When Gregory Slayton answers questions about himself, his work in Bermuda and his plans for the future, he invariably starts his responses with the word “we”.At first it’s a little disconcerting until it becomes clear that he hasn’t adopted a pretentious take on the Royal “we”, but is simply always including his wife Marina in the equation — the woman who nursed him back from the brink of death 20 years ago after he contracted hepatitis in Africa and has since born him four children.

That the pair are a rock solid team is clear from the outset of the interview — Mr. Slayton talks of his wife in glowing terms, of their shared religious faith, the value they place on family and their commitment to one another and achieving their goals.

“She’s the best decision I made on earth,” says the 47-year-old US Consul General. “To marry her, that’s been a real blessing. Divorce has been rampant in my family. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but my wife and I have been married for 17 years.

“Hopefully, we can break that unfortunate tradition and pass on to our children the tradition of a loving family united by faith.”

If that sounds a little too all-American and apple pie to be true, perhaps it’s because Mr. Slayton, who was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Ohio, had the opposite of a happy family upbringing.

He describes his father as being “in and out of the family” for years, before finally abandoning him, his mother and his two brothers when Mr. Slayton was still a child.

“It was not a happy childhood and it was not a good childhood,” he says. Spirituality played virtually no part in his upbringing and it was only when he got to prestigious Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where he majored in economics, that he began reading religious texts.

It was the New Testament which really affected him — and was ultimately to change the course of his life.

Instead of attending Harvard Law School, as he’d planned, he was inspired, aged 21, to travel to some of the poorest countries in the world and put his economic knowledge to good use.

He applied for and got a Fulbright Scholarship — one of a handful of awards handed out by the US Government each year, usually to PhD students, to study abroad. “By God’s grace, I won this scholarship, which was very, very prestigious in the States,” he says. “I was amazed. There were only two granted that year and something like a hundred applicants. I felt that was a touch of the divine.”

The scholarship took him to the University of the Philippines — where he learnt Tagalog, one of five languages he speaks — and all over south east Asia, as part of his Masters thesis on why some countries were poorer than others.

At the time he was a Democrat and, he says, “very liberal”. He chuckles at the memory and utters one of his favourite quotes, from Winston Churchill: “Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.” What he saw in the Third World began to convince him of the value of a free market and the experience eventually persuaded him to become a Republican.

“What I saw was that countries that allowed their people the opportunity to succeed or fail and had limited government, that seemed to be one of the secrets of success,” he says.Mr. Slayton continued his work in developing countries into his late 20s, travelling to Africa as a regional economist in 1985 and becoming the regional director for the World Vision relief programme.At one point he lived in the seventh region of Mali — “beyond Timbuktu” — and owned his own camel. He stayed in Africa for almost three years before a cup of camel milk precipitated his medical evacuation from the continent due to acute viral hepatitis.

“One of the things I noticed there was how frequently people died,” he says. “Every month I knew someone who died. I guess I should have recognised that it was only a matter of time, but you’re young. You think: ‘I can do this, this is important work that we are doing’.”

One evening, sitting in a tent in the desert talking with Tomashek chiefs, he was handed a cup of “obviously bad” camel’s milk.

“Trying to be the good soldier and diplomat, I guess some of it got on my lips,” he explains. “That evening I was so sick. That was the beginning of a slow but steady decline. Six months later one of my colleagues found me on the floor of my tent. I had passed out in the middle of the day on the floor. She knew enough to know that was not good.”

He remembers being evacuated to New York and “kissing the ground” when he landed in the States at the prospect of proper medical facilities. He admits it was “touch and go” for a while as he lay in a coma in hospital. Marina — a friend whom he knew through a Christian fellowship — stayed at his side and he asked her to marry him when he recovered.

But the pair’s trials were not over. Mr. Slayton was told by doctors he could not return to the Third World for five years so instead opted to go to Harvard Business School to improve his managerial skills.Around the same time, a doctor diagnosed him with cancer of the pancreas, usually a fatal disease. Happily, the diagnosis was wrong — he actually had African river blindness and was cured after trawling the streets of Boston with Marina to find a pharmacy stocking the correct treatment.

He describes a bout of “severe reverse culture shock” after getting to Harvard but eventually prospered in the highly competitive environment, gaining an MBA with honours.

Mr. Slayton worked for McKinsey and Co management consultants in Paris and New York and helped set up an office for them in Buenos Aires before accepting a job with Paramount Studios and heading west.

“That’s how I got to Silicon Valley,” he says. “We moved to Palo Alto and lived there for 11 years and it was a fascinating, fascinating time. Silicon Valley became the epi-centre of the high-tech world.”

After Paramount, Mr. Slayton served as president and chief executive officer of a number of technology companies, eventually setting up Slayton Capital, a private venture firm.

He was described in a bestselling book by Po Bronson on Silicon Valley as a “leader—that takes gung-ho to a whole new level” and he made the front cover of Time magazine in 1999, as one of a new breed of energetic, politically-minded entrepreneurs.

It was in Silicon Valley that the baseball cap he almost always wears became his trademark — and not entirely by accident.

He explains that he has to be careful in the sun because “I don’t have a tremendous amount of hair” but admits that Marina suggested he wear it often to set himself apart from other executives.

He says when Michael Dell, of Dell Computers, referred to him as “Slayton, the guy with the baseball cap”, he knew it was attracting attention.

“It’s just a small thing,” he says. “I never want to show disrespect to anyone. I don’t wear it at official functions. I think people need to focus on more important things.”

Though he made his fortune during the Silicon Valley years, he plays down talk of him as a self-made millionaire.

“In our society, one of the great delusions is that money makes you happy,” he says. “It’s great, it’s a tool, but it doesn’t make you happy. We have to forcibly remind ourselves of that.

“I come from humble circumstances and my wife was the daughter of immigrants. Sure, we all have to earn money and taking care of your family is extremely important. That’s an excellent motivation but the quiet satisfaction of a job well done is a wonderful thing—and I have always appreciated it.”

It’s that attitude, perhaps, which persuaded Mr. Slayton to leave the business world behind and accept the head of the United States mission in Bermuda, bringing his family to live in Tucker’s Town in September 2005.

Does Bermuda seem sleepy and inconsequential to a man used to the cut and thrust of the business world? Not at all, says Mr. Slayton.

“I think, you know, you have to bloom where you are planted. It’s no secret that when we got here we found a mission that was in a state of disrepair. I have done five or six turnarounds in the private sector. We had to make some changes here and we made a number of changes. It’s what you make it.”

He was offered several diplomatic postings by President George Bush — whom he has known for several years through his Republican ties — and chose Bermuda for a number of reasons, including the language and its proximity to the States.

“We have not been disappointed,” he says. “This is an important mission and it was certainly not a mission that was known as a top-performing mission in the world. I believe it is (now). I believe we are being recognised.”

On a professional level, he’s proud of the changes he’s made at the US Consulate on Middle Road in Devonshire, which employs about 30 people. That included getting rid of some senior staff and introducing new posts such as a economics/commercial specialist to advise businesses interested in relocating to Bermuda and a press advisor. “All these changes are at zero cost to the American taxpayer,” he says.

His efforts saw the consulate featured in the State Department’s official State magazine earlier this year.

“Some of my predecessors tried to come in and beat people over the head,” he claims. “You have got to establish a relationship so there can be give and take.”

His team has also made the July 4 celebrations on the Island a massive event — attended by some 6,000 people this year, probably making it the largest outside of North America — and organised bilateral talks in Washington, DC, for the last two years. Other projects have included an awareness campaign warning Bermudians that if they commit crime they risk being placed on the stop-list barring them from entry to the US and a reduction in the processing time for those on the list who apply for a waiver of ineligibility.

Mr. Slayton says he’s developed good relationships with the Governor, the Premier and heads of business here and has been delighted to see the arrival of Jet Blue airlines and the subsequent lowering of other airfares from the States, bringing in more American tourists.

“This is a small mission but it’s an important mission and we are proud and I want to thank the team here for their hard work.”

On a personal level, he and his family are enjoying Island life — while it lasts. The high possibility of a Democrat in the White House next year will end Mr. Slayton’s tenure on the Island. Until then, the family will continue to attend St. John’s Anglican Church and the Cornerstone Bible Fellowship.

Mr. Slayton’s 16-year-old daughter Sasha — who was born on the couple’s first wedding anniversary — is in Korea right now representing Bermuda in a debating tournament and will soon start the International Baccalaureate programme at Bermuda High School for Girls.

His sons Christian (known as Ivan), 15, and Daniel, 12, will attend Warwick Academy, while six-year-old Nicholas is at Cavendish. He explains that he and Marina chose to privately educate their children — like most Americans on the Island — because “for us, as a family, there is nothing more important than education”.

But they were dissatisfied with Saltus Grammar School — he doesn’t disclose why — which is why the three eldest are moving schools this fall.

“Everybody knows our kids went to Saltus,” he adds. “I know there are some change efforts going on there. We just felt that it was absolutely time for change for our children.”

He’s unsure what his next challenge might be but suspects business will play a part and possibly politics.

“Life is hopefully long and takes twists and turns,” he says. “You never know but right now we are very focused on being here. We really hope that we come back in three or five or ten years and see a number of the things we’ve started carried forward.”

He adds: “The thing that’s most important in any place you live is the friendships that you carry away. We hope that some of the friendships we make here will endure.”