Erik Dean Prince is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater USA, now called Academi. He served as Blackwater’s CEO until 2009, and as its chairman, until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince now heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group, and is chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group.
About Erik Prince in brief
Erik Dean Prince is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater USA, now called Academi. He served as Blackwater’s CEO until 2009, and as its chairman, until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince now heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group, and is chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group. He is the brother of U. S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Prince was born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, the son of Edgar D. Prince and his wife, Elsa. He graduated from Holland Christian High School. He went on to receive his B. A. in economics from Hillsdale College in 1992. In 1990, Prince secured an internship in the White House under George H. W. Bush, but soon left to intern for California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, President Ronald Reagan’s former speechwriter. At the age of 21, Prince volunteered to search for a mass grave in Nicaragua, to expose killings under President Daniel Ortega and later said that he had found one. Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. He bought 6,000 acres of the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and set up a school for special operations. The name \”Blackwater\” comes from the peat-colored bogs in which the school is located. In his memoir Prince says that he provided the CIA with links to Afghan warlords who helped \”topple the Taliban and drive al Qaeda into hiding.
\”I put myself at the CIA’s disposal for some very risky missions, Prince told Vanity Fair. Nevertheless, in 2010, the Obama administration awarded the company a USD 120 million contract with the State Department to protect American diplomatic personnel. In October 2014, three guards were convicted of 14 manslaughter charges, and another of murder, in a court in a case that is expected to go to trial in 2019. Prince ended his Navy service prematurely in 1995 when his father died. He assumed control of daily operations at Prince Machine Corporation for a year until 1996 when his mother sold the company for USD 1. 35 billion in cash to Johnson Controls. Prince credits the 1994 Rwandan genocide with his decision to start Blackwater. He later said, “It made me realize you can’t sit back and pontificate. You have to act.” In his autobiography he states that during the early 1990s, he realized that there was a need for private training facilities for special ops. It became the largest of the state Department’s three private security companies, providing 987 guards for embassies and bases abroad. Prince built a shooting range on his rural Virginia land to serve as a nearby training facility to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. In 2009, Blackwater lost a USD 1 billion contract with State Department. The criticism continued after the Nisour Square massacre in September 2007, in which Blackwater employees opened fire in a crowded square in Baghdad.
You want to know more about Erik Prince?
This page is based on the article Erik Prince published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 25, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
