Neel Kashkari, chief of Treasury's financial system bailout program, also known as TARP, took a beat down at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.Does anyone else notice Neel's resemblance to Imhotep, an Egyptian polymath, who served under the Third Dynasty king, Djoser, as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. He is considered to be the first engineer, architect and physician in history known by name.
The full list of his titles includes:
Chancellor of the King of Lower Egypt, Doctor, First in line after the King of Upper Egypt, Administrator of the Great Palace, Hereditary nobleman, High Priest of Heliopolis, Builder, Chief Carpenter, Chief Sculptor and Maker of Vases in Chief.
Imhotep was one of very few mortals to be depicted as part of a Pharaoh's statue. He was one of only a few commoners ever to be accorded divine status after death. The center of his cult was Memphis.
Reincarnation? Certainly...
Kashkari grew up in Stow, Ohio, and earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kashkari didn’t take a conventional route into banking. He started out as an aerospace engineer at TRW, developing technology for NASA projects like the James Webb Space Telescope, the replacement to Hubble, which is scheduled to launch in 2013.
He earned an M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. While there, one of his professors was Michael Useem, who liked to put students through grueling, Outward Bound-type strengths of endurance and strategy. Kashkari participated in one Army simulation in 2002 at Fort Dix, where he was quoted in this 2002 Philadelphia Inquirer article in a comment just as applicable to today’s financial crisis as the project he was working on: “We were all taught to play nice,” Kashkari said. “So who’s going to fight in the sandbox?”
After Wharton, Neel joined Goldman and worked in San Francisco, where he advised companies that create computer security programs like antivirus software. He and his wife, Minal, still "keep" a house in California.
Imhotep lived during the Old Kingdom and was born a commoner, like Neel. He was skilled and was dedicated to the ideals of his nation. Imhotep quickly rose through the ranks of the temple and court to become a vizier and the High Priest of Ptah.
We'll see if Neel joins the new Administration.
