{"id":7257,"date":"2019-06-12T09:35:34","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T13:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=7257"},"modified":"2023-02-15T10:49:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T15:49:30","slug":"jeff-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2019\/06\/12\/jeff-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bush – Armstrong Alumnus has Life-Changing Classroom Encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At 33, Jeff Bush (\u201813), president of The\nParker Companies in Savannah, is one\nof the youngest company presidents in the country.\nIf that isn\u2019t remarkable\nenough, he accomplished the feat in just seven years, working his way up from director of fuel operations in\n2012, to chief operating officer two years ago, to president in January \u2014 an\nunparalleled feat at the almost billion-dollar company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ask him how he achieved this stunning success,\nhe\u2019ll tell you it began with simply raising his hand in class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it may sound easy, Bush\u2019s success wasn\u2019t handed to him. He grew up extremely poor, one of seven brothers living with their father in a trailer in Lewes, Delaware, a small, coastal town with only 2,900 people. What he lacked in resources, however, he gained in work ethic, a value his father instilled in him early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bush built two successful businesses by the time he\u2019d finished high school, and says he thought the rest of his life would be spent as an entrepreneur. After the terrorist attacks on 9\/11, however, he left his businesses and family, and volunteered to join the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt completely changed my perspective on life,\u201d said\nBush. \u201cAnd it was, \u2018Okay, there\u2019s a higher calling here for me and I need to go\nserve.\u2019 And so I joined the Army.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bush served in the Army for seven years as a forward observer, directing artillery and mortar fire. He served two tours in Iraq and won numerous awards and citations, including NCO of the year at Fort Stewart and the prestigious General Aubrey \u201cRed\u201d Newman Award for Leadership Excellence. While on his second tour, Bush decided to pursue officer training through the \u201cgreen to gold\u201d track, and enrolled at Armstrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 2010 I left Iraq and within two weeks I was actually\nsitting in a classroom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though an injury forced Bush to end his military career, he threw himself into his studies. He found a mentor in Richard McGrath, Ph.D., professor of economics, who pushed him not only to excel in his coursework but also to get involved outside of class. He became the advertising manager for The Inkwell<\/em>, was the president of the Economics Club, and worked with Michael Toma, Ph.D., professor of economics, on the quarterly Coastal Empire Economic Monitor, a highly respected business forecast for the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the Economics Club that provided Bush with his life-changing opportunity. The club invited Greg Parker, Parker\u2019s founder, then-President and CEO to campus. During his speech, he invited students to interrupt him and ask questions. For Bush, the invitation was almost like a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I kept raising my hand and kept raising my hand and kept raising my hand,\u201d said Bush. \u201cAnd I\u2019m looking around and no one else is raising their hand, and I\u2019m going, \u2018You guys are crazy! I mean, here\u2019s one of the most successful people in our area. How are you not just constantly barraging him with questions?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parker was impressed with Bush\u2019s\nintellect, curiosity and hunger for learning. And when the position of director\nof fuel operations opened up at the company,\nhe offered him the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think a strength of mine is being able to recognize talent and develop talent,\u201d said Parker. \u201cAnd I saw him as an incredibly talented college student.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Parker\u2019s, Bush has led a number of initiatives,\nincluding the District Manager Development Program and several community\noutreach projects. Throughout his seven years with the company, he continued to\nraise his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe one thing about our company is, if you raise your hand and say, \u2018Let me try something,\u2019 we pretty much let you do it,\u201d said Parker. \u201cAnd he kept raising his hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As president, Bush says he plans to invest in his team, giving them the same mentoring and guidance that he received from professors and from Parker \u2014 invaluable learning experiences which he attributes to his success. He also plans to expand upon Parker\u2019s vision, bringing stores into a wider region, and expanding the company\u2019s outreach in Savannah and southeast Georgia. He says Georgia Southern is a natural part of that plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGeorgia Southern is not only where we do business, it\u2019s our customers, it\u2019s our employees. It\u2019s our current community and it\u2019s our future community,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Doy Cave<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 33, Jeff Bush (\u201813), president of The Parker Companies in Savannah, is one of the youngest company presidents in the country. If that isn\u2019t remarkable enough, he accomplished the feat in just seven years, working his way up from director of fuel operations in 2012, to chief operating officer two years ago, to president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":7258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-7257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-spring-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}