Walter Joseph Hickel (August 18, 1919 – May 7, 2010) was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994 and as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1969 to 1970. He worked as a construction worker and eventually became a construction company owner/operator during Alaska's territorial days. Following World War II, Hickel became heavily involved with real estate development, building residential subdivisions, shopping centers and hotels. Hickel entered politics in the 1950s during Alaska's battle for statehood and remained politically active for the rest of his life. Hickel served as the second governor of Alaska, defeating incumbent and first governor William A. Egan in 1966. He served as governor until 1969, ending with his resignation upon his appointment to the position of United States Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of President Richard Nixon. Hickel later served a full term as governor from 1990 to 1994 under the banner of the Alaskan Independence Party. Early life and career Hickel was born in 1919 in Ellinwood, Kansas, the son of Emma Pauline (Zecha) and Robert Anton Hickel. He grew up on his parents' Dust Bowl tenant farm during the Great Depression near Claflin, Kansas. In October 1940 he moved to Alaska and traveled to it aboard the S.S. Yukon with 95 other passengers and went into the local real estate industry. Seven years later in 1947 he had founded a successful construction company. Hickel joined Democrats in calling for Alaskan statehood during the late 1940s and into the 1950s. In 1958, the Alaska Statehood Act was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Political career 1950s By the 1950s he was the finance chairman of the Republican Party and in 1952 received the backing of businessmen in Anchorage for the territorial governorship, but Benjamin Heintzleman was appointed instead. In 1953 Hickel along with the national committeewoman for Alaska, the vice chairman for the territorial party, and his wife went to the Republican Party's western conference in San Francisco and was later elected as head of the Anchorage Republican Club. In December 1953 he and eighteen other prominent Republicans from Anchorage sent a letter to Governor Heintzleman requesting for the resignation of Robert DeArmond and to replace him with somebody from Anchorage and later telegrammed Secretary of the Intertior Douglas McKay asking him to