a political consultant until California Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to the California Fish and Game Commission in 2002, then to a six-year term in 2003. He was elected the Commission's president in February 2007. In 2003, he joined the effort to prevent the sale of genetically modified fish in California, the only state to have such a ban. He had concerns about the fishes impact to California's waterways. He was an outspoken critic of presidents Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush for their policies on issues such as conservation, the government's response to HIV/AIDS, and the "ban" on gay and bisexual men and women serving openly in the U.S. military. Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers described his dual role in the Clinton administration: "The problem was that whatever he said was both funny and revealing. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't necessarily helpful to the administration cause.... He had one foot inside and one foot outside. He was Bob first and foremost." According to The New York Times, Hattoy was "the first gay man with AIDS many Americans had knowingly laid eyes on." Hattoy battled recurrent pneumonia and other complications several times and suffered a bone marrow infection a few weeks before his death, but was generally healthy throughout his years with AIDS. He died at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California, from AIDS-related causes on March 4, 2007, aged 56. Notes 1950 births 2007 deaths HIV/AIDS activists American environmentalists American LGBT rights activists LGBT people from Rhode Island Clinton administration personnel AIDS-related deaths in California People from Providence, Rhode Island