Washington, USA - President Bush, trying to improve the image of the United States in the Islamic world, announced Wednesday that he has named a Texas entrepreneur as liaison to The Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Sada Cumber, who is meeting with Bush later in the day, will be special envoy to the intergovernmental organization, which represents more than 50 Islamic states and promotes Muslim solidarity in social and political affairs.
Bush announced his plan to name a special envoy back in June, when he attended a ceremony honoring the 50th anniversary of the Islamic Center, a mosque and cultural center in Washington. "Our special envoy will listen to and learn from representatives from Muslim states, and will share with them America's views and values," Bush said at the time.
Creating a U.S. envoy to the group comes as the plodding war in Iraq has fanned anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.
The OIC was created in 1969 in response to an arson attack on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. It now has 57 members and is the second-largest international organization in the world, after the United Nations.
Bush's new envoy has founded six companies in the past 25 years and currently is chairman of SozoTek Inc., a global imaging technology company in Austin.
Before founding SozoTek, he was chairman of Psionic Technologies Inc., an Internet security software company acquired by Cisco Systems in 2002. In 1995, he co-founded Applied Science Fiction, a company specializing in a digital dry film process whose technologies were recently acquired by Kodak. He previously owned Triumph Flexo Industries, which was acquired by American Greetings in 1994.
He also serves as the chairman of TCMS-LLC, an intellectual property development company, and he is a principal in Texas Global-LLP, a partnership that manages the strategic intersection between business, government and public affairs.