John Rakolta

John Rakolta, Jr. is the CEO of Walbridge Aldinger. He was also the national campaign manager for Mitt Romney's 2008 Presidential Campaign. Rakolta's wife Terry Rakolta is the sister of Mitt's former sister-in-law Ronna Romney.

Rakolta is a Latter-day Saint, and has served as a counselor in a bishopric among other callings. He was initially going to be part of a consortium of five Detroit-area businessmen to provide a loan to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to convince him to resign so that the scandals he had created would end, but Rakolta backed out of the deal before it actually happened, so the other four went on with it alone.

Rakolta received his bachelors degree in engineering from Marquette University in 1970 and then studied small company management at the Harvard Business School.

Rakolta's paternal grandparents were immigrants from Romania.^[1] He is the honorary consul for Romania in Detroit.

Rakolta's father, John Rakolta, Sr. (1923-2003), was the head of Walbridge Aldinger before Rakolta. Rakolta became the CEO in 1991. Rakolta has also been the vice chairman of the Munder Funds since 1993.

Besides his work for the Romney campaign in 2008, Rakolta was a major fundraiser for the Bush campaign in 2004.^[2]

Rakolta has also served as the chairman of New Detroit.

Rakolta's daughter Lauren Rakolta was also a major figure in Mitt Romney's campaign and previously had worked for Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts. She is currently the finance director for Rick Snyder's campaign to be governor of Michigan.^[3]

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References

[1] John Rakolta Biography

[2] LA Times blog on the 2008 election

[3] rticle about Michigan politics and related issues

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