Neil Bush

File:Neil Bush.jpg

Neil Bush

Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955 in Midland, Texas) is the third of five children of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush (Barbara Lane Pierce). Neil is the younger brother of President George Walker Bush and Governor Jeb Bush. He has a younger brother, Marvin, and a younger sister, Dorothy. Neil is a businessman based in Texas.

Early years

Neil Bush was named after a good friend of the family, Henry Neil Mallon, chairman of Dresser Industries, George Herbert Walker Bush's employer (Mallon had himself been hired by George Herbert Walker, George Bush's grandfather). As a child Bush spent some summers and holidays at his family's estate in Maine, the Bush Compound. Bush attended high school at the exclusive private St. Albans School in Washington, DC. He received his BA in Economics from Tulane University and his MBA from Tulane in 1979.

Neil Mallon Bush is the leftmost person in the front row in this photograph of the Bush family taken in the early 1960s.

Silverado Savings & Loan

Neil Bush was on the board of directors of Silverado Savings and Loan during the 1980's larger savings and loan crisis. As his father was Vice President of the United States, Neil's role in Silverado's failure was a focal point of publicity. Salon magazine says Silverado cost taxpayers about $1 billion.

The US Office of Thrift Supervision investigated the failure of Silverado and determined that Bush had engaged in numerous "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." Although Bush was not indicted on criminal charges, a civil action was brought against him and the other Silverado directors by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; it was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying $50,000 as part of the settlement, as reported in the Style section of the Washington Post .

Ignite! Learning

Main article: Ignite!

In 1999 Bush co-founded Ignite! Learning, an educational software corporation. Bush has said he started Austin-based Ignite! Learning six years ago because of his learning difficulties in middle school and those of his son, Pierce Bush. The software uses multiple intelligence methods to provide varying types of content to appeal to multiple learning styles.

To fund Ignite!, Bush raised $23 million from U.S. investors, including his parents, Barbara and former President George Bush, as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky, Kuwaiti company head Mohammed Al Saddah, and Chinese computer executive Winston Wong are documented investors.

As of October 2006, over 13 U.S. school districts (out of over 14,000 school districts nation-wide[1]) have used federal funds made available through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 in order to buy Ignite's products at $3,800 apiece. Source: article

A December 2003 Style section article in the Washington Post reported that Bush's salary from Ignite! was $180,000 per year.

Bush and Berezovsky

Bush's relationship with Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky (termed a "Russian fugitive business tycoon" by the Los Angeles Times), [2] [3] has been the subject of much discussion in the media. Berezovsky has been an investor in Bush's Ignite! program since at least 2003 (Berezovsky is controversial in no small part due to his being wanted for arrest in Russia. [4]

Bush has also been seen in Berezovsky's box at a British soccer stadium for a game, [5] something that has garnered criticism in some quarters.

Berezovsky's business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili is also part of Bush's "Ignite!" program. [6]

Kopin stock trades

In July 1999, Bush made at least $798,000 on three stock trades in a single day of a company where he had been employed as a consultant. The company, Kopin Corporation of Taunton, Massachusetts, announced good news about a new Asian client that sent its stock value soaring. Bush stated that he had no inside knowledge and that his financial advisor had recommended the trades. He said, "any increase in the price of the stock on that day was purely coincidental, meaning that I did not have any improper information."

When asked, in January 2004, about the stock trades, Bush contrasted the capital gains he reported in 1999 and 2000 with the capital losses on Kopin stock he reported ($287,722 in all) in 2001. In 2001 Kopin joined a broad decline in high-tech stock valuations.

Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue

Bush was a founding director, along with Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), of the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue. The foundation promotes ecumenical understanding and publishes religious texts and was founded in 1999. Bush is no longer on the board of the foundation.

Other business engagements

In 2002, Bush signed a consulting contract that paid $2 million dollars in stock over five years to work for Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a firm backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, plus $10,000 for every board meeting he attends.

Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest pays him $60,000 a year to provide miscellaneous consulting services.

Bush frequently travels to the Middle East, Europe and Asia to negotiate deals and raise capital for various businesses. According to court filings from his divorce, in 2000 he was paid $1.3 million for such work. This includes $642,500 as a commission for introducing an Asian investor to the owners of an American high-tech company.

Anti-Ritalin campaign

In 2002, Bush testified before a hearing of the United States Congress to speak out against over-medicating children for learning disorders. Scientologist activists Lisa Marie Presley and Bruce Wiseman also testified at these hearings supporting a stricter ban on psychological medications, as opposed to Bush's warning against false diagnoses.

Bush's anti-Ritalin stance dates from a period when his son was recommended for Ritalin (the Bushes utilized an alternative education plan instead).

Marriage, divorce, and remarriage

Bush and his former wife of 23 years, Sharon Smith, are the parents of three children; Lauren, Pierce, and Ashley. Neil and Sharon divorced in April 2003.

Robert Andrews sued Sharon in September 2003 for defamation after Sharon alleged that Neil was the father of Andrews' two-year-old son.

Bush's divorce deposition gained public attention when he admitted to several sexual encounters with women in Thailand and Hong Kong. . Among other divorce testimony aired in the press, Neil Bush's friend John Spalding announced that Sharon had extracted hair samples from her estranged husband in order to place a voodoo curse on him. Sharon Bush later confirmed the forcible hair removal, but she stated that she took the hair to be tested for evidence of drug use. At various times Sharon Bush publicly spoke of her fear of retribution by Neil Bush and the Bush Family. At other times she praised Barbara and George Bush's understanding.

Bush remarried in Houston, Texas on March 6, 2004 to Maria Andrews. Andrews spent time volunteering with charitable organizations with Neil's mother, Barbara Bush.

Speaking engagements

Bush has often been invited to speak to audiences overseas, often in the Middle East. Several times Neil Bush's pronouncements on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have brought him controversy.

In Asia, Neil Bush accompanied Sun Myung Moon on his world peace tour .

In 2006, for being the 1,000th customer of Ignite! Learning, Alamo Junior High School teachers, students and administrators were visited by Bush. Asked by students if he would like to run for president, Bush said he would be sticking to his business venture. He told kids if they Googled him, they would see reasons people wouldn't want to vote for him. "The idea of being president isn't something realistic for me," Bush said, adding that students could accomplish anything. He said he takes a lot of shots from the media, particularly in his home town. "It's unjustified, but it comes with the territory of being in the first family," he said.

See also

• List of notable U.S. presidential relatives
• Timeline of United States and China relations 1995-1997

External links

• Excerpt from "George Bush--the unauthorized biography"
• The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush, Washington Post, December 28, 2003
• Steven Wilmsen, Silverado: Neil Bush and the Savings and Loan Scandal National Press Books, August 1991, ISBN 0915765896
• Ignite! Learning Webpage
• Neil Bush's political donations