ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL — George Herbert Walker III, a former Stifel Financial executive who later served as U.S. ambassador to Hungary, has died at age 88, at Evelyn's House hospice center in Creve Coeur.
He died Saturday, Jan. 18, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which reported the cause of death as complications from a stroke.
Walker, also known as Bert, is cousin to two former presidents: George W. Bush, who named him ambassador to Hungary, a post he held from 2003 to 2006, and Bush’s father, the late George H.W. Bush.
He was chair emeritus of the board of trustees of Webster University, which named the George Herbert Walker School of Business and Technology after him in 2010. His $10 million gift to the business school in 2007 was the largest gift ever received by the university at the time.
A 1953 graduate of Yale University, Walker earned a law degree from Harvard University in 1956 and later received honorary degrees from Webster University and Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, and from University of Pecs and St. Istvan University, both in Hungary.
After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to St. Louis in 1958 to work for G.H. Walker & Co., which had been founded by his grandfather and now is part of Merrill Lynch.
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