1. Bill Gradison attended Walnut Hills High School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1949, a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University's Graduate School of Business Administration in 1951, and a doctor of commercial science degree from the Harvard Business School in 1954.
Bill Gradison was then elected to the Cincinnati city council, on which he served from 1961 to 1974.
Bill Gradison was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1974 and began serving in 1975.
Bill Gradison was the first Jewish Representative elected to the US Congress from Ohio.
Bill Gradison began representing Ohio's 1st district, but after the 1980 census, he and Tom Luken effectively switched districts, with Gradison's district renumbered as the 2nd district.
Bill Gradison served until 1993, when he resigned to accept the position of president of the Health Insurance Association of America.
In Congress, Bill Gradison was a member of the US House Ways and Means Committee, during the 95th through the 101st US Congress, and was closely involved in many successful legislative efforts.
Bill Gradison served as ranking Republican of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security during the Social Security system reform of the early 1980s, and in particular when the Social Security Reform Act of 1983 was passed into law.
Bill Gradison was involved in the next major tax reform effort, of 1984.
Bill Gradison sponsored a bill that clarified how non-statutory fringe benefits should be treated by the Internal Revenue Service, in terms of how the IRS should issue regulations on fringe benefits.
Bill Gradison was involved in parts of the 1986 tax reform legislation.
In 2002, Bill Gradison was appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as a founding Member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ; this Board was created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
Bill Gradison was unanimously reappointed to a full five-year term in August 2004, and served as Acting Chairman from December 2005 to July 2006.
Bill Gradison remained a PCAOB Board member until February 2011.
Bill Gradison served as a MedPAC commissioner for six years.
MedPAC's biography of Bill Gradison cites his previous experience as a member of the Health Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means; his Vice Chairmanship of the US Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care ; his service as Assistant to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; and his Vice Chairmanship of the Commonwealth Fund Task Force on Academic Health Centers.