Brief Biography, Fred A. Harrington, Jr

Dr. Fred A. Harrington was born in Colorado, and at the age of 10 the family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father worked as a construction engineer. He attended the University of New Mexico in pre-forestry and then transferred to Colorado State University, where he obtained a degree in Wildlife Biology in 1959. After graduation, he was employed as a big-game biologist by New Mexico Game and Fish Department. Three years later, faced with the military draft, he chose to enter the Aviation Cadets program, where after a year of training he became a 2^nd Lieutenant with a flight navigator rating.

He served 5 years in Military Airlift Command during the Vietnam War era, attaining the rank of Captain and then returned to Graduate School at Colorado State University where he studied Bighorn Sheep in Rocky Mountain National Park for my PhD.

In 1970 Harrington was interviewed by Eskandar Firouz )head of the Hunting and Fishing Organization), for a position in Iran, where he served for 7 years in a wide range of natural resource activities. Among his chief accomplishments was completion of the National Report on the Environment for the Stockholm Conference and subsequently was asked to prepare a plan for creation of the Iran Department of the Environment. The plan was passed by Parliament in 1972, and he served as head of the Division of the Natural Environment, where he continued to conduct and supervise field activities, prepared a wide range of scientific and popular publications and worked with several film groups to document the activities of the Department.

Harrington returned to the United States in 1977 and worked as Western Regional Land Steward for the Nature Conservancy before setting up his own environmental consulting firm. He was hired by Ebasco Engineering to perform the Ecological Monitoring Program for the cleanup of Rocky Mountain Arsenal, allegedly the most polluted spot on the planet. Harrington was then engaged by the Department of Energy to perform the feasibility studies for cleanup of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility near Denver. He subsequently served as head of the Ecology Division, monitoring the cleanup. Both Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility ultimately became National Wildlife Refuges.

Harrington and his wife then returned to our roots in the Pawnee Grasslands of northeast Colorado where thay restored an historic hotel and ran a “birder’s bed and breakfast” which thay named the Plover Inn.