Blanding, Albert Hazen, 1876-1970.

U.S. military officer.

Lumber and naval stores business, 1910-1916; Consolidated Lumber Company, 1919-1922; member, Florida Board of Control/State Plant Board, 1922-1936; U.S. National Guard officer, 1899-1917; U.S. Army Brigadier General, France, 1917-1919; Maor General, 1924; Chief, National Guard Bureau, 1936-1940.

Albert Hazen Blanding (1876-1970) was born in Lyons, Iowa, on November 9, 1876. His father, after retiring as a military surgeon, moved the family to Florida when Blanding was two years old. In 1895 Blanding graduated from the East Florida Seminary, the military academy that was a precursor to the University of Florida. The following year he joined the Gainesville Guards as a private. He served on the Mexican border during World War I, and was promoted to general on August 5, 1917 prior to his front line service in Europe. He left military service at the end of the war but returned to active duty later in life.

In his civilian life, Blanding took a seat upon the Florida Board of Control from 1922 to 1936, later known as the Board of University Regents. While on the Board of Control, Blanding was instrumental in the establishment of the state university system. While Blanding was on the board, he helped in the development and expansion of the campus and the colleges at the University of Florida. During this time he married Mildred Hall in June of 1900, and the couple had three children: two daughters, Elizabeth and Louise, and one son, William. His civilian life was short lived, however, when he was promoted to Major General and placed in charge of a division of guardsmen in 1924. Between approximately 1922 through 1936, Blanding also served on the State Plant Board of Florida. He was recalled again to military service for a final time in 1936, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him Chief of the National Guard Bureau, where he would serve until his retirement in 1940. Blanding died in 1970.

Sources Cited: Moore, Daniel. Men of the South: A Work for the Newspaper Reference Library . (New Orleans: Southern Biographical Association, 1922), 385.