Ray's Brief Biography

This biography is kept to a minimum because much of the information is elsewhere in this HTML.

I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska. Within a week I had my first airplane ride to Lake Minchumina, where I grew up. See Growing up in the Bush for a little more information about my early years.

When I was 13 my folks built a house in Fairbanks so my sisters and I could go to a regular high school. So starting 9th grade I was attending Lathrop High School. We had little enthusiasm for living in town and at every opportunity we flew home to Minchumina.

I started learning how to fly when I was 13, and took formal lessons and got my student pilot's license when I was 15. (Like my mother I had my pilot's license before I got my driver's license!) I got my Private pilot when I was 17. I could have gotten it earlier, but you can fly by yourself with a student license so I saw little need!

After High School I took a year off and spent the winter trapping. The next fall (1977) I started college (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). During Christmas break I smacked up a plane, and wound up spending most of spring semester recovering from a broken talus bone (ankle) crushed femur (leg), crushed elbow and dislocated shoulder...not to mention chemical burns from the gas the wing tanks dumped all over me when they ruptured. (Note: the plane was in even worse shape than I was.)

I have little enthusiasm for 'book learning' so it took me 6 years to get my degree (BS in Biology). After graduating I took another year off and spent the winter trapping again. Then I formed a construction company (TANSTAAFL Inc) with a friend of mine (Matt Jones); we built a few spec houses, and one under contract. By which time Matt had decided that construction wasn't his forte, so I bought him out and expanded into rental properties.

In 1988 a group of friends and I took decided that progress on developing the space frontier was going a little slow so we formed a non-profit group called ISECCo.

 

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