William (Bill) Albert Aho, Emeritus Professor of Poultry Science at the University of Connecticut, died on July 19, 2026, in Storrs, Connecticut. He was born on January 29, 1918, in Ironwood, Michigan, to Emil Aho and Bertha (Salmi) Aho, and lived to the remarkable age of 108.

Bill was born into a Finnish immigrant community of iron ore miners and lumberjacks in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The decline of wooden sailing ships devastated Finland's pine tar industry, prompting his parents to join the hundreds of thousands of Finns who emigrated in search of opportunity. Bill learned English in primary school and brought the language home, helping his father eventually become a shift boss in the iron mine.

After serving in World War II and earning a graduate degree in Poultry Science from Michigan State University, Bill joined the University of Connecticut as Extension Leader in the Department of Poultry Science. At that time, Connecticut was home to approximately 3,000 commercial poultry farms. Many were operated by Finnish immigrants, and Bill's fluency in Finnish gave him a natural connection with the state's poultry producers.

During Bill's years at UConn, Connecticut became the birthplace of several innovations that transformed the global chicken meat industry. Henry Saglio developed the white-feathered meat-type chicken that remains the international standard. Drs. Scott, Matterson, and Singsen formulated the feed ration still widely used for meat chickens. Fellow Finn Bill Junnila of the Agricultural Engineering Department pioneered modern poultry house ventilation. UConn veterinarian Dr. Charles Hemboldt identified Infectious Bronchitis (the Connecticut strain), while Dr. Mark Tourtelotte developed the important Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) vaccine.

Although these scientific breakthroughs belonged to many researchers, Bill played a vital leadership role in bringing together farmers, industry leaders, and university scientists. As Extension Leader, he organized countless evening meetings between UConn faculty and Connecticut poultry growers during the formative years of the modern broiler industry. The farmers themselves—a spirited mix of Russian, Italian, Eastern European, and Finnish immigrants alongside longtime Yankees—demanded practical, groundbreaking research that helped drive rapid technological progress.

Following his retirement from UConn, Bill taught the annual five-week Poultry Management School at Arbor Acres in Glastonbury, Connecticut, then the world's leading chicken genetics company. Over 18 years, he taught 494 students from 25 countries. Many of his former students went on to hold senior leadership positions in poultry companies throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

As the poultry industry and Arbor Acres gradually moved south during the latter third of the twentieth century, Connecticut's once-thriving commercial poultry industry largely disappeared. Yet its influence lives on in the billions of chickens produced each year around the world using technologies pioneered in Connecticut by Bill's colleagues during one brief, shining era of innovation—an era in which Bill served as an indispensable bridge between research and practice.

Throughout his life, Bill remained devoted to sports and physical fitness. Growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he enjoyed ice hockey, skiing, and basketball before later taking up golf in Connecticut. Remarkably, he skied for 90 years.

Bill was predeceased by his wife, Sylvia (Palomaki) Aho of Storrs, Connecticut, and his sister, Isabel (Aho) Heino of Port Huron, Michigan. He is survived by his daughter, Janet Burns of Cambridge, Massachusetts; his son, Paul Aho, and daughter-in-law, Elena Sevilla, of Storrs, Connecticut; his grandson, Jason Burns, and his wife, Bronia Clifton, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; his granddaughter, Susana Aho, and her partner, Jacob Roa, of Brooklyn, New York; and his great-granddaughter, Ripley Burns, and her husband, Liam Gundlach, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.