Walt Parker was a young sailor in the U.S. Navy in 1946 when the 7th fleet was ordered to Vladivostok in the former USSR to assist with the Lend-Lease Act.
"We were there to show them how to keep the stuff they got in Lend-Lease going, mostly Navy and Army radios," Parker reminisced some 60 years later, before embarking on yet another of his dozens of trips to Russia.
At 80, Parker may have slowed down a bit from his Navy days, but the World War II veteran, who arrived in Alaska later in 1946, is still a globetrotter. He continues to travel on behalf of various government and nongovernment entities, working on issues ranging from communications to the environment.
In the interim, he has been a trapper, bush pilot, dog musher, subsistence fisherman and has worked for federal and state agencies critical to the growth and development of Alaska. A graduate of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Parker was honored by UAF in 1999 with an honorary doctorate in science.
He and his late wife, Patricia, also raised five children, and the couple often traveled the globe together, consulting on issues ranging from fisheries to satellite communications. "It was fun," Parker said. "We took the consulting business wherever we went. We also had the first portable computer in Alaska. It was the size of a small suitcase."
During his years in Alaska, Parker also has taught urban and regional planning at the University of Alaska Anchorage, evaluated applied satellite technology for NASA, and conducted telecommunications consulting for the governments of India, Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Sudan and Egypt.
Today Parker is a senior fellow of the Institute of the North, an Anchorage-based center for the study of commonly owned lands, seas and resources, using the "owner state" Alaska as a model. He chairs the institute's circumpolar infrastructure task force.
"He's really a global person," said Malcolm Roberts, also a senior fellow at the institute. "He has a strong commitment to the environment, and he is very well read up on world issues, and he thinks like an engineer and a scientist."
Parker also does work with the Northern Forum, an international organization of 24 sub-national or regional governments from 10 countries near the Arctic Circle. He also serves on the board of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association, chairs the Bering Sea Council for fisheries and environmental preservation, and more.
Institute of the North founder and former Alaska Gov. Walter J. Hickel was one of several dozen friends and family members who turned out Aug. 11 to help Parker mark his 80th birthday.
Hickel, who marked his own 87th birthday a week later, saluted Parker for his contributions to the state, saying "your vision is clear and your job is far from done."
While Hickel was the only one of Alaska's living past and present governors to attend the party, all sent notes saluting Parker's contributions to Alaska. "This is a guy who you turn to when you want something done right," said former Gov. Steve Cowper, who named Parker to oversee the oil spill response after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound in 1989. "You've shown us what the word 'citizen' means," Cowper said. "Whatever you do, don't stop now."
Parker "travels more widely than anyone I've ever met," said former newspaper editor Steve Lindbeck, now vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
In 2001, when Lindbeck was signed up for a fact-finding tour for American editorial writers for Israel and the West Bank, he suggested that Parker join the trip. Parker quickly agreed, and Lindbeck got his name added to the list, but when trip organizers called two weeks before the trip, asking how to reach Parker, Lindbeck said he couldn't help them. "They had to wait a few days until he got out of Mongolia," he said.
Parker has made a successful career out of consulting in transportation and telecommunications," Lindbeck mused. "I wish I knew how to do that."
Alaska oil historian Jack Roderick attended high school with Parker in Seattle. He also ran successfully against Parker in 1973 to become mayor of what was at the time the Great Anchorage Borough. At one point during the campaign, Roderick was addressing the group when Parker's young daughter, Lisa, came up and scolded him, saying "how dare you run against my father. He knows more than you do."
"I had to admit she was right," said Roderick, who went on to win the race.
Francine Lastufka Taylor, who serves on the AMIPA board with Parker, also has worked with him on many levels. "He's very focused on solving problems," Taylor said. "He has a global view. He understands how the world works, that everything is really integrated."
On the road, Parker is like a troubadour, she said. "He's in Russia telling people how the Finns are doing. We need more people like that; people who understand that the local community is part of the world, and affects it. He doesn't have a political agenda. He feels that if the Russians need this, maybe I can help them. I'm not sure that he even sees the national boundaries," she said.
All that travel and all those meetings with representatives of various governments bordering on the Arctic can get tiring, and even somewhat frustrating, Parker said in an interview at his Anchorage home. "The satisfaction is trying to hang in there and make something happen.
