Dennis C. Blair

Dennis Cutler Blair (born February 4, 1947) is the former United States Director of National Intelligence and a retired United States Navy admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region. Blair was a career officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the White House during the presidencies of both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Blair retired from the Navy in 2002 as an Admiral. In 2009, Blair was selected as President Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence, but after a series of bureaucratic battles, he resigned on May 20, 2010. He currently serves as a member of the Energy Security Leadership Council of Securing America's Future Energy, and is on the boards of the Atlantic Council, Freedom House, the National Bureau of Asian Research, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He also serves as co-chair of the annual Pacific Energy Summit. He also serves as a senior advisor to Ron Wahid, Chairman of Arcanum, a global strategic intelligence company and subsidiary of Magellan Investment Holdings. Early years Blair was born in Kittery, Maine, the son of Abbie Dora (née Ansel) and Captain Carvel Hall Blair. He is a sixth-generation naval officer and the great-great-great-grandson of Confederate Chief Engineer William Price Williamson of North Carolina, who is credited with first suggesting that the hull of the be used to build the Confederate ironclad . He also counts portrait painter Charles Willson Peale and U.S. Attorney General William Wirt among his ancestors.