Hank Asher

Who was Hank Asher?

Hank Asher was a businessman best known as the Father of data fusion. With a reported fortune of around US$500 million earned as the founder of several data fusion / data mining companies that compile information about companies, individuals and their interrelationships from thousands of different electronic databases. “He’s kind of a legend” among those who use investigative data tools, says Greg Lambert, a legal information specialist.

Asher dropped out of school at the age of 16 and worked as a draftsman in a local factory. Later he worked in a union job painting radio towers, with a house painting business on the side. Asher moved to Florida to avoid the seasonal shutdown in painting, soon establishing a business painting condominiums on Florida's Gold Coast. By the age of 21, he had 100 painters working for him and was reportedly grossing US$10 million a year.

In 1982 Asher smuggled cocaine while living in the Bahamas over a seven-week stint, flying to Colombia and Belize in his plane. Later he joined F. Lee Bailey and the Drug Enforcement Administration, convincing other Americans in Bahamas to exit the drug trade. "He was never charged with a crime, but a cloud of negative publicity has hung over his head for years, even prompting his resignation from Seisint's board last year [2003]."