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After graduating (1895) from Stanford, he worked as a mining engineer in many parts of the world. He became an independent mining consultant and established offices in New York City, San Francisco, and London. When World War I broke out in 1914, Hoover, then in London, was made chairman of the American Relief Commission. In this post he arranged the return to the United States of some 150,000 Americans stranded in Europe. As chairman (1915–19) of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, he secured food and clothing for civilians of war-devastated Belgium and N France. After the United States entered the war, he became U.S. Food Administrator, a member of the War Trade Council, and chairman of the Interallied Food Council.
Appointed a chairman of the Supreme Economic Council and director of the European Relief and Reconstruction Commission at the Paris Peace Conference, he coordinated the work of the various relief agencies; he was given direct authority over the transportation systems of Eastern Europe in order to ensure efficient distribution of supplies. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Hoover returned (1919) to the United States, although he continued to direct the American Relief Administration, which was to feed millions in the 1921–23 famine in the USSR.
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