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 his late parents, Emil Aho and Bertha (Salmi) Aho, and lived a remarkably long life of 108 years.

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 had devastated Finland's pine tar industry, and his parents were among the hundreds of thousands who emigrated as a result. Bill learned English in primary school and brought the language home, helping his father become a shift boss in the mine.

After serving in World War II and completing a graduate degree in Poultry Science at Michigan State University, Bill accepted a position as Extension Leader in the Department of Poultry Science at the University of Connecticut. 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 advantage in working with producers throughout the state.

During his tenure at UConn, Connecticut became the birthplace of several innovations that would make the modern global chicken meat industry possible. Henry Saglio bred the white-feathered meat-type chicken now used throughout the world. Drs. Scott, Matterson, and Singsen developed the feed ration that remains the standard formula for meat-type chickens. Fellow Finn Bill Junnila of the Agricultural Engineering Department pioneered chicken house ventilation. UConn veterinarian Dr. Charles Hemboldt identified Infectious Bronchitis (the Connecticut strain), and Dr. Mark Tourtelotte developed the important mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) vaccine.

While none of these fundamental innovations can be directly credited to Bill Aho, as Extension Leader he played a catalytic role in bringing farmers, industry leaders, and researchers together. He organized countless late-night meetings between UConn faculty and Connecticut poultry farmers during the formative years of the modern meat chicken industry. The farmers themselves were a spirited and outspoken group of Russian, Italian, Eastern European, and Finnish immigrants, along with old-time Yankees, all of whom demanded nothing less than game-changing research results.

After retiring from UConn, Bill taught the annual five-week Poultry Management School at Arbor Acres in Glastonbury, Connecticut. At the time, Arbor Acres was the world's leading chicken genetics company. Over a span of 18 years, he taught 494 students from 25 countries. His former students went on to occupy the highest levels of management in poultry companies throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Arbor Acres and much of the chicken meat industry relocated to the South during the latter third of the twentieth century and are now gone from Connecticut. Yet the legacy remains in the billions of chickens produced each year worldwide using innovations pioneered in Connecticut by Bill's colleagues during one brief, shining moment of technological advancement.

Throughout his life, Bill maintained a passion for sports and physical fitness. He enjoyed ice hockey, skiing, and basketball while growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and later became an avid golfer in Connecticut. He remained a skier for 80 years.

Bill was predeceased by his wife, Sylvia (Palomaki) Aho, of Storrs; his sister, Isabel (Aho) Heino; and his son-in-law, Ronald Burns.

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 step-grandson, Fernando Viton, and his wife, Nichol Viton, of Kirkland, Washington; his granddaughter, Susana Aho and her partner, Jacob Roa, of Brooklyn, New York; his great-granddaughter, Ripley Burns, and her husband, Liam Gundlach, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; and his step-great-grandchildren, Enrique and Natalie Viton, of Kirkland, Washington.