with special guest George P. Bush
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 11:30 am Omni Houston Hotel
Ambassador Chase Untermeyer will receive the American Jewish Committee’s Houston Human Relations Award on Monday, April 23 at a luncheon where George P. Bush will speak. Honorary chairs of the luncheon at the Omni Houston Hotel are President George H.W. and Barbara Bush. Ambassador Untermeyer has worked and befriended the Bush family since he interned on President George H. W. Bush’s first congressional campaign.
Chairs for AJC’s Human Relations Award luncheon are past award recipients Charles Foster and Ned Holmes, along with Bobby Lapin. Untermeyer will be honored for his life-long commitment to public service and engagement in public affairs along with his professional and volunteer achievements.
AJC’s executive committee and past president’s council noted in Untermeyer’s selection that he personifies the values and ideals of AJC – namely, his devotion to community service, and his sense of responsibility to the community. He is an inspiration to us as he continues to successfully balance his dedication to family, public service and professional life.
Untermeyer has invited George P. Bush, the son of former Florida governor Jeb Bush and grandson of former president George H.W. Bush, to speak. Bush returned from serving in Afghanistan last year and is deeply engaged in public service.
Untermeyer has been an international business consultant since returning in 2007 from Qatar, where he served three years as United States ambassador on appointment of President George W. Bush.
Ambassador Untermeyer has held both elected and appointed office at all four levels of government – local, state, national, and international — for more than 35 years, with work in journalism, academia, and business as well.
He is a 1968 graduate of Harvard College with honors in government. During the Vietnam War he served as an officer in the United States Navy aboard a destroyer in the Western Pacific and as aide to the commander of US naval forces in the Philippines.
Returning to Texas, Ambassador Untermeyer was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle for three years before becoming executive assistant to the county judge (chief administrative official) of Harris County, Texas, the jurisdiction surrounding Houston. In 1976, he was elected to the first of two terms as a member of the Texas House of Representatives.
He left the Legislature in 1981 to go to Washington as executive assistant to then-Vice President Bush. Three years later, President Reagan appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower & Reserve Affairs. When George Bush became president in 1989, Mr Untermeyer returned to the White House as Director of Presidential Personnel, responsible for advising the President on his appointments to federal office. In 1991, President Bush appointed him Director of the Voice of America, the overseas broadcasting arm of the US government, where he served until the end of the Administration in 1993.
Back in Houston, he was director of public affairs for Compaq Computer Corporation (since merged with Hewlett Packard) and vice president for government affairs and professor of public policy at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
Ambassador Untermeyer is a member of the Texas Ethics Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a member of the boards of the St Luke’s Episcopal Health Charities and of Harris County Precinct 1 Street Olympics. In previous part-time public service, he has been member and chairman of the Board of Visitors of the US Naval Academy, a commissioner of the Port of Houston, president of the Houston READ Commission, a member of the board of National Public Radio, member of the Defense Health Board, and chairman of the State Board of Education, appointed by then-Governor George W. Bush.
During his tenure as education chair, Untermeyer traveled with other Texas political officials to Israel with the Jewish Federation’s CRC.
Reservations for the luncheon may be made by calling AJC, 713 439 1202.
