NOAAS George B. Kelez (R 441)  NOAAS "George B. Kelez" (R 441), previously NOAAS "George B. Kelez" (CRS 41), was an American research vessel in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet from 1972 to 1980. Prior to her NOAA career, she operated under the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1962 to 1970 as US FWS "George B. Kelez" and the National Marine Fisheries Service from 1970 to 1972 as NOAAS "George B. Kelez" (CRS 41). Before becoming a research vessel, the ship operated as a "small cargo ship" (AKL), first for the United States Army as USAT "FS-400" from 1944 to 1950, and then for the United States Navy′s Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS "AKL-30" (T-AKL-30) from 1950 to 1961. Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Wisconsin with Nickum & Sons Consultants of Seattle, Washington designed the ship as a "small cargo ship" (AKL), and Ingalls Shipbuilding constructed her at Decatur, Alabama, in 1944. Commissioned as USAT "FS-400", the ship entered United States Army Transportation Corps service as a United States Army Transport during World War II, operating in the Central Pacific Area under the control of the United States Coast Guard, calling at ports such as Noumea, Guadalcanal, and, after the end of the war, Wake Island. On 1 July 1950, she was transferred from the U.S. Army Transportation Corps to the United States Navy′s Military Sea Transportation Service, entering noncommissioned service in the U.S. Navy as USNS "AKL-30" (T-AKL-30). She was stricken from the Naval Register in 1961 and declared excess property at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Mare Island, California, during the summer of 1961. In late 1961, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), an agency of the United States Department of the Interior, inspected "AKL-30". The USFWS acquired her in 1962 for use as a fisheries research vessel, and in February 1962 towed her from Mare Island to Seattle, Washington, where she underwent conversion into a fisheries research ship over the next four and a half months at a cost of approximately US$100,000.