John Davison Rockefeller IV was born on the 18th June 1937 in New York City, USA and is a politician who belongs to the Democratic Party. He served as the Governor of West Virginia from 1977 to 1985, and from 1985 to 2015, he represented the above mentioned state in the US Senate. Rockefeller has been active in politics since 1961.
How much is the net worth of Jay Rockefeller? It has been estimated by authoritative sources that the outright size of his wealth is over $120 million as of the data presented at the end of 2016.
Jay Rockefeller Net Worth $120 Million
To begin with, Rockefeller is the great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), the legendary multimillionaire and the richest man in the USA (at that time); Jay was born three weeks after his death. Jay studied at Harvard University, majoring in the Japanese language and Far East Studies. He also attended the International Christian University in Tokyo, and Yale University, where he studied Chinese.
Talking about his professional career, Jay worked under President John F. Kennedy in the Peace Corps in Washington in 1961. In 1964 he moved to West Virginia; he took part in the voluntary social project VISTA (Volunteers Service to America) and worked in the social field. In 1966, he broke an old family tradition and became a member of the Democratic Party, and the same year he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates; two years later he became Virginia’s Secretary of State. In 1972, he participated in the elections for Governor, yet was defeated by Republican Arch A. Moore. Thereafter, he became president of West Virginia Wesleyan College. In 1976, he was again the candidate of his party for Governor, and this time he succeeded against the former Governor Cecil H. Underwood. However, an economic crisis (in 1980) led to the closure of many mines and factories and thus a dramatic rise in unemployment. This was compounded by rising inflation, a protracted strike in coal mining, flooding and two particularly hard winters. As a result, Arch Moore was elected governor for the third time in 1985. He was thus both the predecessor to the office and the successor to Rockefeller.
After the end of his term as governor, Rockefeller was elected to the US Senate, taking his seat on 15th January 1985, and represented his state in Congress until 2015. Over the years, he was a member of various committees, such as the Security Intelligence Committee and the War Veterans Committee. He was originally a supporter of the Iraq war, but changed in 2003, and became one of the biggest critics of the war and of President George W. Bush. He was a member of a trade delegation from West Virginia which visited Japan on a business trip. Rockefeller also supported health reform. From 2009, Rockefeller has served as the Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, however, in 2013, he gave his decision not to run for the Senate in 2104, and so left office at the beginning of 2015, after which he joined a think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Finally, in the personal life of the politician, in 1967 Rockefeller married Sharon Percy, the daughter of former Senator Charles H. Percy. They have four children.
