Michael R. Pompeo
Former United States Secretary of State
Education
- Graduated - Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, California
- Graduated - United States Military Academy at West Point
- Juris Doctor - Harvard Law School
Overview
Michael Richard Pompeo is an American politician who served in the administration of Donald Trump as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2017 to 2018 and as the 70th United States secretary of state from 2018 to 2021.
After graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1986 and his obligatory five-year service as a United States Army officer, Pompeo went on to graduate from Harvard Law School. He worked as an attorney until 1998 and then became an entrepreneur in the aerospace and oilfield industries. Pompeo was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2010, representing Kansas's 4th congressional district until 2017.
Once a critic of Donald Trump, whom he called "authoritarian", Pompeo became one of his biggest supporters after Trump became the Republican nominee in the 2016 presidential election. Trump appointed him Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in January 2017 and Secretary of State in April 2018. Pompeo was a vocal critic of the Chinese government; he focused U.S.-China relations in opposition to China's policies regarding the oppression of Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea. He advocated for moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
During Pompeo's tenure as Secretary of State, the State Department prioritized grounding human rights in religious liberty and brokering peace in the Middle East. During his tenure, the U.S. established the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, moved the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and negotiated the Abraham Accords which established diplomatic normalcy between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. He was among the staunchest Trump loyalists in the Cabinet and routinely flouted State Department norms in aid of Trump's objectives, including supporting Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Early career :
After graduating from law school, he worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly in Washington.
In 1996, Pompeo moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he and three West Point friends, Brian Bulatao, Ulrich Brechbuhl, and Michael Stradinger, acquired three aircraft-parts manufacturers there (Aero Machine, Precision Profiling, B&B Machine) and in St. Louis (Advance Tool & Die), renaming the entity Thayer Aerospace after West Point superintendent Sylvanus Thayer. Venture funding for the private organization included a nearly 20% investment from Koch Industries as well as Dallas-based Cardinal Investment, and Bain & Company (Brechbuhl worked for Bain at the time). Brechbuhl and Stradinger left the company shortly after it was founded, but Pompeo and Bulatao continued.
In 2006, he sold his interest in the company, which by then had been renamed Nex-Tech Aerospace, to Highland Capital Management, which had clients including Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream Aerospace, Cessna Aircraft, Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems and Raytheon Aircraft. Pompeo then became president of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturer that was also a partner of Koch Industries.
In 2017, when Pompeo became head of the CIA, he named his former business partner, Brian Bulatao, the agency's chief operating officer
Early Life
Michael Richard Pompeo born December 30, 1963 in Orange, California, the son of Dorothy (born Mercer) and Wayne Pompeo. His paternal great-grandparents, Carlo Pompeo and Adelina Tollis were born in Pacentro, Abruzzo, Italy, and emigrated to the United States in 1899 and 1900, respectively. In 1982, Pompeo graduated from Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, California, where he played forward on the basketball team. In 1986, Pompeo graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he majored in engineering management. He was a classmate of Brian Bulatao and Ulrich Brechbuhl, who later helped him found Thayer Aerospace.
From 1986 to 1991, Pompeo served in the U.S. Army as an armor officer with the West Germany-based 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry in the 4th Infantry Division. He served as a tank platoon leader before becoming a cavalry troop executive officer and then the squadron maintenance officer. Pompeo left the U.S. Army at the rank of captain.
In 1994, Pompeo earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Career
- United States - Former Secretary of State
Recognition
The Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Tirana
