George P. Bush Biography

George Prescott Bush was born on April 24, 1976, in Houston, Texas, United States, to Jeb, a businessman and politician, and Columba Bush (née Garnica Gallo). He has one brother and one sister.

His father is the brother of former President George W. Bush and the son of former President George H. W. Bush. His mother is of Mexican origin.

He went to Gulliver Preparatory School in the Miami area. He enrolled at Rice University, from where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1998.

George P. Bush taught social studies at a public high school in Florida from 1998 to 1999. He then furthered his education at the University of Texas School of Law from 2000 to 2003, earning his Juris Doctor degree.

In September 2003, he became a clerk for the US District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, Sidney A. Fitzwater. The following year, he quit this job and began practicing corporate and securities law with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP. He was selected as one of Texas Monthly's "Rising Stars" for his work with the company.

In 2007, George P. Bush became a partner at Pennybacker Capital, LLC, a real estate private equity firm in Austin, Texas. He left the firm in 2012 to found St. Augustine Partners, an investment firm focused on energy and technology in Fort Worth.

In March 2007, George P. Bush was selected by the United States Navy Reserve training as an intelligence officer. This recruitment happened through the direct commission officer program, in which applicants in specialized civilian fields can forgo the typical prerequisites of a commission and attend the Direct Commissioned Officer Indoctrination Course (DCOIC).

On the completion of his training, he was commissioned as a Navy Reserve Officer in May 2007. He served for several years, including an 8-month stint in Afghanistan from June 2010 to February 2011. He left the US Navy Reserve as a lieutenant in May 2017.

George P. Bush ran for the position of Commissioner of the General Land Office in 2014. He won the election with 61% of the vote and assumed office on January 2, 2015. He was re-elected in 2018. 

In this office, he supervises the working of the Texas General Land Office (GLO), which manages millions of acres of state land. The GLO also oversees the auctions for leases to extract natural gas and oil on those lands.

Under his administration, the GLO took control of the Alamo, a historic Spanish site in San Antonio. Bush managed a remodel of the Alamo, in which a whopping $450 million was spent.

He fired around a hundred land commission employees who had been employed under the previous commissioner, Jerry E. Patterson. The San Antonio Express-News reported that Bush paid almost $1 million in taxpayer funds to bribe the dismissed employees not to file suit against either him or the agency.

He served as the national co-chair of Maverick PAC, a national political action committee, and was a member of several diplomacy missions. He co-founded the Hispanic Republicans of Texas, a political action committee, and also serves on its board.

George P. Bush entered the race for Texas Attorney General in June 2021. He obtained only 32% of the vote in the primary election and was defeated by his opponent, Ken Paxton, who received 68% of the vote.

George P. Bush was the Commissioner of the General Land Office (GLO) when Hurricane Harvey struck Texas and Louisiana in August 2017. The hurricane caused catastrophic flooding and destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses, displacing thousands of people. Bush and GLO tirelessly led the housing-related recovery efforts in the wake of the natural disaster and helped more than 60,000 victims rebuild their homes.

When he was a young man, George P. Bush attempted to break into his former girlfriend’s home and later drove his car through the front yard. He was arrested shortly after this incident in December 1994. However, he was released after the victim declined to press charges.

George P. Bush fell in love with a classmate named Amanda L. Williams when he was in law school. The couple got married on August 7, 2004, at St. Ann's by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. His wife is a media law attorney at Jackson Walker LLP in Texas. They have two sons.