Dennis Cutler Blair (born February 4, 1947) is the former United States Director of National Intelligence and is 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 President Jimmy Carter and President 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. Blair attended St. Andrew's School (1964), and, as a classmate of Oliver North graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1968. The class of 1968 at the academy also included retired Admiral Michael Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Admiral Jay L. Johnson, former Senator James H. Webb, and retired General Michael Hagee, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. Naval career Following his graduation from the Naval Academy, he was assigned to the guided missile destroyer . He then received a Rhodes Scholarship, reading Russian studies at Oxford University, attending during the same time future president Bill Clinton studied there. He served as a White House Fellow from 1975 to 1976 with Wesley Clark and Marshall Carter. Blair spent over 34 years in the United States Navy. He served on guided missile destroyers in both