Born on April 24, 1918, in Dedham, MA, he prepared for college at North Pembroke High School and North Quincy High School and became a member of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity at Bowdoin. Following his graduation in 1939, he was a graduate assistant at the University of New Hampshire, from which he received a master of science degree in fisheries and limnology in 1942. He served in the U.S. Army as a first sergeant from 1942 to 1945 during World War II and received the Croix de Guerre (Cluster) from the government of France in 1945. He did further graduate work at Yale University in 1946-47 and at Boston University in 1947-48 and was an aquatic biologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1942 and again in 1945-46. He was the chief aquatic biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Game from 1948 to 1953, when he joined the Sport Fishing Institute in Washington, D.C. where he was for many years the executive vice president. He retired in 1981. He was also vice president of the Affiliated Sport Fishery Research Foundation, which he founded and which the Institute managed. He was an honorary life member and past president (1979-80) of the American Fisheries Society. He was chairman of the Natural Resources Council of America from 1969-1971 and served continuously for more than twenty years on the Conservation and Jamboree Committees of the Boy Scouts of America. In 1975, he was the recipient of the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award. He was a member of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles, a life member of the Freshwater Biological Association (United Kingdom) and the Outdoor Writers Association of America. In 1975, he was the Pentelow Lecturer at the University of Liverpool in England. He was married in 1943 to Genevieve C. DePol, who died in 2002. He is survived by a son,William Stroud of Herndon,VA; a daughter, Jennifer Trivett of Warrenton,VA; four grandchildren; and three sisters, Ester, Margery, and Mary.