Name: 

John Wood

 

Education: 

B.S. Mining Engineering, University of Alaska 1970, M.S. Mineral Industry Management, University of Alaska 1973.

 

Family: 

Wife Catherine, Children JP, Chris & Laura, 5 grandchildren

 

Current Occupation: 

Engineering Consultant (Part Time)

 

How many years were you with the University of Alaska Fire Department?   

2 1/2 years – from January 1967 till May 1969, one year as captain.

 

What is your favorite memory, story, experience, etc. while at the University Fire Department? 

The “flashback” and story I tell most often is responding to a middle-of-the-night trailer fire in Lemita in early January 1968 when all of us on the truck observed, thru the dense ice fog, the bottom of the hill bank time/temperature reading of -68 degrees F!

 

Brief history/Biography: 

I have spent the 44 years since my undergraduate degree working in the mining and construction industries in Alaska and this can be divided into three parts.

 

Right out of college I went to work for Joe Usibelli at his coal mine near Healy.  During the 5 years that I worked there I had lots of adventures and gained much valuable and varied work experience.  Cathy and I were married just prior to graduation and both of my sons were born in the Fairbanks hospital at this time.

 

In the spring of 1975 Cathy and I packed our little family up and moved to Anchorage where, for the next few years, I worked a variety of civil design and heavy construction jobs, and the experience and knowledge gained enabled me to pass both my mining and civil engineering professional registrations.  For the spring 1976 semester I was a commuting UAF adjunct professor and taught two mining engineering courses at the Fairbanks campus.

 

During the second part of my work history, from 1978 till 1989, I was primarily either in upper management or operations manager of two civil-works construction companies based in Anchorage.  I successfully helped navigate the respective companies through the “post-pipeline recession” of the late 78’s, oil money boom of the early 80’s, and the depression of the second half of the 80’s.  For most of 1981 I took a sabbatical to manage a large placer gold property evaluation in the McGrath area.

 

At the onset of the third part, in late 1989, I returned to the mining field and went to work for the State of Alaska Division of Mining in Fairbanks and served as Northern Regional Manager.  After three years I transferred to the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), the development arm of the state, and served as project manager on a number of AIDEA’s high-profile projects including the Red Dog road and port and the Skagway Ore Terminal.

In mid-2007 I retired from the State, but immediately developed a successful engineering consulting business that I only recently have wound-down into a part-time basis.