Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American Republican politician who was Governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982.
He was born in Troy, New York in 1922. Hammond studied petroleum engineering at Penn State University, where he was a member of Triangle Fraternity. He later served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II with the Black Sheep Squadron, and in China, until 1946.
In 1946, Jay Hammond moved to Alaska where he worked as a bush pilot and got a degree in biological sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He became politically active, serving as a state representative from 1959 to 1965, state senator from 1967 to 1972, mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough from 1972-1974, and governor of Alaska from 1974-1982.
As governor during the biggest economic boom in Alaska's history, the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, Jay Hammond oversaw the creation of the state government's most popular, and famous program, the Alaska Permanent Fund. The Permanent Fund was envisioned by Mr. Hammond as a program to invest oil royalties to cover future state budgets, but since the early 1980s has paid annual dividends to state of Alaska resident also. He also successfully worked to abolish the state income tax. |
