Robert (Bob) Gillam

Born on the banks of the Chena River in Fairbanks, Alaska, local entrepreneur Bob Gillam passed away at sunset on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Anchorage surrounded by family.

Bob moved to Anchorage before statehood, attending local schools. At one time he was the Alaska Soap Box Derby champion. At West High School, Bob was rumored to have ridden his motorcycle down a hallway and to have thrown cherry bombs into school toilets. But as a bad boy gone good, Bob also participated in the downhill ski team, played the clarinet and won a ribbon at the science fair for his working Teslacoil, all in keeping with his multifarious capabilities and interests.

Bob graduated with a degree in economics from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania where he was elected president of his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi; and he received his MBA in one year from the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. Returning to Anchorage during the late 1960’s, Bob became a broker for Foster and Marshall where his skills in finance prompted invitations to advise numerous private and governmental boards and organizations. During that time, he lunched every week at the Club Paris, earned his private pilot’s license and fished every weekend on the Kenai River where he often was heard to exclaim, “You don’t go fishing to catch fish.”

During the early 1990’s, Bob famously sold his cobalt blue Jaguar to start McKinley Capital Management, which grew to be a prosperous global asset management firm strategically located in Anchorage for conducting international business. He used to point out that when it was lunchtime in Anchorage it was dinnertime on Wall Street and breakfast time in Tokyo, an advantageous position for stock trading, which was Bob’s passion.

Bob devoted considerable resources to helping save Bristol Bay salmon from “the wrong mine in the wrong place.” The protective salmon initiative he fostered won every precinct in every corner of Alaska, an electoral feat never accomplished by any candidate for any public office in the state. He also was a generous philanthropist who funded many local causes, especially food for the hungry and scholarships for struggling college students. Bob often donated anonymously, caring more about the cause than the recognition.

In addition to his family, the stock market and great red wine, Bob loved flying, hunting, fishing and adventure. He shot deer in Alaska, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota; he shot lions and Cape buffalo in Africa; and he shot bears in Alaska, Canada and Russia. He fished with gusto not only throughout Alaska and his beloved Lake Clark area, but also in many lakes and rivers in New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland, Russia, the Bahamas and assorted western states. He was a man of many interests including Biblical and European history, Thermopylae Pass, birds of Alaska, medical science and space travel. Bob achieved great success in his life through dedication and hard work, but he always remembered his modest beginnings. He had a unique sense of humor, and he was a gifted joke and storyteller.

His uncompleted bucket list included running the Baja 1000, studying the legendary Lake Clark Monster, hunting sheep in Mongolia, learning to play the piano, expanding his oil painting techniques and visiting Jerusalem, the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the terraces of Machu Picchu.

Bob is survived by his wife, Mary Lou Couch Gillam, and his five children and their families, Robert Arthur Gillam (Stacia and sons Benjamin and Nicholas); Vicki Gillam Norris (Trevor and sons Nash and Brock); John Clark Gillam (Katie); Mary Roxanne Gillam (fiancé Arne Krogh); Frank Hunter Gillam; and siblings Linda Black, Kathy Wagner, and Dick Gillam.

To quote Ernest Hemingway, Bob strived to, “Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.”

Funeral services will be held at the Hotel Captain Cook on Sunday, September 23, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. A private burial will take place at a later time.

Arrangements by Janssen Funeral Homes, Inc.11