Hills’ chamber address, book signing set Nov. 16

PALMER —Palmer resident Dr. Alex Hills traveled years ago across rural Alaska by bush plane and snow machine, braving extreme weather and rough terrain to take the first telephone service to the state’s small villages. The story is in his new book, Finding Alaska’s Villages, which has just been released.

Alex will be the featured speaker at the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce meeting to be held at noon on Wednesday, November 16 at the Palmer Moose Lodge. He will also be at Palmer’s Fireside Books the same day for a book signing from 4:00 to 6:00 PM.

Finding Alaska’s Villages describes Alex’s travels along the rivers and coasts of southwest Alaska, through the Norton Sound area, and all the way to the North Slope, working to provide telephones to the villages. He soon fell into the rhythm of village life, connecting with Yup’ik and Inupiaq elders and learning about their strongly held values.

Alex and his team battled the wind to raise an antenna at Little Diomede Island and used some creative thinking to bring phone service to that remote village. And he arrived at Little Diomede just as some Inupiaq Russians appeared on the sea ice nearby. It turned out to be a historic event -- the first contact in 26 years between the villagers of Little Diomede and their kin from Russia’s Big Diomede Island. It was a joyous reunion

Alex later took charge of KOTZ, Kotzebue’s new public radio station, which he shaped into a valuable information service for the people of Alaska’s huge northwest region. At each step along the way, Alex made friends with Alaska’s village people and developed a deep respect for them.

Later Alex became a university professor. He is now Distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Affiliate Distinguished Professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He has also been a distinguished visiting professor in Singapore, New Zealand, and Chile.

Dr. Hills is well known in the fields of wireless, telecommunication, and networking technology, having lectured widely and published many papers and technical reports. He holds 18 patents, issued and pending. His easy-to-understand articles in Scientific American have been enjoyed by readers worldwide. Alex led the team that built Carnegie Mellon’s “Wireless Andrew” system, the world’s first large Wi-Fi network. That work was described in his earlier book, Wi-Fi and the Bad Boys of Radio.

Eventually Alex and his wife Meg, a nurse practitioner, settled in the Valley, and they’re both happy to call Palmer home. She is a member of the Valley Quilters Guild, and he is actively involved in the Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce, the Palmer Rotary Club, The Mat-Su Miners baseball team, and a number of University of Alaska advisory committees.