Donald Blessing Rice, Jr. (born June 4, 1939) is an American businessman and senior government official.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army Ordnance Corps upon graduation from Notre Dame in June 1961.

After 4 years of graduate school while in the U. S. Army Reserves, from 1965 to 1967, he served on active duty[citation needed] as a lieutenant and then captain of ordnance.

[2] In 1972, Rice became president and chief executive officer of RAND Corporation, an independent, nonprofit, public service think tank in Santa Monica, California.

At the request of President Carter, he directed a comprehensive study of the resources management process within the United States Department of Defense.

[2] He remained at RAND until May 1989 when President George H. W. Bush appointed him Secretary of the Air Force.

After he left the Air Force, Rice became president and chief operating officer of Teledyne in March 1993, serving until August 1996.

After helping lead a restructuring of the company and a negotiated merger with Allegheny Ludlum, he left Teledyne to become founding president and chief executive officer of Agensys Corporation (founded in 1997 and formerly called Urogenesys), a Santa Monica-based biotechnology company.

His first honorary degree was a doctorate in Engineering from Notre Dame in 1975; his second, in Management, was from Purdue in 1985; he received a third, in Laws, from Pepperdine in 1989; the fourth, was in Humane Letters, from West Coast University in 1993; and the most recent, in Public Policy, from the RAND graduate school in 1995.