Jay Sterner Hammond (21 July 1922-2 August 2005) was the Republican Governor of Alaska from 2 December 1974 to 6 December 1982, succeeding William A. Egan and preceding Bill Sheffield.
Biography[]
Jay Sterner Hammond was born in Troy, New York in 1922, and he served as a US Marine Corps fighter pilot during World War II. In 1946, he moved to Alaska to work as a bush pilot, and he served as a Republican state representative from 1959 to 1965, as a state senator from 1967 to 1973, as Mayor of Bristol Bay Borough from 1972 to 1974, and as Governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982. He oversaw the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund in 1976 (which paid annual dividents to Alaska residents from the 1980s) and advocated for fiscal and environmental responsibility. From 1985 to 1992, he hosted the television series Jay Hammond's Alaska, and he died in 2005.