Raymond Keefer, an emeritus professor of chemistry with a long and distinguished career in research, teaching and service at the University of California, Davis, died on Feb. 6, in Davis, after a brief illness. He was 95.

The first student to obtain a Ph.D. in chemistry at UC Davis, Keefer went on to spend 40 years on the campus’s faculty. During his 12-year tenure as chemistry department chair, the unit experienced its greatest period of growth. When he was appointed chair in 1962, the department was home to 13 faculty members and some 20 graduate students. By the time he stepped down 12 years later, those numbers had soared to 35 faculty members and close to 70 graduate students. Between 1960 and 1966 alone, the number of Chemistry 1A laboratory sections the department offered skyrocketed from 12 to 42.

“Ray was chair for all those years because he was doing such an outstanding job,” said Ed Friedrich, UC Davis professor emeritus of chemistry. “The department was a friendly, happy place on all sides, and we grew tremendously in that period. He was a fantastic but low-key administrator, and was particularly respected for his fairness and his calm manner.”

Keefer’s research focused principally on chemical complexes. In close collaboration with Lawrence Andrews, a professor of chemistry and longtime dean of the College of Letters and Science, he conducted extensive research on the hitherto poorly understood interactions of the halogens and metallic ions with aromatic hydrocarbons in solution, in particular the rates, mechanisms, and equilibria of the various reactions. The results of the team’s work have contributed to a number of fields of research, from development of pharmaceutical compounds to the search for new types of fuels. Their book, “Molecular Complexes in Organic Chemistry,” was published by Holden Day in 1964.

In 1964, the two were jointly named Faculty Research Lecturer by the Academic Senate, an honor that recognizes exceptional research contributions by a campus faculty member. This was the first time the award — considered to be the highest commendation by one’s peers at UC Davis — had ever been shared.

A dedicated instructor who continued to teach freshman chemistry classes even while serving as department chair, Keefer was always looking for better ways to convey scientific subject matter. A popular textbook that he co-authored with his chemistry department colleague Thomas L. Allen approached the teaching of chemistry from an innovative perspective. One of the authors’ goals was to engage their readers in the excitement of discovery.

“Ray and I wanted to show students that the ideas that dominate chemistry are not abstract thoughts,” said Allen, now a UC Davis professor emeritus of chemistry. “So we kept hammering away at the connection between experiments on the one hand, and theory on the other. We tried to convey the concept that when people did new experiments and got new results, the ideas change. It was that connection — between experiment and theory — that was the dominant theme of the book.”

The book, “Chemistry: Experiment and Theory,” was first published in 1974. A second edition came out in 1982. Among the institutions that adopted it were Harvard University, the universities of Michigan and Minnesota, and UC Davis.

Keefer was a welcoming and supportive colleague and department chair, fellow faculty members recall.

“Ray was such a warm-hearted individual,” Thomas Allen said. “He went out of his way to help me get set up when I came to the department as a young faculty member. If I needed a piece of equipment, he’d knock himself out to help me find it and get going.”

In the cooperative atmosphere that Keefer encouraged, meetings were rarely necessary, Friedrich remembers.

“There was a coffee ‘half hour’ twice a day that most of the faculty attended regularly,” he said. “All the important matters got discussed there. We had a department where the various disciplines were all very friendly with each other, and a lot of this was due to the way Ray dealt with things.”

Born on April 29, 1913, in Twin Falls, Idaho, Raymond Marsh Keefer grew up in California, where he graduated from Tranquillity High School in Fresno County. He received a B.S. in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1934 and a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1940.

While he was the first chemistry student to conduct his Ph.D. research at UC Davis under the auspices of Davis professors, at that time all graduate degrees at the campus were officially awarded through UC Berkeley.

In 1940, Keefer was appointed to the Davis faculty as an associate in chemistry, with a promotion to instructor in 1941.

His career at Davis was interrupted by World War II. In 1942 he joined the U.S. Navy and served as a radar officer in the Pacific Theater. Upon completing active duty, he enrolled in the U.S. Naval Reserve, serving as commanding officer of his unit for 20 years. After a total of 30 years of naval service, he retired at the rank of captain.

Keefer rejoined the UC Davis faculty in 1945 as an assistant professor, rising through the ranks to reach the position of Professor of Chemistry and Chemist in the Experiment Station in 1956. He stayed with the chemistry department at UC Davis until his retirement in 1983.

In 1951, he played an important role in organizing the new College of Letters and Science. Chemistry was one of the first departments in the new college to offer an undergraduate major to students, and Keefer was involved in setting the breadth requirements for the college’s students.

From 1964 to 1965, he served as vice chair of the Davis Division of the Academic Senate, and then as chair from 1965 to 1966. He also served a term as chair of the committee that is now named the Committee on Academic Personnel.

In 1971, Keefer was among 12 UC Davis faculty members to be named “Outstanding Educators of America.” Nominations for the award come from campus officials and are based on excellence in teaching, research and administrative and civic service. He was a member of the American Chemical Society and the Society of Sigma Xi.

Keefer is survived by his wife of 66 years, Hilda Keefer, of Davis, and their daughter Katherine Keefer, who is currently living in India, son James Keefer and wife Kathie of Grass Valley, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his son, Raymond Marsh Keefer Jr., and his brother, John Alfred Keefer.

Arrangements for a memorial service will be announced at a later date. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions in Keefer’s memory be made to the UC Davis Department of Chemistry. Checks should be made payable to “UC Regents” with a notation on the memo line “For the Raymond Keefer memorial fund.” They can be mailed to Carlito Lebrilla, Chair, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.