Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler

Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler (October 6, 1770 – November 20, 1843) was a Swiss-American surveyor who is considered the forefather of both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for his achievements as the first Superintendent of the U.S. Survey of the Coast and the first U.S. Superintendent of Weights and Measures. Early life and education Hassler was born on October 6, 1770 in Aarau, Switzerland. He was the son of Magdalena Ernst and Hans Jakob Hassler, a prosperous watchmaker and local official. He attended the Latin school and an advanced private school, then in 1786 the institute that later became the University of Bern. At first he studied law, but became a student of Johann Georg Tralles and changed his academic focus to astronomy, mathematics and physics. From 1791 to 1797 he continued his studies in France and Germany. In the summer of 1793, he studied under scientists Jean-Charles de Borda, Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, Jérôme Lalande and Antoine Lavoisier in Paris. He was employed on the trigonometrical survey of Switzerland before he emigrated to the United States in 1805. Career He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society on 17 April 1807. Through the influence of Albert Gallatin, he was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson as professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy from 1807 to 1810. Hassler was unpopular as a teacher and was dismissed on 31 December 1809, when John Calhoun, then Secretary of War, realized that Congress had not authorized the hiring of civilians to staff the academy. Hassler obtained another mathematics professorship at Union College at Schenectady from 1810 to 1811. U.S. coastal survey In 1811, he was employed by the federal government of the United States to begin a survey of the U.S. coast. An Act of Congress on February 10, 1807, appropriated $50,000 for the beginning of the work. In 1812, Hassler was appointed the superintendent of the first United States Coast Survey by the United States Congress. He was sent to France and England to collect supplies for the project. Hassler bought instruments of the most reputed French and British makers. After the British-American War of 1812 broke out, his instruments were confiscated as spoils of war and Hassler was detained in England until 1815 as the British thought him an enemy spy.