Next time the Phoenix environmental activism community gathers to demand action on air quality or climate change, it will be without one of its most visible, vibrant and notoriously oven-mitt-clad leaders.
Hazel Chandler, 80, lost her 17-year battle with cancer Nov. 8, surrounded by family at her daughter Jen Chandler’s home in Prescott. Hazel, who had previously been living in Phoenix, had celebrated 9 years of remission before being diagnosed again in 2021.
To those who knew her best, it’s no surprise that Hazel outlasted cancer as long as she did. Her endurance in fighting what can feel like hopeless, losing battles against larger and more powerful forces proved inexhaustible over her six decades pushing for improved air quality and climate regulations on behalf of future generations.
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“She told me last week ‘I’m going to keep doing the work until I’m not doing it anymore,’” her daughter Jen told The Arizona Republic in late August, while Hazel sat in hospice signing up to testify virtually against a proposed federal climate pollution rule change she viewed as harmful for those who would outlast her. “She doesn’t give up very easy.”
Even as she entered her late 70s and her health declined, Hazel was a common sight among lawmakers and fellow activists who will now miss her easy smile, steady presence and willingness to organize or join events at a moment’s notice — pulling on her oven mitt before grasping scalding-hot railings to descend the stairs into the Arizona Capitol’s protest space.
“My oven mitt was riding in my purse most of the time,” Hazel told The Republic.
Hazel was already active on air quality issues when she moved to metro Phoenix in 1977, with two young children in tow. She grew up in southeastern Oregon and started studying early childhood education at Eastern Oregon College before relocating to San Diego with her first husband, Rik Chandler (now of Washington). She graduated from San Diego State University in 1971 and completed a Master’s degree at the University of Phoenix in 1981.
In Arizona, her work took a turn toward policy. She first took a job with United Way and two years later, in 1979, joined the Arizona Department of Health Services’ child care licensing division. Over a decade at ADHS, she rose through the ranks to become chief of health care licensing before leaving to start Phoenix Shanti, the region’s longest-running treatment center for HIV+ people up until its closing in 2020.
Hazel also worked with Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Maricopa County on air quality regulations, helping Arizona maintain its federal road funding because of pollution noncompliance. She then rejoined ADHS as part of the First Things First early childhood program.
In retirement, Hazel proved still indefatigable. She spent her last years as an advocate for science and environmental causes with the Union of Concerned Scientists and Elders Climate Action, a nonprofit now with 34,000 members that her daughter Jen helped organize and now runs thanks to Hazel’s introduction.
Hazel also continued working with the organization Mom’s Clean Air Force until April of this year, at which point she told The Republic she was forced to escape the escalating heat of the city after she became a regular with respiratory complaints at her doctor’s office on particularly hot or polluted days.
“Everybody needs to be able to get out into nature and into the clean air,” Hazel said. “But summers in Phoenix are really rapidly becoming impossible.”
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Hazel’s work fighting to preserve access to nature for everyone and against the human causes of climate change included helping to plant trees in lower-income, typically hotter neighborhoods in the Valley as a member of the committee advising on Phoenix’s tree and shade plan.
Hazel is survived by her two biological children, Richard Chandler and Jen Chandler, as well as a “chosen daughter,” Beth Smith, who joined the family as a fifth grader. She also leaves behind her daughter-in-law, Daniele, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren in Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and Indiana, and her younger brother and sister-in-law in Oregon.
The family is asking those who would like to honor Hazel’s memory to consider planting a tree, preferably a native species, in their yard or where it will get the care it needs to grow and provide shade for Arizonans.
“We all have to live on this planet together and we’ve got to make sure that we do everything we can to protect all of the people on it,” Hazel told The Republic in late August. “Of all the things we can do to help with climate change, the easiest is to plant trees.”
Jen will be accepting a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from the Environmental Defense Fund on Hazel’s behalf on Nov. 13 in Phoenix. The family will be celebrating her life in early 2026 and will announce details soon. You can reach out to info@eldersclimateaction.org to ensure you are notified.
A memorial fund has been established at Elders Climate Action to support her ongoing dreams for a livable planet for generations to come.
Reporting by Joan Meiners, Arizona Republic
