Robert M. Walp, IEEE Life Fellow, was a great visionary, passionate humanitarian and ardent supporter of IEEE and ComSoc.

He was the father of Alaskan satellite communications, who led a state effort to establish the Rural Alaska Television Network (RATNET), a satellite telecommunications system employing earth stations in bush communities. This ushered rural Alaska into the modern world. In 1979 he founded a progressive company called General Communications Inc. (GCI) that continues to benefit the Alaskan public by providing modern telecommunications services, engendering competition and rate reductions.

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