After Months on the Hot Seat, Bailout Director Nears Exit

At 35, he has built an enviable résumé. A former aerospace engineer who used to design NASA satellites, Kashkari went to business school and got a coveted job at a Goldman Sachs office in San Francisco. He applied for a prestigious White House fellowship, but in 2006, when he heard that Paulson was going to Washington, Kashkari called his former boss and said: "If you are putting together a team, I want to come with you." The two men started at the Treasury the same day.

Paulson said he did not know Kashkari well at first, but quickly noticed his intelligence and boldness. During Kashkari's first meeting in the White House with President Bush and his senior team, Paulson had expected Kashkari to sit quietly and observe. Instead, when a senior member of the president's team asked a question about energy policy, Kashkari piped up from one of the back rows with the answer.

"He's got a lot of courage, a very strong leader," Paulson said. "I think the story that hasn't been told is how Neel built out the [financial rescue] group at the same time we were developing programs. It was it was a real challenge, and I think Neel was very adept at it."

After Congress approved the $700 billion bailout package in October, Paulson tasked Kashkari with building the operations. But Kashkari faced a basic problem: The Treasury had a lot of staffers who could develop and write policy papers, but not many who could be part of a new government investment initiative.

Kashkari began to recruit senior officials from across Washington and industry. At first, many applied to join an effort to solve one of the greatest financial crises in generations. But some, after grasping the grueling hours and pressures of the job, withdrew their names.

Kashkari planned to leave when the new Democratic administration took over in January, along with the rest of the Paulson's political appointees. But Geithner asked him to stay on to make sure there would be a smooth transition.

Now that he is facing his last days at the Treasury, Kashkari said part of him finds it hard to leave "because the mission is not finished." But with his replacement, former Fannie Mae chief executive Herbert M. Allison Jr., now at the Treasury and awaiting confirmation, Kashkari said he can safely step aside.

He said he has no immediate plans except to disappear with his wife for several months to their cabin near Lake Tahoe.

"I don't think any of us could see what this job was going to entail," said Don McLellan, a former Motorola executive Kashkari recruited to develop the program for injecting public money into banks. "It was like asking Neel to jump off a high dive, and I don't think any of us could have told him whether there was water under him."