Richard Gilder, co-founder of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, heads the brokerage firm Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. The firm's specialty is trading leveraged stocks and shortselling.[1] After working at the brokerage firm of A.G. Becker & Co., Gilder founded the firm now known as Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. in 1968.[2] He is Chairman of the Executive Committee at the New-York Historical Society and serves on the Executive Board of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. He is a trustee of the Morgan Library & Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Central Park Conservancy,[3] and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. He is Chairman Emeritus of both, the conservative think-tank, the Manhattan Institute[4] and the conservative political action committee, the Club for Growth.[5] In 2005, Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman received the National Humanities Medal for their work promoting the study of American history.[6] He has now set up a PhD. program at the American Museum of Natural History in his own name, the Richard Gilder Graduate School at AMNH.[7]
Gilder attended Northfield Mount Hermon School before enrolling in Yale College. He received a Doctor of Humane Letters in 2007 from Yale. He provided over half the necessary funding for the recently completed Richard Gilder Boathouse for Yale rowers.[8]
He married the former model and actress, Lois Chiles, in 2005. Her paternal uncle was the oil tycoon Eddie Chiles.[9]