Neil Bush

Neil Mallon Bush (born January 22, 1955) is an American businessman and investor.

He is the fourth of six children of former President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush (née Pierce).

His five siblings are George W. Bush, Jeb Bush; a former governor of Florida; the late Pauline Robinson Bush; Marvin Bush; and Dorothy Bush Koch.

Neil Bush was born on January 22, 1955, in Midland, Texas.

Bush was named after a good friend of the family, Henry Neil Mallon, chairman of Dresser Industries, George H. W. Bush's employer.

As a child, Bush spent some summers and holidays at his family's estate in Maine, the Bush compound.

At age 11, he enrolled in the exclusive St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. He struggled through school; a counselor told his mother that he was doubtful the boy had the potential to graduate.

He was later diagnosed as having dyslexia, and his mother spent much time assisting him with his learning disability.

Eventually, his grades improved and he graduated from St. Albans in 1973.

In 1977, Bush earned a degree in economics from Tulane University.

In 1979, Bush earned an MBA.

He settled in the Denver area where he was friends with members of the family of John Hinckley Jr.., who shot President Reagan.

Bush was a member of the board of directors of Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan from 1985 to 1988 during the S&L crisis of the 1980s.

Since his father George H. W. Bush was Vice President of the United States, his role in Silverado's failure was a focal point of publicity.

The U.S. Office of Thrift Supervision investigated Silverado's failure 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.

A friend who also donated funds to the Republican Party set up a fund to help defer costs Neil incurred in his S&L

legal defense.

In 1999, Bush co-founded Ignite! Learning, an educational software corporation.

Bush has said he started Austin-based Ignite!

Learning because of his learning difficulties in middle school and those of his son, Pierce.

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 US investors, including his parents, 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.

Documented investors included Kuwaiti company head Mohammed Al Saddah, and Chinese computer executive Winston Wong, as well as the late Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky, and Berezovsky's partner Badri Patarkatsishvili.

Bush's relationship with the late controversial oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a political enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin who at the time of his death had been under indictment for fraud in Russia and an applicant for asylum in the United Kingdom, has been noted in the media.

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 on the same day 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."

In 2002, Neil Bush commended his brother, George, for his efforts on education as president, but he questioned the emphasis on constant testing to keep federal aid coming to public schools: "I share the concerns of many that if our system is driven around assessments, pencil-and-paper tests that test a kid's ability to memorize stuff, I would say that reliance threatens to institutionalize bad teaching practices."

program since at least 2003.

Bush met with Berezovsky in Latvia.

The meeting caused tension between that country and Russia due to Berezovsky's fugitive status.

A December 2003 Style section article in The Washington Post reported that Bush's salary from Ignite!

was $180,000 per year.

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.

Bush was also seen in Berezovsky's box at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium for a football game in 2006.

There had also been speculation in the English language Moscow Times that the relationship may cause tension in U.S.-Russian bilateral relations, "especially since Putin had taken pains to build a personal relationship with the U.S. president," George Bush.

As of October 2006, over 13 US school districts (out of over 14,000 school districts nationwide ) have used federal funds made available through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to buy Ignite's portable learning centers at $3,800 apiece.

Berezovsky, who died in 2013, had been an investor in Bush's Ignite!