Rowland Hazard III (October 29, 1881 – December 20, 1945) was an American businessman. He is also known as the "Rowland H." who figured prominently in the events leading to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Family and early life Rowland Hazard III was born into one of Rhode Island's oldest and most prominent families, the Hazard family. He was the eldest of five children of Rowland Gibson Hazard II (1855–1918) and Mary Pierrepont Bushnell (1859–1936). Although several generations of Hazard men bore the name Rowland, the Rowland Hazard born in 1881 adopted the name suffix "III" to distinguish himself from his well-known forebears. According to biographers, Rowland III was known as "Roy" to the Hazard family. He was a graduate of the Taft School and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1903, where he was a member of the Elihu Club at the time it became a secret Senior Society. Among his Yale classmates, he was known as "Ike" or "Rowley." Hazard married Helen Hamilton Campbell (1889–1946), a graduate of Briarcliff Manor College and daughter of a Chicago banker, in October 1910. The couple divorced in 1929, but remarried in 1931. They had one daughter, Caroline Campbell Hazard (1911–1953), and three sons, Capt. Rowland Gibson Hazard (1917–1944), Peter Hamilton Hazard (1918–1944), and Charles Ware Blake Hazard (1920–1995). Two of their sons, Capt. Rowland G. and Peter Hamilton Hazard, were killed in World War II. The pioneering psychiatrist Carl Jung was known to two of Rowland Hazard III's early friends. Yet it was Hazard's famous encounter with Jung that began alcoholics’ connection with the Oxford Group. Hazard is also attributed as the commissioner of the oldest boy scout troop in Rhode Island, Troop 1 Wakefield in South Kingstown. Like his father, Hazard was a member of the Rhode Island Society of Colonial Wars.
Business interests Although he briefly served in the Rhode Island state senate (1914–1916), Rowland Hazard III was primarily a businessman throughout his career. He was active in the Hazard family's primary enterprise, the Peace Dale Manufacturing Company, until its sale to M.T. Stevens and Sons in 1918. He was also involved in the Solvay Process Company and the Semet-Solvay Company. Rowland III was instrumental in completing his father's ambition to play a leading role in the formation of the Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation (later AlliedSignal, then Honeywell following a 1999 merger with that company). From 1921 until 1927, he was affiliated with Lee, Higginson and Company, a New York banking firm. He organized La Luz Clay Products Company near his ranch in La Luz, New Mexico. Later in his career, he became an executive vice president of the Bristol Manufacturing Company, a maker of precision instruments based in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was a director with several companies in addition to Allied Chemical and Dye, including the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company, the Interlake Iron Company, and Merchant's Bank of Providence, Rhode Island.
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