Pamela F. Oldow.

• Author: Griffin, Judith Fuerst
• Position: Profile

Employing skills of narrator and navigator, Pamela Oldow has built a thriving enterprise as high-seas hostess and self-appointed curator of the Kenai Fords National Park. Her uncontainable enthusiasm for the area's wildlife and scenic splendor has infected thousands of travellers.

Boat tours piloted by Alaska's first licensed female skipper have churned up new opportunities in Seward's visitor industry, creating employment and increasing the demand for accommodations and other visitor services. Oldow is gratified to have found herself at the helm of companies that allow her to meet so many people and to enjoy the park's panoramas. I'm doing the most rewarding thing any one person can do, she says.

Seward residents were skeptical about the prospects for nautical tours of the Kenai Fords National Park. But Oldow and friend Sheila Scoby recognized the need for a way to transport tourists to the area. Says Oldow, We saw a real need to get people out there and to keep the cost affordable.' Co-owners of Kenai Fjord Tours with their husbands, Don Oldow and Jack Scoby, the wives were entrusted with operating the enterprise when it was launched in 1982.

Recalls Sheila Scoby, "The business got off the ground so quickly, the fellows had to retire to help us. We put them to work. " In 1985, lack Scoby left his job with NC Machinery. Don Oldow, who piloted the first supertanker to ply Alaska waters, was one of the first members of the Southwest Alaska Pilots Association, from which he retired in 1987

The Oldows also own and operate Resurrection Bay Tours, a business they founded in 1968 to offer fishing charters. When Pam Oldow received her ocean operator license in 1977, she became one of about 10 women in the world and the first in Alaska to earn the certification. In 1982, she received approval to captain larger, 100-gross-ton vessels.

Because Don Oldow was frequently away from home, Pam usually captained the boat. She recalls when large groups of men from companies such as Baugh Construction or Union Oil realized their fishing charter skipper was a woman, their first reaction often was Whoops!' But always before the trip was over, they'd be teasing the fun-loving Oldow.

Dennis Brandon, vice president of marketing for Westmark Hotels, also ran fishing charters out of Seward in the 70s. He says he's learned Oldow doesn't understand the words 'can not' on a business or personal level. She's always been gutsy enough to try things,' he notes.

Brandon...