Christopher Bruce Chace

Chris was a Navy Captain, a storyteller, a fisherman, a devoted husband and father, and the kind of man who made everyone in the room feel like his closest friend. He commanded ships across seven seas, logged a million airline miles after retirement, and spent his best days on the water off Panama City with Jimmy Buffett on the stereo and a cooler of beer. He was born during a hurricane. He lived like one, too — full of warmth, laughter, and unstoppable forward motion.

He is survived by his wife Sara, daughters Hillary and Katie, and three grandchildren: Cedar, Sebastian, and Penelope. There will never be another one like him.

Christopher Bruce Chace ("Chris" or "CB") was born on August 28, 1954, in Fall River, Massachusetts, while the hurricane "Carol" was barreling through New England – a storm so strong and devastating that the Weather Service removed "Carol" from its list of names – a harbinger of the hurricane force personality which Chris developed in life. From a very early age he enjoyed a strong affinity with the sea, fishing with his father and his grandfather Deane ("Bampa") in Narragansett Bay almost before he could walk. It became a dominating feature of his life: always seeking adventure and a way to get on, or get in the water, and particularly the open sea.

Born into a Marine Corps family, Chris was raised in various posts and stations across the nation, including California, New Jersey, Florida, and Virginia. While water sports – fishing, surfing, body surfing and body boarding – were his primary passions, he also developed a strong interest in golf, a sport in which he became skilled and competitive as a key member of an undefeated Quantico High School Golf Team (Virginia) during his senior year in 1972.

Chris graduated from Florida State University in 1978 on what he called "the Six Year Plan," stringing-out his college experience largely because he developed a love for the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle and all the outdoor activities and mayhem they provided. He enjoyed FSU so much that he learned of his graduation from the Washington Post (noting that he received a BS in Political Science), months after he returned to Virginia only because his college funding had stopped. Following brief stints as a furniture repair man with "Dip N Strip" and as a truck driver with Hilldrup Moving and Storage in Quantico, and with the very strong "encouragement" of his father, Chris finally found his stride as an honor graduate of the Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Shortly thereafter, he graduated from the Surface Warfare Officer School, and he embarked on his decorated naval career.

For the next 27 years, Chris was the quintessential Naval Officer, spending roughly half of his career at sea (13 years of Sea Duty) aboard such warships as the USS Radford, the USS Lawrence, the USS Nassau, the USS Gunston Hall, and the USS Saipan. He also served in a variety of staff assignments with the Atlantic Fleet Headquarters, Norfolk, Naval Coastal Systems Center, Panama City, and he obtained a master's degree in National Security Policies from the Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey, California. The highlights of his career undoubtedly were when he served as the Executive Officer, Naval Coastal Systems Center in Panama City (where he introduced his wife, Sara, and daughters, Hillary and Katie, to the Panhandle and FSU, and where he was also instrumental in creating the "Main Deck" bar on Base), the Commanding Officer of the USS Ponce (where he commanded at sea), and when he served as the Commander (Commodore) of Amphibious Squadron Two (for a deployment to Haiti, the Mediterranean and the Middle East). Chris literally "sailed the Seven Seas" and enjoyed every minute, as demonstrated by his extraordinary talent for telling "sea stories" of exciting and sometimes harrowing moments at sea, punctuated by even better stories of "liberty calls" in ports around the world – usually including where to find the best "certified" Guinness pubs and bars. He routinely piped Jimmy Buffett's "Lovely Cruise" throughout the ship on the "1MC" when entering Norfolk harbor at the end of deployments – a tip of his hat to his ship and the sea, and even more so to show just how much he loved and appreciated his sailors, chiefs and officers.

Chris's awards and decorations included: the Legion of Merit; the Bronze Star; the Meritorious Service Medal (6 times); the Navy Commendation Medal (4 times); the National Defense Medal (2 times); the Kosovo Campaign Medal; the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal; the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal (2 times); the Armed Forces Service Medal; the Humanitarian Service Medal (2 times); the NATO Medal (Kosovo/Bosnia); and several Meritorious Unit Commendations and Navy Battle "E" Ribbons.

Following his retirement from the Navy in 2005, Chris joined SAIC in Panama City, Florida, as a Senior Expeditionary Warfare Analyst, where he served for an additional 20-plus years. During this phase of life, he primarily served as the Lead Technical Direction Agent for the Deployable Joint Command and Control (DJC2) platform, and he continued his worldly travels delivering mobile command and control systems to Navy and Marine Corps units in the United States, Hawaii, and Guam, logging more than a million airline miles in the process.

Chris enjoyed a robust and unique zest for life which was matched only by his optimistic and outgoing force of personality which made him everyone's "best friend." His multi-faceted, continually upbeat personality made it easy for him to relate to and genuinely enjoy the company of all people, from the junior deckhand or storeroom clerk to a four-star admiral or a seasoned politician, and all people in between. Once he met you, you had an instant friend. Like Hurricane Carol which christened his birth, he also had an unpredictably adventurous spirit which was illustrated by the "nine lives" he used from his many escapades such as diving into Lunga Reservoir while eluding military police in Quantico, flipping his jeep in Tallahassee, and performing "carrier quals" on a bar in Rota, Spain – and in every case he emerged with a smile, a hearty laugh, and the best story to tell (and a few bumps and bruises). He was the type to find any party around, and to create one, if there wasn't one – all he needed was Jimmy Buffett music and a glass of scotch (a scotch-filled saucepan would do in a pinch), and he'd take care of the rest.

They say, "behind every great man is a woman," and that was the case with Chris. He met and married Sara Ann Zimolzak in the nascent days of his naval career, and her calming, mature and forward-looking nature was the perfect antidote to Chris's sometimes zany party ethos. Sara was the perfect "Navy Wife" who juggled maintaining the family home, her "CO's Wife duties" (Ombudsman, Key Wife), and a career in elementary education teaching children with behavioral disabilities. She was Chris's lifelong partner who monitored his craziness and kept him grounded enough to ensure his upward mobility and successes, and she was his most steadfast champion, support coach and patient-advocate as he battled cancer late in life. The fact that their fathers were Naval Academy classmates (Class of 1953) and Marine Colonels, made their marriage seem to be one of pure destiny, and it was.

Chris and Sara's two daughters, Hillary Ann and Katherine Ann ("Katie") bounded around the country as Navy "Brats," and they inherited their father's joy for life, and shared in his many adventures. They both followed Chris's footsteps to Tallahassee, with Hillary graduating from FSU before becoming a Navy Doctor (Commander, Gastroenterologist) ashore and afloat, and Katie serving as a Surgical Dental Assistant while raising her family in Chris's old stomping grounds. Both provided invaluable around-the-clock support and assistance in his heroic fight against cancer as Doctor Hillary and "Nurse" Katie, while their husbands Raymond and Freebeau kept their home fires burning.

Chris's most-treasured memories were days camping with Sara and "his girls," literally across the country and especially at Seashore State Park, Virginia, and rooting for his Florida State Seminoles (he was a "Golden Chief" booster and a member of the Bowden Society). An accomplished angler in the waters off Panama City, he spent 25-plus years "slaying" cobia, snapper, grouper, kingfish, triggerfish and amberjack, with Jimmy Buffett blasting on the stereo, a cooler of beer, and with as many family and friends as he could fit onto his beloved Grady White. His poolside seafood feasts, cooked on his massive Green Egg or in his bubbling fryer, were the stuff of legends. There will never be another one like him.

Chris was predeceased in life by his father, Frank C. Chace, Jr., and his mother, Joy Deane Chace, and is survived by his wife, Sara Ann, his daughters, Hillary Ann (Raymond Smalley), Katherine Ann ("Katie") (Freebeau Swindle), his grandchildren, Cedar Delaney, Sebastian Jeremiah, and Penelope Pearl, and his siblings, Stephen ("Sam") (Karen), Kimberly (David Brigante), and Cindy (Yvonne Miller).