Biography of Albert S. Hazzard

 

The Chapter’s Hazzard Award is named after Albert S. Hazzard (1901-1979), an outstanding administrator, educator, and authority on trout management. Dr. Hazzard was born in New York and received his B.S. and Ph.D. (1931) from Cornell University. His early fishery experience was with the New York State Conservation Department’s summer Biological Survey, being in charge of the Survey’s stream unit from 1926 to 1930. During 1931-1935, he was supervisor of fisheries investigations for the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries in the intermountain region of the West. In 1935, he became the first full-time director of Michigan’s Institute for Fisheries Research. Hazzard guided the substantial expansion of the Institute’s staff, facilities, program, and budget from 1935 to 1955. This included the site of the Hunt Creek Trout Research Station and several other fisheries research facilities. His main interests were in trout stream improvement, regulations on trout, trout life histories, and the improvement of trout fishing by restrictive regulation. Dr. Hazzard moved to Pennsylvania in 1955 to become the Assistant Executive Director of the Fish Commission. He retired from this position in 1963.

Dr. Hazzard joined the American Fisheries Society in 1938, served as President of the Society in 1950-1951, and was elected to honorary membership in 1970. He was closely associated with Trout Unlimited, served on its Board of Scientific Advisors  starting in 1959, and was the recipient of its first Annual Trout Conservation Award in 1963. In recognition of his leadership in trout conservation, the Chapter of Trout Unlimited at Binghamton, New York, is named in his honor.