John A. Gronouski

John Austin Gronouski

John Austin Gronouski (* 26. October 1919 in Dunbar , Marinette County , Wisconsin , † 7. January 1996 in Green Bay , Wisconsin) was an American politician who under the President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as US -Post minister officiated.

Gronouski grew up in Oshkosh . He graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1942 before joining the US Army Air Corps and serving as a navigator during World War II . In October 1945 he said goodbye and continued his studies in Wisconsin. In 1947 he obtained his master’s degree, and in 1955 he received his PhD . By this time he had already run for one of Wisconsin's two seats in the United States Senate as a member of the Democratic Party . However, in 1952 he was defeated by Republican Joseph McCarthy .

From 1959 Gronouski worked for the Wisconsin Tax Agency. He received the post of Director of the Revenue Survey Commission . In 1960 he became Wisconsin's state tax commissioner and supported John F. Kennedy's election campaign for the US presidency as a member of the state executive. In August 1963, he remembered Gronouski, who had meanwhile made a name for himself by reorganizing the Wisconsin tax system, and appointed him the new Postmaster General .

John Gronouski was the first member of a US cabinet of Polish origin. During his tenure he earned services in an effort to end the racial discrimination of postal workers; In addition, the system of five-digit postcodes was introduced under his leadership .

He left the government in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to succeed John Moors Cabot as United States Ambassador to Poland. After Richard Nixon assumed the presidency, John Gronouski was asked by Johnson to become the founding dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs . He stayed that way until his retirement in 1974.

Web links

• John A. Gronouski in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Obituary in the New York Times
• John A. Gronouski the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)