Paul Gonson began working at the SEC in 1961 and held a number of positions during his 37-year career at the agency. He started out in the Division of Corporate Regulation, then transferred in 1967 to the Office of General Counsel where he became primarily an appellate attorney. When David Ferber retired from his post as the Solicitor in 1979, Gonson was appointed to take his place. During the next 20 years, he worked on a number of enforcement cases, primarily insider trading, many of which he argued before the Supreme Court. In 1998, he retired from the SEC and joined the firm of Kirpatrick & Lockhart.
In this interview with Dan Goelzer, Paul Gonson describes his role in founding, together with David Ruder and Harvey Pitt, the Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society in 1999. His memories reveal the early vision, challenges, and successes of what is now a mission to preserve the history of our financial markets and regulation that is accomplished through a virtual museum and archive rather than a bricks and mortar structure.