LEN LAURANCE STORY

 

Published 5-8-21

 

 

 

By Dave Kiffer

For the Daily News

At a Borough Assembly meeting many years ago, Len Laurance began by saying that he had many hats. Then he proceeded to don three different hats as he spoke to the Assembly on different topics each relating to a different interest of his. One was as a member of the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau board, one was a member of the Historic Ketchikan board and finally one was as a member of the Inter-Island Ferry board. For good measure as also weighed in for one of the companies that he was marketing at the time. He put on a fourth hat - with the company logo - for that one.

At the time, one could have wondered if there was any facet of the community that Laurance wasn't speaking for. After more than 60 years in the public eye in Ketchikan, it's a fair question. Laurance, who died in April after a long illness in Bellingham, where he and his wife Judy had moved for health reasons in 2019, always seemed to be speaking up for Ketchikan.

Laurance was born in Perth,  Western Australia in 1933 and was 30 when he arrived in Ketchikan in the early 1960s. He opened up a tour agency a few years later and very famously announced, in the early 1970s, that Ketchikan would someday get more than one million cruise passengers each year. At the time the community was getting fewer than 70,000 passengers on a handful of ships each week. Members of the audience chuckled. But by the mid 2010s, Laurance's prophecy had come true. As usual, he got the last laugh.

He spent decades on local area boards like the KVB, Historic Ketchikan and the Ketchikan Hospital Board. He represented the community so often at regional and national events he became known as "Mr. Ketchikan." He was given lifetime achievement awards by both the KVB and the Alaska Visitors Association. He received a meritorious service award from the University of Alaska.

He was indeed a constant presence promoting the community and the region, inside and out, for half a century. 

Like many locals, City Mayor Bob Sivertsen had many interactions with Laurance over the years.

"I enjoyed his radio shows that talked about other destinations and lifestyles," Sivertsen said last week. "He encouraged everyone to travel and explore. If there was a discussion about tourism Len was involved, he was the father of tourism in Ketchikan.  He had an infectious smile and a personality that would welcome anyone into the conversation."

Laurance was an active participant in many facets of his adopted city's life, including spending two terms on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly. 

But his main contributions over the years were to the visitor industry.

Ketchikan Visitors Bureau executive director Patti Mackey said she first met Laurance when she was working at radio station KTKN in the early 1990s.

"He was hosting his Air Sea Travel report," she said. "He was very compelling talking about all these wonderful places you could travel and his segment was popular. I mean who didn't want to dream of Fiji in the middle of a wet, gray Ketchikan winter?"

Mackey said last week that Laurance brought a unique viewpoint to the KVB board over the years.

"There were very few on the KVB board who had a marketing background when I started, most were from operations positions or represented the community in various ways, so what Len said, they typically backed," she said. "After all, he had served on the Alaska Tourism Marketing Council and the Southeast Alaska Tourism Council and he had definite ideas. He believed in synergy between the state program and what KVB was doing and was always an advocate for spending as much of our budget on promotion as possible. Len's dedication to marketing Ketchikan as a visitor destination was another benefit. And he was always willing to speak in support at Borough and City meetings."

It has been estimated that Laurance addressed the City Council and the Borough Assembly more than 200 times over the years. Always setting the tone with his tongue-in-cheek opening: "As unaccustomed I am to public speaking...."

Mackey said that, above all, Laurance was an "idea" man. That was a point echoed by Terry Wanzer who served with Laurance on the board of Historic Ketchikan for nearly 30 years.

Wanzer's connections with Laurance went back nearly 50 years into the 1970s, long before there even was a Ketchikan Visitors Bureau, just a visitors' subcommittee within the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce.

He said that Laurance was instrumental in forming the local chapter of the Alaska Visitors Association in 1980 and that morphed into the visitor's bureau when Dale Fox was hired as the first executive director.

Wanzer said, that in those days, Laurance was already the lead promoter of the industry along with others such Oli and Marge Hanger, Ann Shrum, Tom Sawyer, Denise Metcalf, the Greuter Family at Schallerers and Babe and Boots Adams at the Trading Post, along with Wanzer, of course.

"Len was always the idea guy," Wanzer said last week. "Len went to every meeting that ever existed. The problem with promoting so many ideas is that somebody has to do the work and people have to be procured. Some ideas fly and other other's flounder. Len was always the promoter."

One of the biggest ideas that Laurance and Wanzer had together was the creation of group dedicated to preserving local history, not just for its own sake, but for economic development for the community. They first started looking towards the national Main Street program in the mid 1980s as a way to revitalize Ketchikan's downtown at a time when much of the economic activity was moving out to the West End. The Main Street program itself wasn't a good fit, so Laurance and Wanzer created their own organization, Historic Ketchikan. Laurance was on the board from 1990 until he moved south for health reasons in 2019. Wanzer is still on the board.

"Why history?" Wanzer said. "Renown always sells. The product on The Creek is one. History does also. Len knew this and recognized that Ketchikan was unique in character but was kind of a dump in those days. Needed to be spruced up for citizens and visitors alike. We needed downtown revitalization badly."

Over the years, Historic Ketchikan helped with the renovation of numerous local properties and brought a state home improvement project to the community as well as undertook historic signage and walking tour programs and produced a local history, Spirit, and the biennial Our Town magazines that was used to help promote the community.

Wanzer said that Laurence was unfailing pleasant and polite, but that he was also relentless and undeterrable when he had an idea.

"Len was his own person," Wanzer said.

One of those ideas was the establishment of a ferry authority to improve service to Prince of Wales Island in the 1990s.

POW had had state ferry system service between Ketchikan and Hollis, but most island residents felt it was not meeting the need and was subject to the state budget pressures that adversely affected the entire ferry system.  Laurance signed on with Tom Briggs, Kent Miller, Jim Van Altvorst and Longtime Craig Mayor Dennis Watson to create the Inter Island Ferry Authority.  Laurance specifically saw a need for regular daily service to grow the island visitor industry and to improve connections between POW and Ketchikan, as well as Wrangell and Petersburg.

"Where others in that endeavor were more focused on funding and the technical aspects of creating a new ferry service, Len's forte was getting the word out through the various media outlets and he was good at it," Watson said last week. "He created numerous press releases and informational brochures. Many times, we used Len’s material when visiting Juneau and Washington DC to promote our cause. Through his efforts the Inter-Island Ferry Authority was recognized through Southeast and through many nation-wide travel information outlets. He also planned and promoted IFA special events, such as, passenger count benchmarks, the thousandth passenger, ten thousandth and so on, and made sure there was plenty of the press attending when it happened."

Watson said that Laurance always saw the visitor industry as a regional whole, not focusing on specifics.

"It was his favorite subject," Watson said. "Visitor-related travel between Ketchikan, POW, Prince Rupert and Hyder/Stewart."

Watson said that when the IFA determined that it could not continue to provide service from northern POW to Wrangell and Petersburg, Laurance pivoted to seeing whether a connection between Hollis and Hyder was possible.

"With mainland highway traffic to Hyder on the increase due to the popularity of the bear viewing facility, this was an intriguing proposal," Watson said. "  Unfortunately, because of the great distance between Ketchikan and Hyder we had some logistical issues we could not overcome. We also discussed the possibility of IFA providing ferry service to Prince Rupert should AMHS discontinue that route."

In the 1980s, Laurance was part of a group that encouraged the Marine Highway to put Hyder on its map. The AMHS made several attempts over the next three decades to provide service to the community and take advantage of its connection to the continental road system, but the service never penciled out as far as the ferry system was concerned.  Laurance also worked with air taxi operators to provide scheduled service between Ketchikan and Hyder.

Laurance often talked about "great circle tours" that include Prince Rupert, Hyder, Ketchikan and Prince of Wales. Into his 80s, he was still promoting the idea of cruise lines scheduling five- and seven-day tours based in Ketchikan.

Brien Salazar of Taquan Air and the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary said this week that Laurance was a mentor and friend.

"There isn't a single individual who has advocated more for tourism not just in Ketchikan but the entire state, " Salazar said. "He was especially involved in marketing at Taquan and it didn't matter where he was in the world, he still broadcast his morning radio show brought to you by Taquan Air every morning...with his Australian accent.  I can remember going on business trips and we would always have to meet after he completed his morning radio show, which he was always prepared for with the latest travel news and events.  He was very influential in helping Taquan get involved with and sold onboard all the cruise lines coming to Ketchikan."

Laurance worked with Salazar and Kris Singstad to develop a major attraction in 2004, the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary in Herring Cove. 

"This project was a very large task and his input and partnership we very valued in making it a success, " Salazar said.  "He approached every possibility with 'why not' instead of 'no way' and his participation in the business was very valuable and necessary.  He was an eternal optimist which was a very positive influence to be around. He also had a great sense of humor and was one of the most positive people I've ever had the privilege of knowing.  He is dearly missed but his legacy will not only live in the soul at Taquan but deep in our family's hearts.  The City of Ketchikan, KVB, and visitor industry has lost the most passionate and devoted marketer in our community's history."

Mayor Sivertsen said that, no matter the situation, Laurance was unfailingly positive about the community.

"His legacy would be to embrace change, find solutions and be proud of where we live," Sivertsen said. "It is not about what we can't do, but what we can do."