ROMNEY IS A TAKE-CHARGE GUY

The following story about Mitt Romney was forwarded to me by Jay Wall. I checked it out with Snopes, as well as PolitiFact, and it turns out to be true.

It is obvious that Romney is a take-charge guy. He’s not only proved that with this story about the disappearance of Melissa Gay, but he also proved it by saving the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. When it appeared that the Olympics were doomed to fail, Romney was called on to take over from the inept organizers and he was instrumental in making the games a success.

If Romney wins the presidential race, there can be no doubt that he will be a strong take-charge chief executive.

Here is the story of how Romney was instrumental in finding one of his business partners' missing young daughter:

Sometimes, this facet of Romney’s personality isn’t so subtle. In July 1996, the 14-year-old daughter of Robert Gay, a partner at Bain Capital, had disappeared. She had attended a rave party in New York City and gotten high on ecstasy.

Three days later, her distraught father had no idea where she was. Romney took immediate action. He closed down the entire firm and asked all 30 partners and employees to fly to New York to help find Gay’s daughter. Romney set up a command center at the LaGuardia Marriott and hired a private detective firm to assist with the search. He established a toll-free number for tips, coordinating the effort with the NYPD, and went through his Rolodex and called everyone Bain did business with in New York, and asked them to help find his friend’s missing daughter. Romney’s accountants at Price Waterhouse Cooper put up posters on street poles, while cashiers at a pharmacy owned by Bain put fliers in the bag of every shopper. Romney and the other Bain employees scoured every part of New York and talked with everyone they could – prostitutes, drug addicts – anyone.

That day, their hunt made the evening news, which featured photos of the girl and the Bain employees searching for her. As a result, a teenage boy phoned in, asked if there was a reward, and then hung up abruptly. The NYPD traced the call to a home in New Jersey, where they found the girl in the basement, shivering and experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a massive ecstasy dose. Doctors later said the girl might not have survived another day. Romney’s former partner credits Mitt Romney with saving his daughter’s life, saying, “It was the most amazing thing, and I’ll never forget this to the day I die.”
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Lt. David Peterson of the Montville Township Police told PolitiFact four years ago that police reports do not mention Romney personally. But Peterson, as well as reports at the time, agreed that the Bain Capital search generated important attention to the case of the missing girl.