Erik Prince facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Erik Prince
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Prince in 2015
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| Born |
Erik Dean Prince
June 6, 1969 Holland, Michigan, U.S.
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| Education | Hillsdale College (BA) |
| Known for | Founder of Blackwater |
| Spouse(s) |
Joan Prince
(m. 1991; died 2003)Joanna Houck
(m. 2004; div. 2012)
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| Children | 12 |
| Parent(s) |
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| Relatives | Betsy DeVos (sister) |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service/ |
 United States Navy |
| Rank |  Lieutenant |
| Unit | United States Navy SEALs |
Erik Dean Prince (born June 6, 1969) is an American businessman, former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater. He served as Blackwater's CEO until 2009 and as its chairman until its sale to a group of investors in 2010. Prince heads the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group and served as chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Frontier Services Group until 2021. Prince is the son of engineer and businessman Edgar Prince, and the brother of former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
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Early life, education, and military service
Prince was born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, the son of Edgar D. Prince and his wife, Elsa (Zwiep), and the youngest of four children. He graduated from Holland Christian High School. Prince and his father toured the world together, visiting the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, divided Berlin, and the battlefields of Normandy. According to his mother, these trips "made a big impression" on the young Prince.
Prince was accepted into the United States Naval Academy and attended for three semesters before leaving, explaining that he loved the Navy but disliked the Academy. He went on to receive his B.A. in economics from Hillsdale College in 1992. During his time at Hillsdale, he served as a volunteer firefighter and as a cold-water diver for the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department. Prince eventually became an emergency medical technician.
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. Rohrabacher described Prince as "a bright, driven young man."
After college, Prince was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy via Officer Candidate School in 1992. He went on to become a Navy SEAL and deployed with SEAL Team 8 to Haiti, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He credits the SEALs for being an outlet for his entrepreneurial spirit. In his autobiography he states that during the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, he realized that there was a need for private training facilities for special operations.
Prince ended his U.S. Navy service prematurely in 1995.
Private career
Prince moved to Virginia Beach and personally financed the formation of Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. He bought 6,000 acres (24 km2) 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.
Prince credits the 1994 Rwandan genocide with his decision to found Blackwater. He later said, "It really bothered me. It made me realize you can't sit back and pontificate. You have to act."
From 1997 to 2010, Blackwater was awarded $2 billion in government security contracts, more than $1.6 billion of which were unclassified federal contracts and an unknown amount of classified work. From 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates. 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, Virginia.
Prince resigned as CEO of Blackwater on March 2, 2009, and remained chairman of the board until he sold the company in late 2010 to a group of investors.
Disclosure as part of a covert CIA task force
Prince was part of a CIA task force created to engage in targeted killings of suspected terrorists. Prince alleged that the House intelligence congressional committee leaked his name to the press. Prince has said that he is convinced that former CIA director Leon Panetta revealed him as a CIA asset, after shutting down the covert CIA training operation in 2009.
Private security for the United Arab Emirates
Prince was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and moved to Abu Dhabi in 2010. His task was to assemble an 800-member group of foreign troops for the U.A.E., which was planned months before the Arab Spring. He worked to oversee the effort and recruit troops, among others from Executive Outcomes, a former South African mercenary firm hired by several African governments during the 1990s to defeat violent rebellions in addition to protecting oil and diamond reserves.
As of January 2011, Prince was training a force of 2,000 Somalis for anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. The program was funded by several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates and backed by the United States.
Private equity investor
Prince leads a private equity firm called Frontier Resource Group, and until April 13, 2021, he was also chairman of Frontier Services Group Ltd, a Bermuda-incorporated logistics and transport company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Frontier Services Group is backed by China's state-owned CITIC Group and Hong Kong-based investor Johnson Chun Shun Ko, with the Chinese government listed as the largest investor. Prince's ventures advise and support Chinese investment in oil and gas in Africa.
Personal life
Prince lives in both Middleburg, Virginia and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He converted to Catholicism in 1992 and describes himself as a practicing member of the church.
Contributions to political and charitable causes
Prince serves as vice president of the Prince Foundation, an organization his parents founded in 1979. In the 1990s Prince founded the Freiheit ("Liberty") Foundation, a nonprofit charity that funded a number of conservative causes.
Prince has frequently donated to conservative Christian organizations, including the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty and the Prison Fellowship, and conservative political groups such as the Council for National Policy, of which his father was vice president at the time of his death.
Family
Prince is the younger brother of former United States Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the brother-in-law of former Alticor (Amway) president Dick DeVos.
Prince's first wife, Joan Nicole, died of cancer in 2003 at the age of 36. They had four children. Prince married Joanna Ruth Houck, his children's nanny, in 2004. He is now married to Stacy DeLuke, a former Blackwater spokesperson.
Prince has twelve children.
See also
In Spanish: Erik Prince para niños
