Governor Bill Walker was born in Fairbanks and raised in Delta Junction and Valdez. His parents, Ed and Francis Walker, were Alaskan pioneers. Ed Walker was an Alaskan Scout with Castner’s Cutthroats in the Aleutians in WWII, and his mother worked on the Alcan Highway project. As a family, the Walkers celebrated Alaska Statehood in 1959, survived the 1964 Earthquake, and worked together in the family construction and hotel businesses.
Governor Walker also worked as a carpenter, teamster and laborer on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline construction to pay for his education. He earned his bachelor of science degree in business management from Lewis and Clark College and his juris doctor from the University of Puget Sound School of Law (now Seattle University). Prior to taking office, Governor Walker and his wife, Donna, owned a law firm that focused on municipal and oil and gas law.
Married since 1977, the Walkers have four children, and four grandchildren. Governor Walker is an avid downhill skier and enjoys fishing, boating, snow-machining, campfires with the family at the lake, and taking the grandkids ice skating.
