Recovery czar’s youth, experience an issue

Neel Kashkari, 35, is now in charge of cleaning up a mess — he’s the Treasury Department’s point man to launch a program for buying troubled housing assets. A graduate of the University of Illinois, where he also earned a master’s in engineering, Kashkari is now the $700 billion man. He earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and spent several years on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs, where he developed a strong relationship with Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. He worked on energy issues and then on the housing crisis, participating in the formation of the Hope Now Alliance, a partnership among mortgage lenders, credit counselors and investors to help at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure by modifying mortgages.