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He brought his father's sterling name, degrees from Yale and Harvard, some $13,000 left in
his trust fund, and his strongest personal asset — an exuberant charm spiked with
wisecracks. 
Bush never found much oil in Texas, but he slowly found his way. He married and fathered
twin girls, quit drinking, began studying Scripture, and made his an unsuccessful foray
into the family business by running for Congress. 
He learned to court friends and political supporters of his father, the vice president.
And he hooked up with the oil investors who would eventually help him become managing
partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush used the Rangers post to cultivate
celebrity status and prepare for a gutsy, winning challenge to Democratic Gov. Ann
Richards in 1994. The Rangers deal also made him a multimillionaire. 
George Walker Bush was born July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Conn., where his father, already a
flying hero of World War II, was charging through Yale. When he was 2, his parents moved
West to chase the oil boom. 
But young George also endured great sorrow at age 7, when his little sister Robin died of
leukemia. 
The next child, now Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was seven years younger. Three others
followed: Neil, stung by the S&L scandal of the 1980s and now a business consultant;
Marvin, a venture capitalist; and Doro, wife of a Washington lobbyist and mother of four.

None seems to have felt the weight of their father's successes as much as the eldest,
often called ``Junior'' although he's one name short of George Herbert Walker Bush. 
He followed his father's path to prep school in Andover, Mass., and then Yale, but failed
to live up to his legacy in academics or sports. Instead, he's remembered at Andover for
organizing stickball tournaments and lavish pep rallies that brightened an otherwise
rigid campus. 
At Yale, like his father, he was tapped for the secret Skull and Bones society and became
president of Delta Kappa Epsilon. Fraternity brothers remember him as ``the life of the
party'' among a group preoccupied by beer, sports, soul music and, of course, girls.
Friends say Bush avoided the nascent Vietnam War protests at Yale and didn't brook
criticism of his father, then a Texas congressman supporting the war. 
Shortly before graduation in 1968, Bush signed up for pilot training in the Texas Air
National Guard, where it was unlikely he would be sent to Vietnam. Bush says he wanted to
learn to fly like his father; he denies allegations that family connections helped win a
coveted slot and avoid the draft. 
Thus began what Bush calls his ``nomadic period.'' He moved to a singles complex in
Houston, chased women, drank bourbon, tooled around in a sports car and flew F-102
fighters on weekends. He bounced through several jobs, helped with his father's
congressional campaign, and worked for a year at a charity that mentored poor black boys.

He was trying to ``reconcile who I was and who my dad was, to establish my own identity
in my own way,'' Bush said in a 1989 interview. Unsure what to do next, he enrolled in
Harvard, earning a master's of business administration. 
At age 29, Bush returned to the town where he was raised, to grow up. 
For him, it was ``entrepreneurial heaven.'' On the heels of the Arab oil embargo, prices
were skyrocketing and fortunes were blossoming. 
With guidance from his father's local friends, Bush began as a ``land man,'' putting
together deals to buy mineral rights. No one would have known from his worn jeans and
hand-me-down shirts that his father was ambassador to China. 
Friends introduced Bush to Laura Welch, a reserved librarian who had attended junior high
with him in Midland. They were married three months later. She became a stabilizing
influence. 
The marriage started on the campaign trail in an unlikely bid for an open congressional
seat. Bush staged an upset in the '78 GOP primary but he lost the general election after
Democrat Kent Hance successfully branded him a carpetbagger. 
Buoyed by investments from family friends back East, his oil exploration business
performed modestly well until prices plummeted in 1981. Two Cincinnati investors gave him
a boost by merging their larger company, Spectrum 7, with his. 
Years later, the same pair would tip him off that the Rangers ballclub was coming up for
sale. He put them together with other big money to buy the club from family friend Eddie
Chiles in 1989. When the team was sold last year, Bush's original $600,000 investment
plus a hefty bonus paid off $14.9 million. 
Another weight was lifted when Spectrum 7 was bought out by Harken Energy in late 1986,
leaving Bush with a handsome chunk of stock and $120,000 consulting contract. 
His days as a full-time oil man over, Bush moved to Washington as a self-described
``loyalty thermometer'' for his father, overseeing the political hired help in the '88
presidential campaign. His tough manner offended some, but Bush felt he had proven
himself to Dad. 
And the experience turned his own ambitions back toward politics.——— 
NAME — George W. Bush 
AGE-BIRTH DATE — 53; July 6, 1946 
EDUCATION — B.A. Yale University (1968), MBA Harvard University (1975) 
EXPERIENCE — Businessman in various industries, primarily oil (1968-1989); General
Manager of Texas Rangers baseball team (1989-1994), Texas governor (1995-present) 
FAMILY — Wife, Laura; Twin daughters 
QUOTE — ``I am proud to be a compassionate conservative. I know that this approach
has been criticized, but why? Is compassion beneath us? Is mercy below us? Should our
party be led by someone who boasts of a hard heart?''