Blake Lanier Gottesman (born March 6, 1980) served as

White House Deputy Chief of Staff The White House deputy chief of staff is officially the top aide to the White House chief of staff, who is the senior aide to the president of the United States. The deputy chief of staff usually has an office in the West Wing and is responsible ...

to former

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

,Bush’s personal aide returns at top - Yahoo! News
/ref> becoming, at age 28, the youngest member of the Bush senior staff. He previously served in the Bush administration as personal aide and

body man In U.S. political jargon, a civilian personal assistant who accompanies the president of the United States virtually everywhere is referred to as a body man or body woman. These personal aides to the president are often responsible for arrangin ...

for the president from 2001 until 2006. His work for Bush began during Bush's presidential campaign in 1999.

Early life

Gottesman was born in Travis County, Texas, the son of Lisa Babette (née Temerlin) and Sanford Lee Gottesman. His father is president of The Gottesman Company, a real estate development company based in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, and board member of the

Overseas Private Investment Corporation The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) was the United States Government's Development finance institution until it merged with the Development Credit Authority (DCA) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID ...

. His maternal grandfather, Julius Liener Temerlin, was a prominent advertiser who founded the

Dallas International Film Festival The Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF), presented by Dallas Film, is an annual film festival that takes place in Dallas, Texas. About Dallas Film Dallas Film, established as Dallas Film Society, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization ...

. He was raised

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. Gottesman was educated at St. Andrews Episcopal School and Stephen F. Austin High School, both in

; during this time he dated

Jenna Bush Jenna Welch Bush Hager (born November 25, 1981) is an American news personality, author, and journalist. She is the co-host of ''Today with Hoda & Jenna'', the fourth hour of NBC's morning news program ''Today.'' Hager and her fraternal twin sist ...

when her father was Governor of Texas. Gottesman attended Claremont McKenna College for one year and dropped out.

Career

Gottesman worked as a junior aide to then- White House Chief of Staff

Andrew Card Andrew Hill Card Jr. (born May 10, 1947) is an American politician and academic administrator who was White House Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006, as well as head of Bush's White House Iraq Group. Card served as ...

at the beginning of Bush's first presidential term and became Bush's full-time personal aide in February 2002. Gottesman was responsible for managing Bush's day-to-day activities and traveled with him to functions and on overseas trips. In a 2006 ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' article on Gottesman, he was said to understand Bush's moods and tendencies better than most of his other advisors, leading many to have discussions with him on issues before presenting them to the President. When compared to fictional presidential aide Charlie Young in television series ''

The West Wing ''The West Wing'' is an American serial political drama television series created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999, to May 14, 2006. The series is set primarily in the West Wing of the White Hous ...

'', Gottesman stated, "Our jobs are probably pretty similar." In his role as a personal aide, Gottesman performed a wide range of duties, from dog-sitting the president's Scottish terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley, to carrying the president's speeches and giving him the two-minute warning before a speech begins. After his stint as an aide he enrolled in Harvard Business School, graduating in 2008. His admission to the school despite not having received an

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...

degree was criticized by many media commentators. After the inauguration of President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

, Gottesman joined

Berkshire Partners Berkshire Partners is an American private equity firm based in Boston. It has invested in over 100 middle market companies since 1986 through nine investment funds with aggregate capital commitments of more than $16 billion. Berkshire has devel ...

, a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

-based

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm, as a Senior Associate. Since then, Gottesman has been elevated to Managing Director at Berkshire.Retrieved 9/4/2012.
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottesman, Blake 1980 births Living people White House Deputy Chiefs of Staff Assistants to the President of the United States George W. Bush administration personnel Texas Republicans Harvard Business School alumni 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews

Early life

Career

Further reading

References