Chase Untermeyer

Charles Graves "Chase" Untermeyer (born March 7, 1946) is a former United States Ambassador to Qatar. He was given a recess appointment by U.S. President George W. Bush and assumed the position on December 7, 2004. After four years, he was succeeded by Joseph LeBaron.

A native of Long Branch, New Jersey, Untermeyer graduated (1964) from Spring Branch High School in Houston, Texas and, later (1968), from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He entered the United States Navy after Harvard under the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He served during the Vietnam War as an officer aboard the Pacific Fleet destroyer USS Benner (DD-807) and as aide and flag lieutenant to the late Rear Admiral Draper L. Kauffman, commander of U.S. naval forces in the Philippines.

In 1976, Untermeyer was elected as a Republican to the Texas House of Representatives from Houston, having served from 1977-1981. He had earlier worked as a Harvard student in the 1966 congressional campaign of future U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush of Houston.

Untermeyer has held numerous public positions: Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, Member and Chairman of the United States Naval Academy Board of Visitors, a Member of the Board of Directors of National Public Radio (NPR), and Member of the Houston Port Commission. He has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Installations and Facilities) and Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, and Director of the Voice of America, and Executive Assistant to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush from 1981 to 1983.

He was most recently Vice President for Government Affairs at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, having previously been a professor of Public Policy there.

He has made pre-arrangements for interment at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, a prerogative for all former members of the Texas legislature.