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President Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover served as President of the United States from 1929 though 1933 after a distinguished career as a cabinet member under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, a notable effort in providing European relief during and after World War I as the head of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium, the American Food Administration and the American Relief Organization, the latter two as appointee of President Woodrow Wilson. Before all that public service starting in 1914 Hoover had a very successful mining engineering career. 

Hoover had the unfortunate luck to serve as President when the start of the great depression swept over the nation and the world. Although he was more willing than his predecessors to use the power of the federal government to try to control the economy he took the full blame for the depression and was soundly beaten by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election. One could argue that the most important American election of the 20th Century was Hoover's 1928 victory over Alfred Smith, because if Smith had won he and the Democratic Party would have been blamed for the Great Depression. The nation in 1932 would then have turned to a Republican to restore prosperity and Smith's friend and fellow former Governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt, would never have been President.