Famous People from Winnetka, Illinois

Brief Biographies of 5 Well-Known People Who Grew Up in Winnetka

Chicago, may be best known as the setting for the NBC television drama, Sisters, and for being one of director John Hughes' favorite towns for location shooting (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Uncle Buck, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles were all shot in Winnetka), but Winnetka, the leafy residential town of 12,000, which takes it name from "Winnetka" (a Native American word meaning "beautiful land"), has also been the hometown of some very well known people.

Donald Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932) Born in Chicago, Illinois, Donald Rumsfeld was raised in Winnetka, Illinois and graduated from New Trier High School. At the age of thirty, Rumsfeld was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the 13^th district in Illinois. He served four terms in the House before taking a post in the Nixon Administration. In the Ford Administration, Rumsfeld was first appointed White House Chief of Staff, and then in 1975, he was confirmed as the youngest Secretary of Defense in American history. Rumsfeld served in several executive positions at the pharmaceutical company, Searle & Company from 1977 to 1985. Rumsfeld is credited with getting FDA approval of the artificial sweetener NutraSweet, which was invented at Searle. During the 1990s, Rumsfeld was a board member of the Swiss engineering company ABB, which was involved in a controversy during Rumsfeld's tenure, when the company sold nuclear technology to North Korea. In 2001, Rumsfeld became the oldest Secretary of State under George W. Bush. Rumsfeld was one of the primary architects of the controversial war in Iraq. He was compelled to resign after the 2006 elections, which were popularly seen as a public referendum of his war policies.