NEWSMAKER: Ex-space engineer launches U.S. financial rescue

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Neel Kashkari, the man charged with launching the U.S. government's unprecedented $700 billion bank rescue, knows a thing or two about getting complex apparatus off the ground.

After all, he could be considered a former rocket scientist.

Before he went to work in high finance, the former Goldman Sachs investment banker worked in research and development at TRW Inc, a contractor for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, designing parts for a space telescope.

He has moved from solving technology problems to confronting what may be the thorniest problem in the United States: how to restore confidence in a financial system teetering on collapse.

Kashkari, 35, was named interim assistant secretary of the treasury for financial stability on October 6. He will oversee a $700 billion fund that will be used to purchase bad debts from financial firms and purchase equity in U.S. banks in the hopes of spurring fresh lending.

Previously a behind-the-scenes adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Kashkari has become the "$700 billion man" -- a celebrity in Washington policy circles. His debut speech in the job at a banking forum last Monday drew a standing-room-only crowd and he was swarmed by reporters.

"He seems to be eager to identify the problems as quickly as he can," said Wayne Abernathy, a financial policy expert at the American Bankers Association. "And so far his communications are more detailed than a lot of what I've seen from the Treasury lately."

ANSWER MAN

Kashkari is among a number of former Goldman Sachs executives who followed Paulson from the Wall Street investment bank to the Treasury. But he did not follow the typical private sector-to-government path of bringing a career's worth of experience to a top-level job.

Instead, Kashkari, with only a few years under his belt at Goldman Sachs, met Paulson at a speaking engagement and expressed his interest in government service. When Paulson was named Treasury secretary in 2006, Kashkari volunteered.

Born to Indian immigrants in Akron, Ohio, Kashkari grew up in the nearby town of Stow and followed in the footsteps of his

engineering professor father. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also met his future wife, Minal.

Jonathan Kimball, a former engineering classmate at Illinois, said Kashkari was intense and a natural leader.

The two worked together on a team that designed a solar-powered car for the 1995 Sunrayce, an annual collegiate cross-country solar vehicle race.

"It was pretty obvious he should be in charge," said Kimball, now an engineering professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. "Even before he was a leader, people looked to him for guidance and expertise. He came across as this really smart guy that, if he didn't know the answer, he knew how to get the answer."