 February 22, 2003
"It was truly an honor to have known George Ishiyama," Murkowski said. "He was an excellent businessman whose leadership continues to pay dividends to Alaskans. He was also a generous and caring neighbor, who did not shrink from his duty to share his blessings with others." Ishiyama was born in Los Angeles and graduated with a degree in economics from UCLA in 1936. During World War II, he was initially interned in Utah and Wyoming, but his innovations in improving the camps took him to Washington, DC, where he worked with the Department of the Interior, which was in charge of the camps. After the war, Ishiyama established himself as a businessman in Japan, and in 1960 he arranged for the sale of liquefied natural gas from the Kenai Peninsula to Japan. The Phillips/Marathon plant continues to ship approximately one million tons of LNG to Japan annually. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he continued to work on trade issues between Alaska and Japan, and in 1983, he became president of Alaska Pulp Corporation in Sitka. Ishiyama continued to operate the pulp mill at Sitka and the associated sawmill at Wrangell, even as they lost money due to litigation and the loss of available timber from the Tongass National Forest. Ishiyama donated funding and land for a wide variety of civic projects in Sitka and Wrangell, including an industrial park at the site of the defunct pulp mill, a whale park in Sitka, and the site for the Wrangell museum. Ishiyama also donated funding for scholarships, the Sitka Summer Music Festival and other art, educational and cultural programs. "George Ishiyama was a
forward-thinking and generous man, who will be sadly missed by
the people of this state," Murkowski said. "I encourage
every Alaskan to support the kinds of educational and cultural
pursuits he supported, and think of him on his birthday, February
22."
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