Bill Butler

I was a Navy Brat, and the product of a "broken home" who had lived in a lot of places before arriving at Tamalpais for my junior and senior years. I was immediately impressed by the good fortune which had brought me to this wonderful place and these remarkable people. Despite my lackluster academic performance, those few months were one of the great learning experiences of my life. Thanks to you all.

Graduated:

Tamalpais HS: '61

US Army: '65

University of Colorado '72

One day in the fall of 1961, I got a call from Hans Halberstadt in which he said: "I'm going up to Calistoga to take skydiving lessons and I need some company. Wanna come and watch?" Seeing some potential amusement in this, I went, little suspecting that I was beginning a career in aviation. It looked to me as though Hans was having too much fun, so I signed up for the same course. We both made a few jumps over the next several months and then (separately) joined the United States Army.

Lacking any unified vision of my future, I looked over the career offerings for the Army, selected "radio operator" as my specialty, whereupon they made me a medical corpsman for three years. Oh well... After a year of service in Korea, I was stationed in Colorado Springs where I learned to fly in my spare time.

On mustering out of the army in '65, I attended the University of Colorado while working at odd jobs until I discovered that the Federal Aviation Administration was desperately short of air-traffic controllers. I started at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center in the summer of 1966, and worked there while slowly accumulating college credit. In 1970 I returned to CU, Boulder fulltime and graduated in '72.

I then worked for the FAA in various capacities as controller, supervisor, facility manager, regional tech expert, etc., in Denver, Salt Lake, Pueblo, Aspen (twice), Seattle, and eventually Anchorage, where I have been since 1991.

Retired from the FAA in 1994, I worked for a couple of years for the University of Alaska as Chair of the Dept. of Aviation Technology. We also own a 14-room tourist hotel in a little fishing community on the Kenai Peninsula.

Along the way, I've married three times. The first to a very nice lady who deserved better--we just didn't know how to do the routine maintenance that any good marriage requires. The second was just one of those things... I was 38 and lonely. She and I have a civil divorce, held together by the presence of our 19-year-old, a smart and charming underachiever who seems to be doing just fine despite us.

Since 1989, I have been with Gina Belt--we just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary--who is the finest human being I have ever known. She is a graduate of Smith (77) and American University Law who presently serves as a prosecuter for the Environment and Natural Resources Division ofthe US Dept. of Justice.

Gina and I are geriatric parents of the smart and lovely Olivia Meredith Butler (Smith, 2020) who will be accompanying us to the reunion.

I am most eager for them to meet the people who set me so many fine examples so early in my life.