William "Bill" Sackinger

Born in Bolivar, New York in 1939, William "Bill" Sackinger earned an undergraduate degree in physics from Notre Dame and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Cornell University. He moved to Alaska in 1970 to teach electrical engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). After eleven years, he transferred to the Geophysical Institute at UAF where he taught and conducted research on sea ice until 1995 when he retired as an associate professor of geophysics and electrical engineering. Among his many projects were the Outer Continental Shelf Environmental Assessment Program in the Arctic and the movement of sea ice against offshore structures such as oil drilling platforms. Both before and after his academic career, Bill worked with private industry and as a consultant in a career that spanned more than fifty years. After his retirement, he continued doing research in Finland and Saudi Arabia, and was involved in worldwide energy concerns. In 2000, he participated in the morning storytelling session at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and shared some of his memories of working there in the early years. Bill Sackinger passed away in 2011 at the age of 72.