Robert Hayward, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s state government affairs manager, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $778,000 in assets and more than $3.5 million in liabilities.

Hayward and his wife, Rebecca, petitioned U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford last week, seeking Chapter 7 protection from creditors and indicating their debts are primarily business related.

Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code allows for the liquidation of property to pay creditors.

Hayward, a brother of Richard “Skip” Hayward, the former Mashantucket tribal member credited with envisioning Foxwoods Resort Casino, served the tribe as an executive assistant to his brother and as chairman of its gaming commission.

He left tribal government in 2008, returning this past April to fill his current post.

Hayward in 2005 founded Grey Fox Construction, a North Stonington-based home builder that ceased operating in May, according to the Haywards’ bankruptcy petition.

Several years ago, Grey Fox built condominiums on the Mashantucket reservation.

In an email exchange, Hayward attributed the company’s demise to market conditions.

He wrote that depending on its workload, the company employed from two to four people, including himself.

“Over the last eight years, the housing market and economic environment in southeastern Connecticut has been very challenging for construction companies like ours,” he wrote. “Although the work we produced was high quality and at very affordable prices, there’s a point where it’s near impossible to stay afloat when you’re always striving to win the lowest bid. Likewise, the value of our commercial and residential real estate dropped substantially, and that made it impossible for us to restructure debt.”

Hayward also wrote that it became “impossible” to manage the construction company while at the same time working for tribal government.

Filings in the bankruptcy case show Hayward also incurred debt in connection with Milltown Commons LLC, a proposed North Stonington mixed-use development project that first surfaced in the 2000s but never materialized.

“We were exploring potential development opportunities. There wasn’t enough long-term economic stability for what we had hoped to develop,” Hayward wrote in the email.

Hayward is listed as owning a one-third share of Milltown Commons, the other owners being at one time his brother Richard and Alan Pesch of Cocoa, Fla.

Among the Haywards’ creditors are banks that hold mortgages on homes they own in Griswold; the Internal Revenue Service, which has placed tax liens on the properties; the state Department of Labor, which claims unpaid unemployment taxes; the state Department of Revenue Services, which claims unpaid income and sales taxes; the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation; and Richard and Carol Hayward.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com