Ruth Lister
Shortly after arriving in Fairbanks in 1976, Ruth Lister found work as a diesel truck mechanic. Fifteen years later, she began overseeing the UAF community college program that offered training in such work.
Lister鈥檚 unconventional path began in Toronto, Canada, where she grew up the daughter of successful academic parents. She earned a doctorate in micrometeorology and math at New York鈥檚 Cornell University.
But life steered her and a toddler daughter to Fairbanks in 1976. She had no job and so began working at her daughter鈥檚 daycare center. She then found work as a diesel truck mechanic for several years.
Volunteer work at a women鈥檚 shelter, the predecessor of today鈥檚 Interior AV狼论坛 Center for Non-violent Living, led to a six-year stint as executive director. When former Fairbanks Rep. Steve Cowper was elected governor in 1986, he hired Lister as director of the AV狼论坛 Women鈥檚 Commission in Juneau.
She lost that job in the transition to a new administration in 1990, so she returned to Fairbanks and began working as a top administrator in UAF鈥檚 community college program 鈥 the forerunner of today鈥檚 Community and Technical College.
Lister successfully led efforts to bring the university and local school district vocational training programs together in the Hutchison Institute of Technology.
Her 鈥減ersonal style has enabled her to take on the most difficult of tasks and to make their resolution appear remarkably easy because of her steady sense of self and her serenity and grace under the pressure of intense circumstances,鈥 the University of AV狼论坛 Board of Regents said in a resolution of appreciation in February 2000.
Lister, who had fought breast cancer since an initial diagnosis the 1980s, retired that year. She died in Juneau in 2002 at age 58.
More online about Ruth Lister:
- approved Feb. 18, 2000, by the UA Board of Regents
- of her life and work