George W. Bush
A Yale graduate with a Harvard M.B.A. — the only president to hold one — who governed Texas for six years before two terms shaped by the attacks of 11 September 2001.
Biography
Bush was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas, followed his father to Andover and Yale, flew F-102 interceptors in the Texas Air National Guard, and took an M.B.A. at Harvard. He worked in the west Texas oil business through the 1970s and 1980s, helped run his father’s campaigns, and was part of the group that bought the Texas Rangers baseball club in 1989.
He was elected governor of Texas in 1994 and re-elected in 1998. The 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 certified votes in Florida and a Supreme Court ruling that ended the recount; he lost the national popular vote and won the electoral college.
His two terms covered the September 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, two large tax cuts, No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the PEPFAR global AIDS programme, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial crisis of 2007–2008 with the bank rescue that followed it.
Education
- Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Graduated (1964)
- Yale University, B.A. in history (1968)
- Harvard Business School, M.B.A. (1975)
Military service
Texas Air National Guard, 1968–1973; first lieutenant; trained as an F-102 fighter-interceptor pilot.
Offices held before the presidency
- Governor of Texas, 1995–2000