George Strake, Jr.

George William Strake, Jr. (born June 10, 1935), is a Houston, Texas, businessman and philanthropist who served as Texas secretary of state from January 16, 1979–October 6, 1981, during the administration of Republican Governor William Perry Clements, Jr. He left the secretary of state’s position to begin fund raising for his 1982 race as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. Strake was defeated by the then 10-year incumbent, Democrat Bill Hobby, also a Houston businessman. From 1983-1988, Strake was the Texas Republican state chairman.

Early years, education, military

The chairman and president of Strake Energy, Inc., Strake enrolled in 1949 at St. Thomas High School in his native Houston, where as an honor student he participated in sports and class government. He graduated in 1953 as a member of the St. Thomas Student Council and the Letterman's Club.^[1]

He then attended the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in economics and was Senior Class president. He was commissioned in the United States Navy and served two years in the Pacific on USS Rice County (LST-1089). From 1959-1961, Strake attended the Harvard University Graduate School of Business in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which he received a Master of Business Administration.^[1]

Strake’s father, George Strake, Sr., was born in St. Louis, graduated from St. Louis University, served in the Army Air Corp in World War I, went to Tampico, Mexico and later Havana, Cuba, to work in the oil business. He was orphaned at the age of seven. In 1929, he came virtually penniless to Houston, the home of his wife, Susan Kehoe Strake. He toured the back roads of East Texas in search of an oil-bearing formation. In 1930, he followed a creek bed outside Conroe, Texas, where he found the particular formation he was seeking. Soon two oil wells came to fruition, and Strake, a devout Roman Catholic, became the third wealthiest oilman in Houston.^[2] Strake, Jr., joined his father in the management of the G.W. Strake Company petroleum holdings. After his father’s death in 1969, he became an independent oil and gas operator. He later formed related businesses: Strake Trading Group, Strake Consortium (Yemen) Limited^[1] and Strake Management Company.

Civic activities

In 1982, the Catholic Strake received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Houston Baptist University. Strake was active between 1984 and 1998 in the conservative Council for National Policy, whose membership list includes Nelson Bunker Hunt, Phyllis Schlafly, and Woody Jenkins. He also sat on the Greater Houston Partnership's World Trade Supervisory Board, a panel that he chaired in 1998. He is a trustee of the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Foundation, president of the Strake Foundation, a member of the Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters Advisory Council, and Vice President of the Kenedy Memorial Foundation, Corpus Christi, TX.

He is also on the board of the Sam Houston Area Council Boy Scouts of America. Camp Strake, a 2,500-acre (10 km²) Boy Scout wilderness and summer camp near Conroe is named in his family's honor. His many other affiliations include the San Jacinto Museum of History Board, President of the Free Interprise Board, Houston and the Houston Rotary Club. Strake has also served on the boards of four banks.^[3] Strake was an early benefactor of the restoration of the USS Cavalla (SS-244), which saw action during World War II in the Pacific theatre^[4] and the Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Political activities

As Republican state chairman, he was automatically a member of the Republican National Committee during the administration of U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan. In 1978, Strake served as state chairman of the Clements for Governor Committee. Clements won a narrow victory over former Texas Secretary of State and Attorney General John Luke Hill, thus becoming the first Republican Governor elected in Texas in over 100 years. Strake was an alternate delegate to the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri, in which all ninety-six Texas delegates were pledged to Reagan, narrowly defeated by the party nominee, President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., who then lost Texas to Democrat Jimmy Carter. Strake served as Texas Secretary of State from 1979 to 1981 and ran unsuccessfully for Texas Lieutenant Governor against Bill Hobby in 1982, the last year thus far that Texas Democrats swept all statewide elections, including judgeships.^[5]

Strake was the chairman of the Republican Party of Texas from 1983 to 1988. He was an alternate delegate to the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, when President George Herbert Walker Bush was nominated for a second term, for which he was defeated by the Democrat Bill Clinton. Strake had also been a delegate to the Reagan-Bush conventions in 1984 and 1988 in Dallas and New Orleans, respectively. Strake is listed in the 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1993 Editions of Who's Who in American Politics. In 1989, he was appointed by Clements in the latter’s second nonconsecutive term as governor to serve as a member of the Task Force on Public Education.^[3] He currently serves on the boards of the Bullock Texas State Museum and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, both in Austin.

From July 9–11, 1990, Strake was co-chairman of the host committee of the Houston Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations.^[1] He was later cited by Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire, a Democrat, for his efforts in the economic summit.^[3] In 2008, Strake served on the steering committee of "Catholics for McCain" in John McCain's unsuccessful presidential race.^[6]

Personal life

Strake is married to the former Annette DeWalch, and the couple has seventeen grandchildren: Stephen, Vincent, Brooke, Brad, George, Christine, Brett, Meagan, Michele, Jeffrey, Molly, Mason, Patrick, Jonah, Sophia, Truman, Coleman, and Vivian.^[3] He currently resides in Texas. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he recovered fully. He remains active in politics and business today.

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