Personal Info
- Country of residence: United States
Information
John Henry Sununu (born July 2, 1939) is a Cuban-born Palestinian American politician. He served as the 75th Governor of New Hampshire (1983–89) and later White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush. He is the father of Christopher Sununu and John E. Sununu, a former United States Senator from New Hampshire. Sununu was the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party from 2009 to 2011.
Sununu was born in Havana, Cuba, the son of Victoria (née Dada) and John Saleh Sununu, an international film distributor. His father's family came to the United States from the Middle East at the turn of the century. His paternal ancestry is Lebanese from the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem community in Jerusalem. His father, John, was born in Boston. Most of the last two generations of Sununus were also born in the United States. Sununu's mother, Victoria Dada, was born in El Salvador. Her family was Greek Orthodox Christian and settled in Central America at the turn of the century. Most of his closest relatives in Beirut have died, including an uncle who returned to the Lebanese capital from the United States several years ago. The Governor paid his last visit to Beirut as a child in the late 1940s.
He earned a bachelor of science degree in 1961, a master of science degree in 1963, and a Ph.D. in 1966 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in mechanical engineering. Sununu scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs. He is a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.
He worked as a professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University from 1966 until 1968, when he was appointed Associated Dean of the College of Engineering at the university. He served on the Advisory Board of the Technology and Policy Program at MIT from 1984 until 1989.
A Republican, Sununu served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 1973 to 1975.
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