In Memoriam:
Cadet Hammond Hand, Jr., Ph.D.
Marine Zoologist, Professor, Mentor, and First Director of Bodega Marine Laboratory

The staff, faculty, students, and friends of Bodega Marine Laboratory are saddened by the passing of Dr. Cadet Hand on November 29, 2006.

We owe the inception of BML to the tireless efforts of Cadet Hand and his colleagues including Ralph Smith, Howard Bern, and Frank Pitelka. In 1955, after teaching many invertebrate zoology courses in northern California in various temporary quarters, Cadet and colleagues convinced the University of California to establish a marine laboratory at Bodega Head on the Sonoma coast of California. As Cadet described, “Bodega Head with its surrounding varied habitats of rocky shores, sandy beaches, protected harbor and related sand and mud flats offered in a small package a nearly unique biological assemblage of essentially maximum ecological diversity…[a] first class site.” In 1961, the University of California at Berkeley appointed Cadet as the first Director of the Bodega Marine Laboratory. Cadet set about to acquire the site for the Laboratory, which he designed. He then was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to construct the Laboratory and housing buildings, augmenting University funding. BML was opened in 1966 and the original buildings are in use today. Cadet helped unpack and assemble BML’s first furniture, and his surviving wife, Wini, landscaped the area. He continued to teach courses in marine invertebrate biology to students from UCB, UCD, UCSC, and UCSD. The new lab was a giant step up from the crab fisherman’s gear shed (“Foggy Bottom Lab”) where he and Ralph Smith famously had been holding classes. From the beginning, Cadet envisioned BML as a place where the research and education of faculty and students from many academic institutions could be enhanced; he nurtured BML’s open door policy.

Cadet was a preeminent scientist who published from 1949 through his final contribution to Light and Smith’s Manual (4th edition, 2007), the monograph for the identification of Pacific coast marine invertebrates. He inspired generations of marine biologists and raised generations of sea anemones in dishes in his laboratory, which he occupied until May 2003. Regularly and frequently, Cadet dropped by BML until the end.

Cadet's many achievements as Director of Bodega Marine Laboratory from 1961 – 1985 included developing an aquaculture research program and facility with UC Davis, establishing the BML property as part of the UC Natural Reserve System, establishing the Bodega Marine Life Refuge (1,000 feet offshore of the property), over 1,000 scientific articles published during his directorship, and the transition in 1983-84 from UC Berkeley to UC Davis administration. He oversaw the growth of BML from a budget of $5,000 to several million dollars/year, a staff of 4 to 70, and an expansion from one to four lab buildings when he retired in 1985. He also served for many years on the scientific review panel for the University of California’s Sea Grant Program.

Cadet sustained a keen interest in scholarly publications and BML’s library, to which he donated his journals while giving his reprints and books to younger colleagues. In 1996, at the dedication of the newest administrative wing, the new library was named in Cadet Hand's honor. The library was a good place to find him on his visits to BML.

Cadet mentored and collaborated with an international group of students and colleagues from multiple institutions during his tenure at UCB and BML. We will miss his visits to BML, how he regaled us with stories, his breadth of knowledge, his smile, the mischievous twinkle in his eye, his chuckle, and how he relished hearing about visiting alumni who always ask about him. We extend our deepest sympathy to Cadet’s wife Wini, his sons Skip and Gary, and their family.

-Susan Williams, Kitty Brown, and Gary Cherr

12.13.06 San Francisco Chronicle Article - Cadet Hand