(CHAPEL HILL) — Democrat Jim Neal, a businessman and investment banker running for the U.S. Senate, today said his opponent’s vote this week to slash $9 billion in funding for vital health, education, and medical research programs is the latest proof that she is out-of-step with the mainstream values of North Carolina.

“Fresh from her refusal to provide health care for 120,000 children of working North Carolina parents, Senator Dole has now slashed funds for child care assistance, college tuition help, and medical research,” Neal said.

Neal said Dole’s vote to cut $9 billion in essential health, education, and medical research funds stands in stark contrast to her support of the Bush-Cheney administration’s latest request for an additional $46 billion in Iraq.

“I talked to a bunch of folks down here in North Carolina – Republicans, Democrats and fence-sitters and they all wish she would be as quick to support families in North Carolina as she is to give her political friends in Washington anything they want,” Neal said.

The grandson of a carpenter, public school teacher and two mill workers, Neal was born in Greensboro in 1956, where he attended public school. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1978. Following graduation he joined Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. He returned to school at the University of Chicago, where he earned an MBA and worked a series of part-time jobs to pay his way through school.

As an investment banker at Salomon Brothers, Neal earned a reputation for leadership and innovative strategies while advising Fortune 500 companies on how to play successful roles in a changing global economy. He also worked as a senior investment banker with E.F Hutton and Bear Stearns, serving clients that ranged from Bank of America and American Express to Lincoln National Corporation and Transamerica.

For the past two decades, Neal has focused his career on information technology and healthcare companies, including serving as chief executive officer of RxMarketplace.com, a start-up firm that helped pharmacists offer patients prescription drugs at more affordable prices. Since 2000, Neal has led several private companies prior to founding The Agema Group, a financial advisory firm based in Chapel Hill.

Neal has continued his active involvement in nonprofit groups and political initiatives. A member of the Board of Governors of the New School from 2002 to 2006, he also served as a national finance committee member for Wes Clark for President and the Kerry-Edwards campaigns, as well as acting as a national fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles in 2004.

Neal has served his community as an overnight volunteer at a homeless shelter, a lay minister to mentally ill residents of an assisted-care facility, and a sponsor of a post-war Vietnamese refugee family in alliance with the International Rescue Committee.

Neal lives in Chapel Hill with the younger of his two sons, Winston. The oldest, James, is currently working in New York City.