25th Reunion

PETER HOOKER KLAUSSEN

 

 PETER HOOKER KLAUSSEN

DELTA KAPPA EPSILON

 

Soccer (2, 3; ' 'A" 2, 3); Basketball (3); 1

Golf (3); Glee Club (2); Masquers (4).

Peter Klaussen                                         Squaw Valley, California

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An autobiography? Who cares, who would even bother to read it? Forget it! Well, maybe just the facts ma'am and get it over with. Be a contributor. No, that would be really dull. Instead how about some highlights, for my grandchildren? They could ask me to fill in, if ever interested? Well, OK:

I started on the 'right track' to conventional success. Air Corps pilot in the S Pacific, Amherst full of extra activities (sports, acting, glee club), B School, chemical company foreman, Polaroid junior sales exec. But I realized I just wasn't cut out for it- the scrutiny, responsibility, hours, deadlines, pressure.

Then Polaroid sent me on an extended sales trip to six western cities and I fell for N California. With a small stake, I left for San Francisco and found Squaw Valley needed housing for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games. So I teamed with an architect friend and became a carpenter building chalets during summers there. Each winter I built a spec house in Marin - where I met, courted and married Joan Gallagher (an expatriate from Andover, Mass). These houses won three AIA-Sunset annual top awards for design excellence.

Started ski racing (not so icy tough in the Sierra) and wangled a winter job in avalanche control from the Olympic Commission, moving Joan and our emerging family from Sausalito houseboat to the mountains. At Tahoe, we ski bums have to be quick on our feet to survive. So I built chalets, ran a mountaintop restaurant, managed the start-up of a new ski area (Alpine Meadows), and became a ski area consultant (Northstar, Snowmass, Disney).