Aaron Jack Douglas

Aaron Jack Douglas was born March 29, 1940 in Memphis, Tennessee. His Father Aaron Douglas passed away before he was born. Aaron’s Mother was Tommie Wilhoite. Aaron and his mother lived with Tommie’s extended family, and later moved with them to Evanston, Illinois. Aaron was always precocious, favoring reading his aunt’s Encyclopedia Britannica to any other activity. He attended Foster Elementary and Evanston Township High School, where he is remembered for his brilliance. He earned a BA degree in Economics from The University of Chicago in 1962. Four years later, he earned a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

Aaron was an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1966 to 1971, and a Research Associate, at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1971 to 1974. He also earned a MS degree in Forestry from The University of Arizona, Tucson in 1986. Aaron was focused and efficient in pursuing education, finishing his degrees on minimal time schedules. An informal perusal of transcripts reveals no grade other than A for any of Aaron’s university degrees.

Aaron worked as a Natural Resource Economist with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, from 1986 to 1995, and as a Research Economist with the US Geological Survey, Fort Collins, Colorado, 1995 until retiring in 2011. He was a member of the Western Economic Association.

Aaron combined his prodigious intellect with impeccable education to mathematically formulate complex economic issue into formal researchable topics. He tenaciously targeted his skills to acquire and apply data, and test socially relevant scientific hypotheses. He advanced nonmarket valuation methods for evaluating the economic consequences of alternative management practices and social policies. For example, a legacy achievement is his work on valuing water and fisheries resources in the Trinity and Klamath rivers, California and Oregon. His authoritative economic analysis was instrumental in securing agreements among divergent interests to remove dams on the Klamath, thereby restoring economic values of a naturally flowing river. Native Americans, fish, wildlife, and recreation interests, agriculture, and electric power generation interests collaborated on this historic resolution.

Alongside Aaron’s superior intellectual and educational gifts ran an innate characteristic to care for other people, especially those who needed his assistance, or were in any way treated unfairly.

Aaron’s rare combining of scholarly gifts with spiritual generosity greatly lifted his colleagues, friends, and silent beneficiaries. A solitary man, Aaron bettered the world, advanced our understanding of it, and improved the ways we live.

Aaron is survived by first cousins Regeta Slaughter (Stanton), and Howell Johnson of Chicago, Illinois: And cousins, Donald Miller, Jeffery Ball, Wanda Burnett, Yolanda Wilhoite, Kathleen Ball, Melanie Miller, William Eric Ball, Charlene Harmon, Jo Ann.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 10:00 A.M in the Allnutt Funeral Chapel, 650 West Drake Road, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Burial will be in the Grandview Cemetery, 1900 West Mountain Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado, under the care of the Allnutt Funeral Home.