John de Jongh

Infobox Governor


imagesize =
name = John Percy de Jongh, Jr.
25px
caption = Gov. John P. deJongh Jr.
order=7th
office = Governor of the United States Virgin Islands
term_start = January 1 2007
term_end=
lieutenant = Gregory Francis
predecessor = Charles Wesley Turnbull
successor=
birth_date = birth date and age |1957|11|13
birth_place = St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
residence= Frederiksted, U.S. Virgin Islands
alma_mater =Antioch College
spouse = Cecile René Galiber
profession = Financial Executive, Real Estate
party = Democrat
religion = Roman Catholic
footnotes =

John Percy de Jongh, Jr. (born November 13 1957 in St. Thomas) is the current Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. He moved from the territory when he was very young due to his parents' divorce, and lived with his mother in Detroit, Michigan. He earned an economics degree from Antioch College in rural Ohio.

de Jongh is a product of Catholic schooling, attending such institutions both on the island and in the United States. During college, he was able to study in abroad, and he completed an urban study in Yugoslavia. After graduating from college, de Jongh returned to his native Virgin Islands. He worked for several years as a member of the Economic Development Council, during which he helped receive funding for the preservatin of historic Virgin Island buildings, before taking a job with Chase Manhattan. de Jongh first worked as an executive in the company's San Juan, Puerto Rico office before once again returning to the Virgin Islands after earning the position of Consumer Manager of Operations in both the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Under his leadership, Chase placed more emphasis on personal over corperate banking in the Carribbean and increased home mortgage lending.

In 1987, de Jongh was appointed as Commissioner of Finance, his first political office and one that had once been held by his grandfather, Percy. He was key in financial reforming and boosting the economy of the territory in the early 1990s. He also worked as an executive assistant to the governor's office, and he helped to cooridnate better interagency cooperation. In 1992, de Jongh left politics and was a powerful and successful businessman. He worked as a consultant for Public Financial Management and was one of the creators of the oversight committee to help Washington, D.C. becoming financially sound. de Jongh has also been an executive at Lockhart and Chilmark Partners, two large Caribbean real estate firms.

De Jongh unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2002 (receiving the second highest amount of votes out of eight candidates) as an independent candidate. He won the governorship in the 2006 general election after defeating Kenneth Mapp in a November 21^st run-off election with over 57% of the vote. Mapp had edged out Adlah Donastorg for the second run-off spot in the November 7 election. De Jongh held the support of the business community, among others, and the expectations of the people for a competently-run public-private partnership in the years to come.

De Jongh took the oath of office on January 1, 2007 to become the 7th elected Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Prior to this, he had never served in elective office.

External links

* [http://www.governordejongh.com/ Official Website]
* [http://www.dejonghfrancis.com/ Campaign Website]

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