Jeffrey Fager

(CBS) Jeff Fager has been the executive producer of "60 Minutes" since June 2004.

Last season, Fager led "60 Minutes" to its best finish since 2000, growing the audience 10 percent with timely reporting on the economy, the presidential campaigns and the wars. For his work, the Producers Guild of America granted him its best producer in non-fiction television award three times and TV Week named him to its top 10 list of most powerful television news executives.

Before taking over "60 Minutes", Fager is credited with guiding "60 Minutes II" to overwhelming critical acclaim as its executive producer. In just seven seasons, the broadcast garnered nine Emmy Awards, two RTNDA/Edward R. Murrow Awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Peabody Awards, a Delta Sigma Chi Award and two Investigative Reporting and Editing Awards

As the executive producer of the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" from 1996 to 1998, Fager led the broadcast's highly praised rededication to hard news, enterprising reporting and increased foreign coverage. By the time he left to start "60 Minutes II," the "CBS Evening News" had gained more than one million viewers over the previous year, a gain unmatched by competitors.

Fager was also the senior broadcast producer for the "CBS Evening News"(1994-96) and covered many major international stories, including the war in Bosnia and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

He had been a producer for "60 Minutes" from 1989 to 1994, primarily working with correspondents Morley Safer and Steve Kroft, and covered several major world events, including the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. He was part of the original team that developed and launched "48 Hours," the primetime CBS News magazine.

He served as a producer on the "CBS Evening News," based in London (1985-88) and New York (1984-85), covering numerous international stories. He produced segments on Palestinian-Israeli conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; the bombing of Libya in 1986; the Reagan Gorbachev summits in Geneva and Iceland; Gorbachev’s first foreign visit, to Paris in 1986; and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Fager was a producer for other CBS News broadcasts (1982-84), including the weekend editions of the "CBS Evening News," and was a broadcast producer for "Nightwatch," CBS's original overnight news broadcast.

Before joining CBS News in 1982, he was a broadcast producer at KPIX TV San Francisco (1979-82), now a CBS owned station. Prior to that, he was an assignment editor at WGBH TV Boston and a newswriter at WEEI Radio, a CBS station in Boston (1978-79).

He began his career in broadcasting in 1977 as a production assistant at WBZ TV Boston, another CBS owned station. Over the next year, he served as an associate director and assignment editor for WBZ TV, as well as a news writer for WBZ Radio.

Fager was born in Wellesley, Mass. He was graduated from Colgate University in 1977 with a B.A. degree in English.