Sam D. Hamilton dead at 54; U.S. fish and wildlife director
Washington Post, February 22, 2010 [here]
Sam D. Hamilton, 54, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, died Feb. 20 after suffering chest pains while skiing at the Keystone Ski Area in Colorado. The Summit County, Colo., coroner told the Associated Press that his death was consistent with an underlying heart problem. …
Mr. Hamilton, a 30-year veteran of the agency who became its director in September, was one of the leaders of restoration work in the Florida Everglades and along the coastal wetlands and wildlife habitat along the Gulf Coast after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought extinct, was spotted in his region in 2005, he told The Washington Post: “It’s given us a renewed hope that all these efforts, all this work, can pay off. It’s the story of how you can get a second chance.” …
The son of an Air Force pilot, Mr. Hamilton grew up in Starkville, Miss. His first outdoors job was as a Youth Conservation Corps member on the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi, where he learned to band wood ducks and Canada geese, to build waterfowl pens and to understand the importance of managing wildlife habitat. Mr. Hamilton graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977. He rose through the Fish and Wildlife Service from being its Texas administrator, to assistant regional director of ecological services in Atlanta and then director of the agency’s Southeast region, based in Atlanta. …
Survivors include his wife, Becky Arthur Hamilton, of Atlanta; two sons, Sam Hamilton Jr. and Clay Hamilton, both of Atlanta; and a grandson.