Lasting Memories

John Hofman Hessel
April 24, 1934-April 26, 2018
Portola Valley, CA

John Hofman Hessel, age 84, of Portola Valley, California died April 26th at Stanford Hospital after a lengthy illness. John grew up in Woodmere, New York attending Woodmere Academy as did both his parents Sidney A. Hessel and Beatrice Hofman Hessel before him. After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire he received a degree in biology from Harvard.

John was a Renaissance man at an early age and his love of science was fostered by and with his father. Together they pursued and collected Lepidoptera discovering previously unidentified species of butterfly and moth. John’s moth, Automeris iris hesselorum, was identified in Southern Arizona while working on his PhD at the University of Arizona. His research continued at Stanford University on a post-doctoral fellowship. He was highly involved in the ecological movement of the 1970’s educating students and the general public about the negative effects of unregulated human activity on the planet.

Between college and grad school, John taught 8 years at prep schools in New England co-founding a school with a group of colleagues which exists today. Back in California, he continued his interest in population biology which led him to the organization Zero Population Growth (ZPG) illustrating the need for family planning. He then co-founded the non-profit Family Planning Alternatives (FPA), taking significant personal risk standing up for a woman’s right to choose.

John was an avid Stanford athletics fan and a sportsman at heart. When he officially retired from the non-profit world he pursued his passion for fly-fishing spawned from his summer fishing expeditions in the Colorado Rockies while doing research for Stanford. The fly fishing bug turned into a passion for building custom fly rods. The Hessel Rod Company was established where he built beautiful custom fly rods, many of which are still in the hands of fishermen and family members today.

When John could no longer fish at the level he wanted to, he decided to become a wildlife photographer. He and his wife Aileen traveled many times to Africa. On the last trip they were able to locate and photograph one of the rarest animals on the continent, a scaled mammal called a Ground Pangolin.

Another passion of John’s life was promoting access to higher education, which came from his own fortunate experience of being educated at his beloved Exeter Academy. He created a scholarship fund at Exeter to provide funding for promising kids. Recently one of the scholarship students from the class of ‘92 decided to “pay it forward” by establishing his own scholarship fund crediting John.

He is survived by his wife of forty-two years, Aileen; his children Doug Hessel (Teri) of Aptos; Geoffrey Hessel of Redwood City; Stephen Hessel of Mill Valley; Lucy Hessel of San Carlos; step-son Gregory Wimmer of San Francisco, step-daughter Diana Bariteau of Menlo Park; sisters Mary Dodge of Portola Valley and Sue Hessel of Lyme, Connecticut; additionally he left seven grandchildren.