Mr. Leach was named US Ambassador to France in 2001 and served until 2005. A businessman and private investor, Ambassador Leach began his long entrepreneurial career as co-founder and president of various food-processing corporations from 1958-1971 in California. From 1995 to 2000 he was president and often major shareholder of numerous businesses, including Tejon Ranch Company, Cypress Farms Inc., and Union Ice Company in California; Sterling Inc. in Wisconsin; Krestrel Dental Corp. in Illinois; and Sybron Corporation in New York. He was an early limited partner in Forstmann Little and Co. in New York. Until entering his new post as US Ambassador to France, Mr. Leach was the president of several commercial and financial companies, including Foley Timber and Land Company, Leach Capital and Leach McMicking & Co., and Hunter Fan Co., involved in such public interest associations as the National Legal Research Center for the Public Interest in Washington and the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He earned a BS from Yale University and studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business and at Stanford Advanced Management College. He is a former chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of California and he was vice president of the San Francisco Opera Association.