Early Life
Deaver was born in Bakersfield, California, the son of a Shell Oil Co. distributor. He graduated from Desert High School at North Edwards, California in 1956. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from San Jose State College (now San Jose State University).
He worked for IBM, served in the United States Air Force, and later was executive director of the Santa Clara County Republican Party. While Ronald Reagan was running for governor of California, Deaver worked as a political field representative for the California Republican Party, running several state assembly campaigns. After being elected governor, Reagan's chief of staff recruited Deaver to the administration where he began a 30-year career working for Reagan, and building a very close friendship with him and Nancy Reagan.
Deaver formed his own consulting company after Reagan's term as governor, where Reagan and his upcoming presidential campaigns were among his clients. Accompanying Reagan on his campaign plane in 1976, Deaver performed the Heimlich maneuver on the candidate in order to dislodge a peanut stuck in his throat and reportedly saved the future President's life. Though initially he disliked the idea of moving to Washington, D.C., he ultimately agreed and was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff under President Reagan in 1981. He principally had responsibility for the president's schedule of events and speeches, and public relations.
Read more about this topic: Michael Deaver
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth ... the pollution of American space, with gadgetry and cars and TV and box architecture, brutalizes the senses, making gray neurotics of most of us, and perverse spiritual athletes and strident self-transcenders of the best of us.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)