Jay Hammond

Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who served as the fourth governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982.

Hammond was born in Troy, New York and served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II with the Black Sheep Squadron.

Jay Sterner Hammond was born in Troy, New York in 1922.

Hammond studied petroleum engineering at Penn State University, where he was a member of Triangle Fraternity.

In 1946, he moved to Alaska where he worked as a bush pilot.

He later served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II with the Black Sheep Squadron, and in China, until 1946.

That year, Hammond moved to Alaska where he worked as a bush pilot and earned a degree in biological sciences at the University of Alaska.

Hammond had one daughter, Wendy, with his first wife, but that marriage ended in divorce.

In 1952, Hammond married his second wife, Bella Gardiner, with whom he had two daughters, Heidi and Dana.

Hammond served as a state representative from 1959 to 1965 and as a state senator from 1967 to 1973.

Hammond served as a state representative from 1959 to 1965 and as a state senator from 1967 to 1973.

Hammond served in the 1st Alaska State Legislature as an independent, joining thirty-four Democrats and five Republicans in the forty-member House.

At the time, Hammond believed that a Republican could not be elected in that particular time and place, but that he could not envision running as a Democrat on account of his upbringing and background.

He did serve as a Republican in subsequent legislatures, however.

He was Senate President in his final two years in the legislature.

He also served as the borough's manager during his time away from the legislature in the 1960s.

The concept of the Permanent Fund, originally championed in 1969 by then-governor Keith Miller and Anchorage Times publisher and editor Robert Atwood on the eve of the Prudhoe Bay oil lease sale, lay dormant for years as a result of the legislature spending the proceeds of the lease sale and construction delays associated with the pipeline.

During his first term as governor, Hammond, along with a young state representative from Kenai named Hugh Malone, conceived a program to invest oil royalties to cover future state budget shortfalls as well as create a long-term savings account.

From 1972 until 1974 he was the mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough.

Hammond was the mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough from 1972 to 1974.

Then, in 1974, he was elected governor of Alaska.

Hammond was elected governor in 1974 in a close result over incumbent William A. Egan.

The race was complicated by two major factors, amongst others.

One was a reversal of roles of sorts, where Hammond and his running mate Lowell Thomas Jr. were identified as conservationists, confusing and splitting the traditional party base.

The other was the appearance, for the first time, of a substantial third-party candidate, Fairbanks miner and real estate developer Joe Vogler.

Vogler's open contempt for the environmental movement created a further voter rift which no doubt helped Hammond.

As governor during the biggest economic boom in Alaska's history, the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, Hammond oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund.

He oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund in 1976, which, since the early 1980s, has paid annual dividends to Alaska residents.

He advocated for fiscal responsibility.

When his tenure as governor was over, he continued to be active in public life.

He advocated for environmentally and fiscally responsible government and individual civic responsibility.

Alaska voters approved a constitutional amendment establishing the Permanent Fund in 1976, one of the rare exceptions to the constitutional intent of not dedicating funds for a specific purpose.

Since the early 1980s, the Permanent Fund has paid annual dividends to Alaska residents, under a program in which credit has been variously given to, or taken by, Hammond, Malone, Libertarian state representative Dick Randolph and numerous other Alaskan politicians of the day.

At around the same time, Alaska eliminated its state income tax.

Hammond is often erroneously credited for this; in fact, he was actually staunchly opposed to the idea.

The elimination of the income tax was actually championed by Randolph, who persuaded his fellow legislators to pass the bill after mounting an initiative to force a public vote should the legislature not act.

A 1980 episode of the public television program Alaska Review (currently held in the collections of the Alaska Film Archives) prominently featured an edited "debate" between Hammond and Randolph on the subject, centered on the fact that Alaska faced a one-billion-dollar budget surplus that year.

As governor, Hammond advocated for fiscal responsibility, and introduced an amendment to the Alaska Constitution limiting state spending.

From 1985 to 1992 he hosted a television series called Jay Hammond's Alaska.

He wrote three autobiographies.