HOUSTON — Robert Mosbacher Sr., an oil multimillionaire who served as commerce secretary under his close friend, President George H.W. Bush, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer, his family said. He was 82.
The Texan was a powerful Republican fundraiser who served at the top echelons of Bush’s presidential campaigns and served as a general campaign chairman for 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain.
As commerce secretary, he helped lay the foundation for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mosbacher was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and grew up in White Plains. He got a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Washington and Lee University in 1947.
The next year, he moved to Houston and built a successful oil and gas company.
Mosbacher got into politics in the early 1960s, working as a fundraiser for Republican candidates in southeast Texas and managing Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign in Harris County, which includes Houston.
Mosbacher managed the national fundraising operations of five GOP presidential campaigns — from Gerald Ford in 1976 to McCain.
