Allan A. Ryan ’66

Allan A. Ryan ’66 passed away from a heart attack on February 2 at his home in Norwell, Massachusetts. At Dartmouth Al was a member of Delta Upsilon and the A Better Chance program and active as an announcer, reporter, and sports broadcaster on WDCR. He served on the original class executive committee and was the second president of the class (1972-75). Al also delivered a keynote address at the class 50th reunion. After Dartmouth Al graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Following service as a captain in the Marine Corps, he joined the U.S. Office of the Solicitor General before joining the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, where he became known as “the nation’s foremost Nazi hunter” for his team’s work in finding and prosecuting dozens of Nazi collaborators living in the United States. Upon leaving the government in 1983, Al worked in the general counsel’s office at Harvard and served as director of intellectual property for Harvard Business School Publishing right up until his death. He also taught law classes at Boston College and at Harvard’s extension and summer schools and served as chairman of the board of Veterans Legal Services, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. He is survived by his wife, Nancy, and children Andrew and Elizabeth, who reflected on her father: “One of the most important things that he taught me and my brother growing up was to always be on the lookout for injustice in the world, no matter how big or small, and to always do something about it.”