Jerry Jasinowski, a cabinet official in the Carter administration and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) from 1990-2004, died Jan. 22 at the age of 86. Jasinowski was also founder and president of the NAM’s Manufacturing Institute from 2004-07.

NAM CEO Jay Timmons and former Carter chief domestic policy advisor Stuart Eizenstat recalled Jasinowski as an extraordinary economist, leader and person.

Timmons, who started as an executive vice president of the group in 2005, said in a statement that Jasinowski was a transformational CEO, elevating the voices of small and medium-sized manufacturers.

“Jerry guided the NAM through some of the most consequential policy debates and economic shifts of the era, shaping the post-Cold War economy. As lawmakers debated history-making agreements like NAFTA and the Trade Promotion Authority Act, they turned to Jerry for expertise and insight. 

“[H]is political and media savvy shaped public perceptions of manufacturing. He was a persistent and persuasive voice, not only in the halls of power, but on the air and on America’s editorial pages,” Timmons said.

Eizenstat, a lifelong friend and tennis partner who was later deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, hired Jasinowski for the Carter campaign in 1976 as chief economist, and recommended Jasinowski for the position of assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Commerce in the Carter administration.

“He was a brilliant economist, and it was quite something for him coming out of a Democratic administration, which had badly lost in 1980, to get a job (as executive vice president and chief economist in 1981) at the National Association of Manufacturers, which showed the respect that he had,” Eizenstat told CEO Update.

“He was a rare person who was both a great man and a good man,” Eizenstat said.

Eizenstat introduced Jasinowski to his future wife, Isabel, who at the time was director of local issues for the Carter campaign. They were married at the F Street Club in Washington, a now-closed gathering place for the capital’s elite, and Eizenstat was best man. 

Jasinowski earned a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University. He was a captain in the U.S. Air Force early in the Vietnam War and was later assistant professor of economics at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He was the author of two books and an investor who served on several corporate boards, including those of biotechnology companies.

He is survived by his wife Isabel, his sister Karen, brother Scott, sons Abe and Paul, daughter Anne Marie, and grandchildren Nik, Sophie and Peter. 

Church services will be held at 11 a.m. on Feb. 7 at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, preceded by a wake from 4 to 7 p.m. Feb. 6 at Gawler’s Funeral Home in Washington, D.C. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation, where Jasinowski was a board member for 35 years.