In Memoriam

Eulogy: Lucas, Al E.
1927 – 2007

Al Lucas, a very young 80 year old, slipped his moorage for the last time here on earth on November 28th, 2007 due to complications from a surgical procedure. Al was born September 11, 1927 in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in the Portland area and attended Milwaukee High School. In 1945 he joined the Navy serving in the Pacific Ocean and was honorably discharged in 1946 as Fireman First Class and was awarded the “WW II Medal of Victory”.

After the Navy he attended Oregon State University where along with his studies he enjoyed wrestling on the University wrestling team. Al graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1951. While attending OSU, Al married Marilyn Johnson on August 18, 1948. Al and Marilyn had 4 wonderful children; Marcia, Nancy, Eric and Steven. After fifty years of marriage, Marilyn passed away in 1998 after battling a long illness.

After graduating, Al began his career at Honeywell in Portland, OR in 1951 as a District Representative. He then worked his way up the Honeywell corporate ladder opening the first District office in Anchorage, AK in 1956. During the next 24 years he held various management positions within Honeywell including Regional Manager of the Western U.S. During this time with Honeywell, he lived in Anchorage, Bellevue, Sacramento, San Francisco and Laguna Beach, CA. In 1975 Al moved to Seattle and co-founded a Commercial Mechanical Equipment and Controls Company in Seattle called ASCO, later changing the name to Control Contractors, Inc. In 1981 he also co-founded Alerton Technologies. In 1982 he became the sole owner of Control Contractors, Inc. (CCI). CCI presently has offices in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Seattle, Portland & San Diego with over 200 employees. Al was an icon in the industry and is nationally known and respected.

He was a member of Queen City Yacht Club, Hidden Harbor Yacht Club, Wing Point Golf & Country Club, Indian Ridge Golf & Country Club, The Columbia Tower Club, ASHRAE, MCA, and other industry organizations.

On June 18, 1999 Al married his sweetheart Diane Rambo. Everyone could see how much they loved, respected and cherished one another. They were immensely happy and always had a good time. Diane took excellent care of Al, always watching what he ate and taking him to the doctor when he didn’t think he needed to go.

Together they were avid boaters. He and Diane enjoyed many years cruising the waters of Puget Sound, Canada and South East Alaska on his boat, the beautiful "Carrera", a 50’ Ocean Alexander. Al & Diane also traveled a lot. While the majority of it was for business, they usually added on a few days for pleasure. They made so many friends on these business trips, that Diane remembers that it didn’t seem like business travel as they were with some of their best friends from the industry that had become close personal friends. They also traveled to Al’s branch offices up and down the west coast. The employees were friends and he loved spending time with them. Some months they would only be home 3 or 4 days. She remembers that it was incredibly fun and exciting.

Al thought of his employees as family. He felt a deep responsibility and commitment to each of them. He enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know them on a personal level. He always said that if you surround yourself with good people and treat them well and with respect, you will be successful. A philosophy that obviously was correct. He thoroughly enjoyed traveling to their Christmas parties, summer picnics, snow-machining outings, baseball games, car races and anything else that came up.

He was a frugal man yet incredibly generous. He would straighten nails to use them again, change his own oil in his boat and do his own repairs. He was very handy and could fix anything. He did not like to spend money on himself but did not hesitate to spend it on others.

The past couple years of his life, Al finally began to treat himself a bit. After renting a home in Palm Desert for a month the past 2 winters with Terry & Susan Wambaugh, also QCYC members, Al & Diane bought the house two doors down. By the way, the house was purchased sight unseen by Al – what great confidence in Diane!

Al also loved vegetable gardening and working in his yard, and was especially proud of his garlic and corn. He also loved traveling, both domestically and internationally having recently celebrated his 80th birthday in Greece & Turkey with some of his dear friends. He even went waterskiing on his 80th birthday!
Al loved his family, his friends and his employees very much. He was always putting other people & employee’s needs first and was a loyal friend and husband.

Al joined QCYC in 1998 and enjoyed the Deer Harbor outstation and sharing it with fellow QCYC members, friends and family and he particularly enjoyed crabbing there. Diane remembers that he could eat more crab in one sitting than anyone she knew. Al also really enjoyed the outstation at Ganges. Whenever a fellow club member was there, Al was always inviting them over to the “Carrera” for drinks and appetizers or dinner. He loved people and loved to socialize. The Lucas’ did participate in the spring clean-up at Winslow a couple of times which he always enjoyed. He particularly liked trimming the bushes & trees and cleaning up the flower beds. He liked things neat and orderly and not overgrown. Two years in a row Al & Diane hosted the local police and fire departments along with neighbors at the Winslow outstation for the Christmas ships when they came to Eagle Harbor.

Al had looked at new boats for several years but he loved his 50’ Ocean Alexander “Carrera” too much to change. He owned the Carrera for 18 years. He was very comfortable on that boat. But, he finally decided that he was getting tired of fixing things and decided that it would be nice to have something new.
About 3 or 4 weeks after buying the Palm Desert home, he found the boat of his dreams; a 58’ Ocean Alexander built in 2005. It is like brand new, with only 150 hours on the engines. He loved that it had a hard top as he had been a sun worshipper all of his life and had finally realized that it was not good for him. It also has bow and stern thrusters which he always said was cheating.

Al is survived by Diane, his loving wife of 8 years, children, Marcia (Peter) Putnam, Portland, Oregon, Nancy (Clair) Jenkins, Redmond, WA, Eric (Cathy) Lucas, Kirkland, WA and Steven (Sheri) Lucas, Chandler, AZ. Al is also survived by his two sisters, Jean Roake of Portland, Oregon, Carol Schneider of West Jordan, Utah, 14 grandchildren and 14 great grandchildren.