohio “Coin Fund” scandal at the request of the Attorney General of the State of Ohio.
In 2015, Mr. Brandt finished his third consecutive term serving as Chair of the Illinois Finance Authority, having first been appointed by the Governor in 2008 and confirmed unanimously by the Illinois Senate that same year, and then subsequently reappointed as Chair in 2010 and 2012. The IFA is one of the nation’s largest state-sponsored self-financed entities principally engaged in issuing taxable and tax-exempt bonds, making loans and investing capital for business, nonprofit organizations and local governments. Mr. Brandt, again by gubernatorial appointment, was also a member of the Illinois Broadband Deployment Council, whose mission is to ensure that advanced telecommunications services are available to all of the citizens of Illinois. He is also part of the ownership group that controls Chicago’s second-largest daily newspaper, The Chicago Sun-Times. More recently, in the political realm, Mr. Brandt was a member of the United States Electoral College for the 2016 Presidential Election, serving as an Elector from the State of Illinois.
Mr. Brandt has advised Congress on matters of insolvency and bankruptcy policy, and in that capacity was the principal author of the amendment to the Bankruptcy Code permitting the election of trustees in Chapter 11 cases. He was involved in drafting several amendments to the Bankruptcy Code revisions enacted into law in April 2005 as part of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which substantially rewrote the nation’s bankruptcy laws. Mr. Brandt also served as a member of the Commission empaneled by the American Bankruptcy Institute several years ago to address the reform of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and the nation’s corporate restructuring regime.
Referred to several years ago by one media outlet as one of the ten most influential political figures in Illinois, Mr. Brandt was a member of the President’s National Finance Board during the Clinton administration, and was elected a Delegate from the State of Florida to the 1996 Democratic National Convention. During that decade as well, and upon the invitation of business and political leaders in the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Brandt worked with various public policy, law and banking leaders in China on approaches to the reorganization and restructuring of some of that nation’s state-owned industries. In 2000, he was a member of the Democratic Party’s National Convention Platform Committee, and in 2002, he served on the Illinois Gubernatorial Transition Team, as well as on the State of California’s business delegation dispatched to Cuba to discuss politics, business and trade potential. In 2008, Mr. Brandt was again elected a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, this time from the State of Illinois.
As part of his longstanding commitment to higher education and to civic endeavors, Mr. Brandt chairs the National Advisory Council for the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Loyola University Chicago from 2007 to 2016, and is a Life Trustee of Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. Mr. Brandt is also a member of the Board of Directors of New York-based The Honorable Tina Brozman Foundation for Ovarian Cancer Research (Tina’s Wish).
Mr. Brandt served several terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Bankruptcy Institute, as well as also serving, for a number of years, as a member of the Advisory Board for that organization’s Law Review. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for the ABI’s annual New York City Bankruptcy Conference, having earlier served for 15 years in a similar capacity for the ABI’s Bankruptcy Battleground West Seminar held each year in Los Angeles. Mr. Brandt was a member of the Executive Committee of the Bankruptcy Section of the Commercial Law League of America and served on their National Government Affairs Committee, as well as completing three terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Bay Area Bankruptcy Forum.
Mr. Brandt is active in the industry internationally, and is a member of the International Insolvency Institute, as well as INSOL, and was recently selected as a U.S. Participant in the 100-member cross-border consortium known as the International Exchange of Experience in Insolvency.
For 20 years, Mr. Brandt was a member of the private Panel of Trustees for the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and briefly served as a member of the same panel for the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida in the late 1980s.
Mr. Brandt has written for publications spanning a broad spectrum of thought, ranging from Maclean’s, Canada’s Weekly Newsmagazine, to Directors & Boards, Corporate Board Magazine, the Florida Real Estate Journal, and the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Law Review, published in conjunction with St. John’s University School of Law. He is the co-author of the “Due Diligence” chapter in the 2nd edition of Bankruptcy Business Acquisitions published by the American Bankruptcy Institute. He is a frequent lecturer and speaker on topics of corporate restructuring, bankruptcy and related public policy issues and regularly appears on CNN, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, Canada’s BNN, and the Arise America news network, as well as the CBS Radio and National Public Radio networks. He has been profiled and interviewed in a wide array of periodicals including, among others, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Business Week, The Miami Herald, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Billboard Magazine and Bank Bailout Litigation News.
Among many other professional and trade organization memberships, Mr. Brandt is a member of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees, the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Urban Land Institute. His biography appears in a number of reference works including Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, and Who’s Who in American Law. For well more than a dozen years, his firm, Development Specialists, Inc., has been rated as one of the Outstanding Turnaround Management Firms in the world by the publication Turnarounds & Workouts, and he is routinely listed on annual rosters of the country’s top restructuring advisors. Mr. Brandt received his B.A. from St. Louis University and his M.A. from the University of Chicago, where he also completed further post-graduate work toward a doctoral degree.
About The Harvey R. Miller AwardEach year Beard Group, Inc. presents the Harvey R. Miller Outstanding Achievement Award for Service to the Restructuring Industry to a deserving individual in the corporate restructuring community. Beard Group, Inc.’s editorial team selects the individual from a lengthy list of candidates known for reshaping the industry.
Mr. Miller was the first to receive the award in 2001. Each year, Beard Group’s editorial team seeks to honor a well-known industry leader with long ties to the restructuring community when presenting the award at the annual Distressed Investing Conference. Mr. Miller was a renowned bankruptcy attorney and partner at the firm of Weil, Gotshal, & Manges. Mr. Miller joined the firm in 1969. Mr. Miller is often credited with making the bankruptcy practice and was involved in major cases throughout his career, including, Texaco, WorldCom, Enron, Eastern Airlines, Continental Airlines and R. H. Macy. Mr. Miller taught at major institutions, including his alma mater, Columbia Law School and received many accolades during his distinguished career. Mr. Miller passed away in 2015. Beard Group, Inc. continues the tradition of honoring the legacy of Harvey Miller with the presentation of this award named in his honor. |
Previous Recipients of the Harvey R. Miller Award
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