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Sandro Lane '71 Named Recipient of JDDA Award
Ceremony to Take Place April 25, 2026
Midland School is proud to announce Sandro Lane ’71 as the 2026 recipient of the John Dreyfuss ‘52 Distinguished Alumni Award (JDDA). This award is meant to honor a Midland graduate who has supported Midland and the greater community through distinguished service. JDDA recipients exemplify the ideals and values of the school, and each year the community gathers to honor the contributions of the recipient during our annual Alums, Parents and Friends Day.
After Midland, Sandro attended the University of California Berkeley where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology, specializing in marine botany. Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree, Sandro headed north to Alaska where he landed a lab tech job at the University of Alaska Marine Science center in a genetics laboratory.
Sandro pioneered a genetic marking method still used for identifying discrete populations of salmon in mixed stock commercial fisheries and was awarded a national research award by the Reagan administration in 1982. His research also earned him a Master’s Degree in Fishery Science in 1984.
Sandro is well known throughout the state of Alaska for his efforts to create sustainable processes for the Alaska Salmon industry. Truly an entrepreneur at heart, Sandro created three seafood related companies: Taku Smokeries, Taku Fisheries, and Alaska Protein Recovery. With Alaska Protein Recovery, Sandro was able to blend his knowledge of olive oil production, learned as a youth in Italy, and his marine science education to create one of the top leading brands of omega-3 oil supplements, as well as a hydrolyzed salmon protein, all from the discards of salmon processors in Alaska.
We recently had a chance to speak with Sandro and ask about the accomplishments that led him to receive this award. Now retired, Sandro names Midland as the foundation for his career and the reason why he devoted his life to science. His natural love of science nurtured by Midland’s closeness to nature made biology a logical career path for him. Sandro had a surf board on campus and would go surfing as much as he could; this love of the ocean made him especially interested in studying marine life. Sandro coveted science classes at Midland, recalling fond memories of Field Ecology and Biology experiences..
“I credit Midland with giving me the impetus to look at the environment like, ‘we’ve got to improve this!’ And that’s one of the things I learned at Midland with Carl Munger and others: how to be a naturalist, how to be a conservationist… I mean, I learned a lot at Cal, don’t get me wrong, but what I learned at Midland had a deeper core effect on me and my life.”
Sandro talks about getting dismissed by Alaskan politicians for his “outlandish” ideas that salmon byproducts could be used for human nutrition, and how it would help improve water conditions. But he was not deterred; Sandro was able to work with the largest seafood processor in Alaska to recover billions of pounds of seafood waste, which led to a shift in the entire industry standards toward nearly 100% utilization in the processing of seafood. Major companies were able to increase their profit, but Sandro sleeps well at night knowing that he made such a huge impact on an industry that used to be a main source of water pollution in Alaska.
“That’s another thing I learned at Midland: I want to leave a smaller footprint. I remember one time, in Trash Canyon, we had a nighttime Biology seminar with Carl Munger. I remember climbing and sitting in an oak tree, and we were supposed to listen to the sounds of what was going on at night. A vision of trying to leave as little of an impact on this planet as possible, rather than just be a consumer, came to me really powerfully in that moment. I can’t remember what exactly was the circumstance, but maybe it was looking out at the canyon full of old stoves and stuff that couldn’t be composted and thinking ‘Wow, look at all this stuff that we’re throwing away.’ That’s a huge core memory for me, and that’s the code that I live by- leave as small a footprint as you can.”
From Sandro’s senior profile in the Midland Mirror, June 1971. Written by E.B. Towne
When asked about his message for future Midlanders, Sandro urged students to continue making strides in environmental sciences and conservation.
“Midland is ideally situated to be at the forefront of environmental sciences because you live it, you breathe it, you see it, and you feel it. We need people to dig us out of this mess that we’ve created and I think Midland is a nest of potential. You’ve got students spending four years in nature and seeing what nature really is, and I think that instills real motivation to want to make this planet cleaner and safer, to lessen our impact.”
The Midland community is grateful for all that Sandro has contributed, during his time as a student and as an alum. We look forward to celebrating him and the 2026 JDDA Award with our community on April 25, 2026, and hope you’ll join us. Congratulations Sandro!
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