Sumner Gerard

Sumner K. Gerard Jr. MBE (July 15, 1916 – February 24, 2005) was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat. Born in New York to a prominent family descended from Huguenots, Gerard attended Groton School and Trinity College, Cambridge. After serving in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps during World War II, he moved to Montana and became involved in business, including mining and ranching, and politics.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he was a member of both the Montana House of Representatives and the Montana Senate, serving as Republican minority leader in both. In 1974, President Richard Nixon appointed him United States Ambassador to Jamaica, a position he held through the administration of President Gerald Ford, leaving in 1977. He then moved to Florida, working as an adjunct professor of maritime archaeology at the University of Miami. He later retired and died in 2005 in Vero Beach, Florida, aged 88.