George Herbert Walker III, a cousin of two presidents, a former United States ambassador to Hungary and a distinguished St. Louis businessman and p
George Herbert Walker III, a cousin of two presidents, a former United States ambassador to Hungary and a distinguished St. Louis businessman and philanthropist, died on Saturday at a hospice facility in St. Louis. He was 88.
His son, George, mentioned on Thursday that the trigger was problems of a stroke that Mr. Walker had a couple of 12 months in the past.
Mr. Walker grew up in Greenwich, Conn., and graduated from the Groton College in Massachusetts earlier than incomes a bachelor’s diploma from Yale College in 1953 and a regulation diploma from Harvard in 1955.
After serving two years within the Air Drive, he moved to St. Louis in 1958 to work for a monetary providers firm based by George Herbert Walker, the grandfather he shared along with his first cousin, George H.W. Bush, who additionally grew up in Greenwich. Mr. Walker was later president and chief government of the enterprise, Stifel, Nicolaus & Firm, which grew considerably below his watch and which he took public in 1982.
In 1992, as Mr. Bush sought a second time period as president, Mr. Walker tried his personal hand at politics, searching for the Republican nomination for a suburban St. Louis congressional district. He misplaced within the major to James M. Expertise, who gained the seat and later grew to become a United States senator; Mr. Bush misplaced the presidency to Invoice Clinton.
Mr. Walker remained energetic in Republican politics, serving to to lift funds and set up Missouri campaigns for Republican presidential candidates. Notably, he took half within the profitable presidential campaigns of Mr. Bush’s son George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.
George W. Bush appointed Mr. Walker ambassador to Hungary in 2003, a couple of 12 months earlier than Hungary withdrew its troops from the Iraq struggle. He labored to keep up constructive relations with the nation, serving as ambassador till 2006.
George Herbert Walker III was born on March 16, 1931, to George Jr. and Mary (Carter) Walker in St. Louis, shifting later to Greenwich as a toddler. His mom was a homemaker; his father, an funding banker, was an original investor within the New York Mets and an government with the crew.
Mr. Walker’s first two marriages resulted in divorce. He married Carol Banta, with whom he lived in St. Louis and Kennebunkport, Me., within the mid-1980s.
Along with his son, he’s survived by his spouse; 4 daughters, Mary Elizabeth Bunzel, Wendy Cleary, Isabel Walker and Carter Walker; a stepson, John Martin; two stepdaughters, Hilary Roach and Paige Martin; a brother, Ray Walker; a sister, Betty Holden; and 14 grandchildren.
Mr. Walker was energetic in Downtown St. Louis Inc., the City League of Metropolitan St. Louis and the Siteman Most cancers Middle. He was a trustee of Webster College in Missouri for 42 years; the enterprise faculty there was named for him after he made a $10 million donation in 2005.
The New York Instances contributed reporting.