Obituaries

In the 1980s, she worked as a registered nurse at George Washington, Arlington, Fairfax and Alexandria hospitals. In the 1990s, she became an administrative personnel officer at State. She visited many U.S. embassies in the course of her duties.

A longtime Alexandria resident, she retired in 2005 to Solomons and was an avid sailor, cruising the Chesapeake Bay, the East Coast and the Bahamas.

She was born in the Bronx, N.Y., and graduated from Misericordia Nursing School and the City College of New York. She married and accompanied her husband, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development, to many overseas posts.

Survivors include her husband of 43 years, Dennis M. Chandler of Solomons; three children, Mike Chandler of Stafford, Phil Chandler of Leesburg and Christina Chandler of Tel Aviv; her mother, Marie Lewis of New Fairfield, Conn.; two sisters; three brothers; and four grandchildren.

-- Patricia Sullivan

Alexander F. HolserPhysicist

Alexander Fraser Holser, 84, a physicist who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of the Interior, died Aug. 24 at the Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. He had cancer.

Mr. Holser worked at the CIA as a physical scientist in the design and operation of technical intelligence collection systems from 1963 until 1975. He received a certificate of distinction for his work.

He then joined the Interior Department as assistant secretary of energy and minerals, and later was assistant secretary of water and science. He was Interior's representative to the third Law of the Sea conference at the United Nations, and was the staff representative to the interagency group on Antarctic and oceans policy. He retired as a senior technical adviser in 1989.

He was born in Bakersfield, Calif., and served in the Army in the United States during World War II. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology, where he also received a master's degree in math. He worked for Lockheed on advanced satellite systems design until moving to Reston, where he lived from 1965 to 1986. He lived two more years in Washington before moving to the Baltimore area.

In retirement, he worked as a technical writer and a teacher in the Baltimore schools' special education department, and was company manager for the Maryland Ballet Company. He retired a second time in 2001.