Preston M. Geren III
from: www.utexas.edu
The Honorable Preston M. Geren III, 1978
On Feb. 17, the Honorable Pete Geren was confirmed by the Senate to be Undersecretary for the Army, its second-ranking civilian leader. Prior to this appointment he has been a special assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Until November, 2005, he was the acting Secretary of the Air Force in Washington, D.C. As such, he was responsible for the affairs of the Department of the Air Force, including the organizing, training, equipping and providing for the welfare of its nearly 370,000 men and women on active duty, 180,000 members of the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve, 160,000 civilians, and their families. With an annual budget of approximately $110 billion, he ensured the Air Force met its current and future operational requirements.
Geren attended Georgia Institute of Technology for three years before transferring to The University of Texas where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1974. He completed his law degree at UT in 1978, entering private practice in Houston and Fort Worth, Texas. He went on to serve for two years as executive assistant to U.S. Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen. He returned to private law practice in 1985 and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Congress in 1986. In 1989 he won a special election to fill a vacancy in the 12th Congressional District from Texas, winning re-election three more times. He served on the Armed Services, Science and Technology, Veterans Affairs and the Public Works and Transportation Committees during his tenure in the Congress. Geren retired in 1997 and returned to Texas where he worked as a management consultant and later as a lawyer and businessman. He was active in civic affairs in north Texas and served on the Board of Directors and as Vice Chairman of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. He also served on the boards of several corporate, philanthropic and educational institutions.
Geren joined the Department of Defense in September 2001 to serve as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, with responsibilities in the areas of inter-agency initiatives, legislative affairs and special projects.
Geren has been actively involved in the civic life of Fort Worth and of North Texas. He was named Fort Worth's Outstanding Citizen in 1998, and Citizen of the Year by the American Heart Association of Fort Worth in that same year.
He is or has been a member of the Board of Directors of The Gladney Center, Trinity Valley School, Hatton W. Summers Foundation, Community Foundation of Tarrant County, Cook Children's Medical Center, the Rotary Club of Fort Worth, where he served as president, the Texas Boys Choir, where he served as president, the American Cancer Society, the United Way Task Force on School Drop Out, the I Have A Dream Foundation, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Tarrant County.