Richard Arthur Hayward

Richard "Skip" Arthur Hayward (born November 28, 1947), served as tribal chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe from 1975 until November 1, 1998.

Kenneth M. Reels succeeded him as chairman.

Early life and education Hayward was born on November 28, 1947, in New London, Connecticut, the eldest of 9 children. Hayward's father was a Navy Medical Corpsman who traced his ancestry back to the Mayflower.

Tribal recognition and land claims

Hayward's grandmother Elizabeth George Plouffe was the last member of the Pequot Indian tribe living on the Western Pequot Reservation in Ledyard, Connecticut. Her health declining, she asked Hayward to move onto and care for the land in February 1973. Another client, the Mashpee Wampanoag, had a strong tribal identity, but had recently lost their case because the state of Massachusetts no longer recognized them as a tribe. However, Connecticut still recognized the Pequots.

Hayward urged his distant family to move onto the reservation. Hayward launched multiple start-up businesses on the reservation, including producing maple syrup. In March 1976, Hayward testified to a task force of the American Indian Policy Review Commission in Boston, Massachusetts. He gave an impassioned speech about the injustice of arbitrary dealings with unrecognized tribes, notably stating, “I resent the implication that I am a second-class Indian.” In 1978, Hayward formed a Pequot housing authority to apply for housing subsidies, the first tribal housing authority in the state of Connecticut Hayward began raising swine and growing hydroponic lettuce on the reservation, but the businesses failed. Instead, Hayward received backing from the Indian Rights Association to fund genealogical research. He received an employment grant from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) program to hire a receptionist.

On January 15, 1979, the Pequots submitted a preliminary petition to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for tribal recognition. However, because of the slow BIA bureaucracy, a lack of historical evidence tying the Pequots to their reservation, Tureen elected to seek an out-of-court settlement instead. Tureen modeled his plan on the Passamaquoddy's settlement from October 1980, whom the state of Maine had award $80.6 million to repurchase disputed land. In October 1981, Tureen and Hayward met with Jackson King, a lawyer who represented landowners in Ledyard.

President Reagan vetoed the bill, however, stating that it would set a dangerous precedent for creating other new tribes, but Senator Lowell Weicker began to lobby against the President. He raised Congressional supporters who threatened to override the veto, so President Reagan compromised. On October 18, 1983, the Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act was signed into law. The tribe was awarded $900,000 with which to repurchase over 1,000 acres of land. To run the enterprise, Hayward recruited Howard Wilson, a member of the Penobscot tribe and a veteran bingo operator. The bingo hall opened on July 5, 1986, and was generating as much as $30 million a year in revenues by 1988.

After the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) was passed in 1988, Hayward and Tureen saw that a casino situated on the Mashantucket reservation would be a highly profitable enterprise. Back by the Malaysian Genting Group, and Foxwoods Resort Casino began its business in 1992. By 1998, Foxwoods was generating more than $1 billion dollars in revenue, and Hayward was a multimillionaire. The Mashantucket Pequot Indian Tribe grew from 125 people when Hayward organized the Western Pequots, to more than 300 in 1996.

Succession On November 1, 1998, Hayward lost the election for tribal chairman to Kenneth "Kenny" Reels, his distant cousin.

Personal life Hayward married Aline Aurore Champoux of Coventry, Rhode Island on June 25, 1969

Honors In 1994, the University of Connecticut awarded Hayward with an honorary degree. In September 2016, Hayward was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. In August 2017, the tribe gave Hayward its first Lifetime Achievement Award for Foxwoods' 25th anniversary. In November 2024, Hayward received the Joyce Olson Resnikoff Tourism Legacy Award from the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce.