Albert Bel Fay

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Albert Bel Fay (February 26, 1913 – February 29, 1992) was a Texas businessman, United States ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, and a Republican Party activist.

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[edit] Education and military service

Fay was born in New Orleans to Charles Spencer Fay and the former Marie Dorothy Bel. His father was the vice president and traffic manager of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The family moved to Houston in 1928, and Fay graduated from the old San Jacinto High School. He married Homoiselle Randall Haden on February 3, 1935, and they became the parents of three children. He was a Presbyterian.

In 1936, he earned a bachelor's degree in geology from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Fay was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve. During World War II, he commanded a submarine chaser in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. He thereafter served on the staff of the Submarine Chaser Training Center in Miami, Florida, and then as first lieutenant on the USS Yokes in Okinawa.

[edit] Extensive business interests

In 1938 Fay and his brother, Ernest Fay, founded the Seabrook Shipyard, which built submarine chasers and rescue boats during the war. He was also founder and vice president of Eagle Lake Rice Dryer (Texas); founder of Lake Arthur Rice Dryer (Louisiana); cofounder, vice president, and director of the family-owned Bel Oil Corporation (Louisiana); a vice president and director of the Lacassane Company; a partner of Quatre Parish Company (Louisiana); a director of Gates Learjet Corporation; and a member of Lloyd's of London.

By 1972, his petroleum interests included holdings in Texas, Louisiana, and several other states, as well as in Canada and New Zealand. He also had real estate interests in Nicaragua and the Little Cayman Islands in the Caribbean Sea. At the time of his death, his business interests included ranching, timber, marinas, and banking.

[edit] GOP national committeeman, 1960-1969

Fay's work with the Republican Party began at the precinct level in 1952, during the presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower, technically a native Texan and only the second GOP nominee since Reconstruction to win the electoral votes of Texas.

By 1960, he had become the Republican national committeeman from Texas. He was ousted from the position in 1969.

[edit] Running for Texas land commissioner

In 1962 and 1966, he was the Republican nominee for Texas land commissioner. In the latter race he won the endorsement of the AFL-CIO executive board and Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations. He lost both races to popular Democrat Jerry Sadler. One of the issues on which Fay distinguished himself from Sadler was in his support for national parks in Texas. At the time there was only the former state park, Big Bend National Park, within Texas. He supported the movement for a park on Padre Island in 1962 and in the Guadalupe Mountains in 1966.

No Republican was elected land commissioner until 1998, when current Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst won the position in a general election against the Democrat Richard Raymond of Laredo.

[edit] Running for governor, 1972 GOP primary

In 1972, he ran against five other candidates for the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination. He made it into the second primary but lost the nomination to then State Senator Henry Grover (1927-2005), also of Houston, a staunch conservative, who then was defeated in the general election by Democrat Dolph Briscoe. In the low-turnout runoff election, Grover received 37,842 votes (66.4 percent) to Fay's 19,166 (33.6 percent).

In the primary campaign, Fay argued for a national park in the Big Thicket, a state park on Mustang Island, and a recreational area along Armand Bayou. He also urged the development of a comprehensive water plan and advocated reducing property taxes on the homes of the elderly.

[edit] GOP financier and U.S. ambassador

Fay served as chairman of the state Republican finance committee, a member of the national Republican finance committee (1968-1976), a member of the Texas Republican Executive Committee, and a member of the executive committee of the Republican National Committee. He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1960 in Chicago, 1964 in San Francisco, and 1968 in Miami Beach; he served as cochairman of the state delegation in 1960 and vice chairman of the state delegation in 1964.

In October 1969 President Richard M. Nixon appointed him to the 13-member board of governors overseeing the Panama Canal Company. He retained that position until 1976, when President Gerald R. Ford named him ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago. He served in that capacity until 1977, when Jimmy Carter of Georgia became president.

[edit] Civic leadership and sportsmanship

Fay was a director and president of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, a director of the American Brahman Breeders Association, a vice president of the Houston Branch of the English Speaking Union, and a member of the Yale University alumni board.

He was also a licensed pilot and a yachtsman. He won the 5.5-meter world championship in Norway, in 1983, when he defeated twenty-five other helmsmen from around the world. He was also a three-time winner of the Scandinavian Gold Cup and the United States Nationals. Fay served on the United States Olympic Yachting Committee, the United States Naval Academy Sailing Advisory Council, and the board of trustees of the Yale University Sailing Association.

[edit] Death and statement from first President Bush

Fay died in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, on "Leap Day" 1992. He is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston.

Then President and Mrs. George Herbert Walker Bush issued the following statement on Fay's death: "He was a Texan through and through. He was a leader in building the Republican Party in Houston, starting in the early 1960's. Albert was a mentor who helped guide me in my early years in Texas politics, when getting Republicans elected was next to impossible. His service to the Republican Party has been invaluable."

[edit] References

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