A central figure in the scrutiny surrounding the Enron Corp. is a 1983 graduate of Tufts. Andrew Fastow, who finished his studies a year early and graduated with a degree in Chinese and economics, was the Chief Financial Officer of Enron before getting fired in October.
The company came under investigation after Enron executives unloaded immense amounts of stock and banned employees from selling shares that were part of their 401(k) plans. Fastow, who graduated from Tufts magna cum laude, lost his job after Enron's financial issues came to light.
Enron's top executives have been the subject of nine congressional committees and the focus of the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Labor Department. The company's connection to politics as the largest contributor to President Bush's campaign has also attracted media attention.
Last week, Fastow and other prominent players invoked their Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify before the House Energy Committee, the first of many such trials.
Born in Washington DC in 1961, Fastow is the middle of three children. According to a spokesman, he followed the stock market closely as a child and was president of his New Providence, NJ high school student council. He was the first student representative to obtain a position on the New Jersey State board of education.
Once at Tufts, he met and later married Houston-native Lea Weingarten (LA '83), the daughter of a prominent supermarket-chain owner. He later received his master's degree in business administration from Northwestern University and went on to work for the Continental Bank in Chicago.
Fastow was recruited in 1990 by now-ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling to join a corporation owned by Kenneth Lay, which had just three years earlier stood on the brink of bankruptcy. By 1996 Fastow had been promoted to CFO and in 1999 was awarded the CFO Magazine's CFO Excellence Award for Capital Structure Management for his role in turning the company around.
Although Fastow is widely recognized as a financial genius, a Dec. 17 Business Week article painted a less pretty picture. Many colleagues reportedly regarded him as a "vindictive man, prone to attacking those he didn't like in Enron's group performance reviews."
Friends, however, say that the father of two is an upstanding community member who enjoys spending time coaching his sons and playing tennis or the trombone. More recently, he and his wife took part in charitable events which included fund-raising functions at the Contemporary Art Museum, the Holocaust Museum, and the Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston. His rabbi told The Seattle Times that Fastow is a "very unassuming and quiet individual."
But Fastow is accused of playing an essential part in the trio that allegedly allowed Enron to fool investors. Fastow reportedly helped create a number of Enron subsidiaries that allowed the company to keep nearly $500 million worth of debt off its accounting records. These partnerships were often named after characters in Star Wars.
Enron's collapse remains a mountain of controversy that dominates headlines, while Andrew Fastow's future remains uncertain. Although his time at Tufts may not be remembered by many, his legacy will be.
Tufts alumnus Zachary Bromer (LA '01) said the Fastow-Tufts connection is disappointing. "While it's only a small embarrassment for the University to be associated with one of the ringleaders of Enron's demise, it is truly a loss that Fastow could not have used his business expertise to become another prominent Tufts alum," Bromer said
