Emile Bustani

Emile Morched Bustani (Arabic: اميل مرشد البستاني) was a Lebanese entrepreneur, philanthropist and politician.

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Bustani was born in 1907 in Dibbiyeh – Chouf. After he lost his father at age of six, Bustani was raised by American missionaries at the Gerard Institute in Sidon – South Lebanon. Later, Bustani received help from a wealthy Lebanese businessman to study engineering at the American University of Beirut, from where he received a BS in that field by 1929.[1]

In 1930, he rejoined AUB as an instructor in Physics and as a Graduate student he received his MA in Astro-Physics by 1932. A year later in 1933, he obtained a BS in civil engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.[2]

Back in Beirut after MIT, Bustani worked for a time with the Iraq Petroleum Company, but soon founded his own Contracting and Trading Company, CAT – a company involved in laying and constructing oil pipelines, building roads and constructing cities throughout the Middle East.

Bustani was elected a Member of Parliament in Lebanon in 1951, an office he held until his death in 1963.[3]

Bustani died on March 15, 1963 (age 56) when his airplane crashed off the coast of Beirut in a heavy storm.[4][5][6]

He is the father of Mirna Bustani, first woman to be elected in the Lebanese Parliament.