Dr. Elijah Brewer currently serves as the Chair for the Department of Finance. Dr. Brewer has extensive knowledge of finance and economics stemming from his education at Lawrence University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as over 25 years of experience at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Before coming to DePaul, Brewer’s title at the Chicago Fed was Assistant Vice President and Senior Economist in the Economic Research Department. Although many might assume it was Dr. Brewer’s extensive financial knowledge that granted him such a successful career, he offered at least one other reason that undoubtedly contributed to his success.
In addition to be a man of great intellect, Dr. Brewer was also a collegiate athlete. At Lawrence University in Appleton Wisconsin, he played cornerback on the football team and was named all-conference in his junior and senior seasons. Yet, Brewer admits that he was not always the star athlete that he became in college. As he was always undersized, Brewer was not the best athlete growing up. In fact, he did not make the cut the first time he tried out for his high school football team. Although he eventually made the team as an upperclassman, Dr. Brewer did not forget the sleight he felt the coaching staff dealt him by excluding him from the roster the previous year. In his final season of high school football, Brewer quarterbacked his team to the city playoffs, only to lose their first game by 7 points.
As he would later tell the coach, the reason he worked so hard to make the team and become one of the top players is because the coaches said he could not do it. “No one can tell me that I can’t do something”, said Dr. Brewer in our interview. This was not only the fire that drove him as an undersized cornerback but also what allowed a young man from a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin to gain admittance into one of the most prestigious graduate schools in the country.
Dr. Brewer obtained his MS in Finance from MIT Sloan School of Management in 1976 then received his PhD in Economics in 1985. Although one could easily see how economics students at M.I.T. could be intimidated by the prospect of having Nobel Prize winners as instructors, Dr. Brewer never felt this way. He credits the humility of his instructors coupled with the culture of M.I.T. for this. In his view, everyone at M.I.T. was more concerned with learning than they were with status or awards. Yet, Dr. Brewer not feeling overwhelmed at such a prestigious institution also points to the quiet confidence that he has in his abilities. This undoubtedly contributed to his excellent career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
After graduating from MIT, Dr. Brewer began his career working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. During his 25 years at the Chicago Fed, Dr. Brewer primarily conducted research. Some areas he focused on include interest rate risk management, the relationship between risk and capital, the effects of derivative usage on commercial banking firms’ performance, corporate governance issues, and the unintended consequences of bank regulation. Most importantly, Dr. Brewer had a true passion for the work he was doing. He enjoyed spending long days in his office conducting his research and writing papers because to him it did not feel like work. Still, he always had a desire to give back and help others. This desire led Dr. Brewer to beginning teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago while still working for the Chicago Fed.
In 2005, he left his job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to accept a full-time teaching position in the Business School at DePaul University. When taking this position, he hoped to create a “Center of Excellence” and planned to model the DePaul’s Finance Department Center after the Solomon Center for the Study of Financial Institution at NYU. He did this by first creating the Center for Financial Services, which is now the Keeley Center for Financial Services. Dr. Brewer’s main objective for this center was that it be useful and practical. Accordingly, Dr. Brewer believes a central focus for the Department of Finance should be to enhance the value of education through useful and practical interaction with our friends in the business community.
Dr. Brewer hopes the department continues to engage the Chicagoland business community by launching new academies in the next few years. Under his guidance, the faculty of the Department of Finance recently put together a template for a new Banking and Capital Market Academy. Once this initiative launches, Dr. Brewer indicates that the faculty of the Department of Finance will turn its attention to creating a new Investment Academy. These two new academies will contribute to provide undergraduate finance students with a road map and the necessary tools to achieve their highest potential, position them for successful entry into full-time work, and provide access to employers.
Although Dr. Brewer’s primary interests are indisputably finance and economics, it is also readily apparent that he still possesses a love for sports. In his office at the DePaul Center hangs an autographed picture of basketball legend, Bill Russell, blocking a layup from Wilt Chamberlain, another basketball icon. Bill Russell is arguably the greatest winner in sports history as he won 11 NBA titles in just 13 seasons. Although Dr. Brewer will admit without hesitation that he was never the athlete that Russell was, his experiences at Lawrence University, MIT and the Chicago Fed have proven that he can seek and obtain equivalently excellent results as Bill Russell earned, but with the Department of Finance at DePaul.