Hobson Bryan

Colgan Hobson Bryan Jr (born June 3, 1942 in Roanoke, Virginia; died August 24, 2022 in Tuscaloosa) was

Bryan was the son of Colgan Hobson Bryan Sr and Sara Turbeville Bryan. He graduated from Tuscaloosa High School and completed his bachelor of arts at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He went on to earn a PhD in Sociology at Louisiana State University, research rural poverty in the Mississippi Delta for his dissertation. While in school he performed in a rhythm and blues band as a drummer.

Bryan was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and was transferred to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington D.C. He continued to work in Washington as an official with the U.S. Economic Research Service and the U.S. Forest Service, in the Department of Agriculture.

In 1970 Bryan returned to Tuscaloosa to join the faculty of the Department of Sociology at the University of Alabama. His 1979 book, Conflict in the Great Outdoors, analyzing outdoor recreation, was widely read and cited. After two terms as chair of the department, he moved to the Department of Geography where he taught environmental policy and social psychology. Bryan's expertise in public access, water resource management, ecological tourism and social and environmental impact assessments gave him the opportunity to consult on high-profile development projects such as China's Three Gorges Dam and the U.S. nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In the 1980s he spent time as a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Lincoln College in Christchurch, New Zealand. In 1998 he served a one-year term as president of the International Association for Impact Assessment.

Bryan was an avid freshwater angler with numerous tournament victories. He served on the board of the Springfield, Missouri-based Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. He was also a lifelong member of Christ Episcopal Church of Tuscaloosa. He and his first wife, the former Karen LaMoreaux, had two children, Sara and Colgan III. She died in 2009. He later remarried to the former Terri Gramling.

Bryan died in 2022 at the Hospice of West Alabama.

References

• "Dr. Colgan Hobson Bryan Jr." obituary (August 25, 2022) The Tuscaloosa News