Melvin Colvin Hazen (October 27, 1867 – July 15, 1941) was a Washington, DC politician who served as the 17th president of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, from 1933 to 1941; and the only one to die in office.

Starting at the entry level position of axeman, responsible for clearing brush on survey teams, he rose through the ranks of the D.C. Government.

[3] As the Surveyor was responsible for extensions of the street grid and recording the location of public lands, he served as the principal figure involved in urban planning decades before D.C. had such an office.

In 1933, with the support of his friend Cary T. Grayson, he was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

His death came less than three weeks after he submitted a letter of resignation due to poor health, but the White House had not taken action on a replacement yet.

[5] Constance McLaughlin Green, in her history of the District of Columbia, Washington: Capital City, 1879–1950, considered him emblematic of the pleasant but business-friendly and ineffectual caretakers who oversaw DC during its unelected government.