Tooling around Anchorage, Alaska, in a red Lexus with the license plate "RED," Red Boucher is in a hurry. Not because, as he approaches octogenarianism, he feels any impending mortality. Nor because he is late for a meeting (which he is). But because, as he says, "no place on earth has a greater impetus for connectivity ... now."
Red Boucher, 76, is easily the most prominent digital evangelist in the "Last Frontier," splitting his time between lobbying in Juneau to ensure that Native villages in the tundra get wired and shuttling off to Washington, DC, to lobby on behalf of Alaska-based telcos. But between begging for infrastructure and consulting for telcos, Boucher isn't shy about railing on boneheaded legislators in Alaska's statehouse. "What scares me is the 30-second mentality," he complains in a hoarse voice that cracks like a kid who stayed up all night at a campout. "Some of these politicians don't want more contact with their constituents. They get elected based on commercials. I go to Juneau now, and these guys ask me - today, in 1997 - 'Why do I need email?'" Not surprisingly, younger Alaskan lawmakers sometimes look at Boucher as either an eccentric relic or just plain crazy.
But there's a good reason why people listen to Boucher in the 49th state. After coming to Alaska on the personal advice of JFK (for whom he had campaigned during a Kennedy Senate bid), Boucher became mayor of Fairbanks and, later, lieutenant governor, where he says his greatest accomplishment - apart from founding the famous Alaska Midnight Baseball League - was working with the House Special Committee on Telecommunications during the pipeline days of the 1980s when Alaska was flush with cash.
"We got digital switches and satellite technology in every Alaskan village with more than 25 people," he says. Today you can see Inupiat whalers stretching hide beside satellite dishes. It's an amazing feat, especially considering that Alaska is twice the size of Texas but contains one-third the population of Orange County, California.
The next step, Boucher says, is to extend online communication throughout the state. To do this, he launched the Beringa Bridge Project, named after the Siberian land mass across which the first Homo sapiens may have strolled to the New World 30,000 years ago. The idea: to bridge the Last Frontier via bits. Boucher is working to introduce a bill in the state legislature that will provide funds for the project. Meanwhile, he seldom takes a day off, and, boneheads aside, he feels like he's making headway in his effort to connect Alaska to the global economy.
