Oral History Program Scott Parkinson Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 2 April 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Scott Parkinson Interviewed by Sarah Langsdon 2 April 2021 Copyright © 2025 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Hill/DDO’95 oral history project documents the 1995 and 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process and its impact on Utah. In 1993, rumors started to circulate that Hill Air Force Base and Defense Depot Ogden (DDO) would be closed by the 1995 round of BRAC, causing state officials, local government, and local grassroots lobbying group, Hill/DDO’95, to spring into action to save Utah’s military installations from closure or realignment to other facilities. This project includes interviews from a wide range of players, from congressmen, state officials, members of Hill/DDO’95, and the civilian employees of Hill Air Force Base and (DDO). Their accounts describe the process of fighting for the base, the closure of DDO, the formation of the Utah Defense Alliance (UDA) and Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA) from the Hill/DDO’95 group, and their fight to save Hill Air Force Base all over again in 2005. Also discussed is the importance of the F-35 aircraft and the “Falcon Hill” Enhanced Use Lease project to the prosperity of Hill Air Force Base and military relations in Utah. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Parkinson, Scott, an oral history by Sarah Langsdon, 2 April 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Scott Parkinson. It was conducted on April 2, 2021 at the Stewart Library. Parkinson discusses his time as President of the Ogden-Weber Chamber of Commerce and his involvement with the 1993 and 1995 BRAC rounds. The interviewer is Sarah Langsdon. Also present is Alyssa Kammerman. SL: This is Sarah Langsdon. It is April 2, 2021. I am here in the Stewart Library, interviewing Scott Parkinson as part of the Hill Air Force Base BRAC Project. With me on camera is Alyssa Kammerman. Scott, first of all, thank you for agreeing to sit down with us and talk a little bit about this. My first question is, what was your position in the Chamber of Commerce in 1994? SP: I was the president. SL: Okay, so what were you doing as the president? SP: The president was the full-time executive. That's the terminology for that. In the past, it had been called the executive director, but it's the same thing. SL: Why did you become a member of the Hill/DDO'95 group? SP: Well, the Ogden-Weber Chamber has a long tradition of having a strong Military Affairs Committee that connected with the base and DDO, so it was kind of a natural transition just to form that. We knew we were in danger; we had gone through the '93 BRAC, I believe. So, you know, we sort of had to get ready for it, knowing what was going on. SL: So, why did the Chamber feel it was important to have a member in that group? SP: Well, it actually formed out of the Chamber Military Affairs Committee. We were just automatically there, because it really was formed out of the Military Affairs 1 Committee. Now, it's true, it was a two-county entity and even I think some state members. So, it wasn't just the Ogden-Weber Chamber. But yeah, it did come out of there. SL: So, what roles, if you remember, did you have in the Hill/DDO'95 group? SP: You know, I believe I was probably either the assistant vice president or I could have even been the treasurer, but I think it was the assistant vice president or vice president. Maybe it was just vice president. SL: Who was president? Do you remember? SP: I think it was Mike Pavich. Now, Mike was the full-time guy. So again, I'm getting a little confused about titles. So, he was the lead, maybe Vicky McCall, but maybe later for Vicky McCall in Utah Defense Alliance. I'm not exactly sure. SL: What do you remember about the BRAC commissioners’ visits in December of '94 and then the big one in May of '95? SP: I just remember there were a lot of logistics. We worked closely with Jim Hansen's office. I think actually, after BRAC '95, Jim was the lead on the BRAC commission in Congress. Is that right? But he wasn't during BRAC'95. We worked closely with his office. You know, I actually remember more about the visits to Washington. But anyway. SL: Well, tell us about the visits to Washington. SP: Well, it wasn't easy. We were visiting with both congresspeople and their staffs— mainly their staffs—but we also visited with the staffs in the Pentagon. Frankly, I don't remember the names of those folks. But it was a good—I remember leaving and [laughs] I have a funny story. I don't know if I oughta tell you this, but I 2 remember leaving on one of those trips, and Mike Pavich is just a good guy. He is a gem. What a competent person. I’ll bet his memory's good on it [laughs]. But I don't know if he told you this: We left the hotel in, not in Washington, the city in Virginia right across. We were on our way to the airport and came right out of the hotel into a traffic jam, totally going to miss the plane. I mean, it crawled to the airport. It crawled. Finally, we made the executive decision with Pavich's help. We just pulled the car over—it was a rental—left it, not even in a parking lot, on the grass next to the road, and ran to the airport and made it. Did anybody tell you that story? I'll never forget that. Isn't that weird? I don't remember all the stuff about visiting people, but I remember that story [laughs]. SL: Vickie told us that. We had a big meeting with several of them at the very beginning of this project, and I think they talked about that. SP: Somebody talked about that? SL: I think Mike talked about that story. SP: That was crazy [laughs]. SL: I think he said they called the rental car company and said, "Your car's on the side of the road." SP: Yeah, yeah. Just made the call and ran to the plane and just squeezed through the door. That was before 9/11 days. It was a lot easier to get through an airport. SL: So, were you at the meeting when Vickie McCall told the general to sit down, that she wasn't done talking? SP: Yep. Yeah. I wouldn't have remembered that without the reminder, but yes. SL: What was the Ogden community support like during the '95 visit? 3 SP: It was terrific. I think the Chamber really got the troops going and lots of businesses involved. It was before the days of a lot of aerospace companies. But, you know, Thiokol/ATK—and I can't remember when they changed those names—but they were fairly involved and lent some of their lobbyists, public relations folks. But, yeah, it was a big deal in the community, and of course it should have been. SL: So, you were still president of the Chamber at that time, right? SP: Yeah. SL: So, you said the Chamber sort of helped rally the troops, as it were. Do you remember some of the logistics of that? SP: No. I just remember it wasn't too difficult. You know, the community really came out. Again, I don't remember a lot more than that. I don't want to overplay the part of the Chamber because Davis County was a really important part of this, obviously. But I'd say the lead entity in forming the organization was probably the Military Affairs entity within the Ogden-Weber Chamber. AK: Along with the community visits, I'd recently read that Defense Depot Ogden had a separate day when the commissioners came, which was actually in April. Do you know if they had a parade or community turn out for that visit as well? SP: I'm sure, you know, we handled it, but I frankly don't remember that. AK: Okay, that's totally fine. I was just interested to know, because I had read about that just recently. But no memory on that? SP: Yeah. I know that folks feel like maybe the Defense Depot got second shift, you know. After the BRAC, it was then turned over to Hill to run for a while, and then 4 ultimately closed. I don't remember how many years after BRAC it closed. AK: Two years. SP: Two years? Yeah. So, during that period it was sort of hooked to Hill. It's really, in retrospect, thinking about that, I know it's easy with 20/20 hindsight, but boy, that was actually kind of lucky. I mean, it was great for Ogden City to get the DDO and become BDO. It's been just an absolute cash cow. Of course, at the time, we weren't too happy about it, and of course, if you were an employee—except I think generally the employees got taken care of. They either merged into Hill or— so I don't think there were a lot of jobs lost that I recall. SL: Yeah, we talked to General Robles and he said that there were less than 100 who were actually laid off. SP: Yeah, yeah. SL: The rest were either absorbed into Hill or were able to transfer somewhere else. SP: Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's that old thing: If you're one of those, you're not happy. But in the hard, cold economic world, that's not a bad trade-off for what's going on out there now. The amount of taxes generated and the amount of jobs generated. I don't even know how many jobs are at BDO. Anybody told you that? It's got to be a huge number. SL: It's huge, I mean because it's constantly growing. SP: Yep. AK: Kathy might know something about current employment numbers out there. SL: Yeah, Kathy might. So, you talked about DDO; what was your own personal view on the '95 BRAC visit when they came in May? 5 SP: I was pretty apprehensive about it. I know some folks weren't very worried about Hill. I was probably more worried than I ought to be. Maybe it was my position. So, that's what I remember, just being pretty apprehensive about it. But then ultimately, I thought that the visits here and the visits to Washington went pretty well. I think, ultimately, most of us had some confidence that we were going to win. Then, of course, the other ALC bases that did close… Oh, gosh, I can't remember their names. SL: McClellan and Kelly. SP: Kelly, yeah. McClellan, yeah. You know, we all justified that Sacramento could take the hit easier than us, you know? [laughs] All that stuff. I think ultimately, by the way, the Sacramento base land was used appropriately and has been a positive overall after a lot of hard times. SL: So, what was your feeling when the closure list came out and Hill Air Force Base was not on it, but DDO was? SP: Yeah, it was just really mixed. I mean, if you had 20/20 and you could look ahead, you’d have said, "Okay, no problem with DDO," right? But it was a little tragic at the time. But, you know, we were celebrating Hill. SL: So, you touched on this a little bit, but we've read a lot that there was sort of the public feeling, especially around people at DDO, that DDO was sacrificed for Hill. What's your view on that? SP: [Shakes head] I don't believe that. I mean, I don't want to sound naive and say there's not deal-making in backrooms around Congress and stuff, but I sure don't think so. It could have been, but I don't think so. Honestly, as far as I ever knew, 6 being involved in the committee and involved in the effort: no deals locally. Did anybody tell you different than that? I just can't imagine that. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a deal made in Congress. I get that. But I don't think so. SL: People have just said that the missions at DDO were expiring. They were old missions and could be done elsewhere. Whereas, Hill Air Force Base, there are a lot of missions there that could not be done anywhere else. SP: Yeah, that's true. SL: Were you involved at all in the 2005 BRAC round? SP: No, I had left. In fact, it's interesting, I left the Chamber right after BRAC and I went to work at Bank of Utah and I retired from there. I was there 25 years. I was still involved in the Chamber, of course, as a business person, but not military affairs much. So, yeah, I really can't comment much on that. SL: Okay. So, does the Chamber of Commerce continue to be involved in UDA? SP: I think so. Again, especially since I've retired, I really don't know what's going on much. SL: Yeah. So, you don't have any current involvement with UDA? SP: Not really, no. I don't. SL: What do you think the future of Hill Air Force Base is? Just from what you've seen as a community member? SP: I think it just gets stronger. With the F-35 and all that, it’s just hard to believe that it's not going to continue. I do remember a couple of things that we emphasized: one is efficiency. I believe in the '93 BRAC we came through and Hill was cited as being really efficient and a good bang for the buck. But then—and this is what 7 reminded me of that—the Utah Test and Training Range was a huge deal. I mean they're kind of connected at the hip, right? So, between those things, I think Hill's still a great organization, and the training ranges. They just continue to preserve the test and training range. I think there's been some recent things to keep the boundaries, and maybe they even expand it. I don't know. But yeah, that's really important. Of course, did we lose Tooele in the '93 BRAC? Is that right? SL: Yeah. SP: Yeah, I think that got people excited too. You know, all of a sudden, "Uh oh, we better get the alerts up. We've lost one.” Utah's not protected just because we're Utah, right? Of course, I think Tooele's much like DDO, even more with the ammunition and stuff like that. AK: Is that part of the reason why Hill/DDO'95 formed? SP: Yeah. I think that negative experience, even though it didn't directly affect us, it affected Utah. We thought, again, “This isn't automatic. We can't just sit back.” SL: Okay, hypothetical question for you: What do you think would have happened to Weber and Davis County if Hill Air Force Base had closed in 1995? SP: Wow. Well, in today's world and the economy the way it is, again, I think you could say it would be a huge hiccup, but we'd recover, right? Boy, that's a big number, the jobs out there. Where are we, 25,000? Is that what you hear? Something like that? It's big. 25,000 jobs, even in the Wasatch Front, a large urban area. I think if you take the contractors and add them to the base employees, it's still the largest employer in the state, right? 8 SL: Right. SP: Yeah. In fact, it seems like the last time I looked, the next larger employers were all public, like hospital systems, government, and state government. Right? It takes a while to get down to the private sector. It depends on how you, I guess, split the contractors out there from the employees, but no matter how you slice it, it's big. SL: What do you think the community can do to continue to support Hill Air Force Base? SP: I think the Military Affairs Committee, I assume it’s still going in the Chamber, might be by another name. Then of course, Utah Defense Alliance. Just support the employees out there, support the uniformed folks. You know, keep a relationship. It sounds kind of like an easy answer, but just continue what you're doing, really. As far as I know, again, not being in the middle of the mix anymore. AK: I guess this is kind of going back a tiny bit, but was there fear for the economy if DDO closed? Were you guys thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is going to set us back for a little while?” SP: Yeah, I think so. Again, probably we shouldn't have been too worried about it. But who knows, right? Again, by the time the transfer of the property was made to the city and all of that transaction took place, I was gone. I was working in the private sector, in the bank. But I don't think it was too long before it became pretty obvious this was going to be overall a good thing. I remember the local newspaper built their print plant out there. I thought that was pretty interesting. Of course, now that's really a different thing. The whole news media and local 9 newspapers and newsprint going away, which is pretty sad. AK: So, there wasn't really an economic dip once DDO closed? SP: You know, I really don't remember as far as real numbers. SL: So, my final question for you is, what would you say is the legacy of BRAC'95 on Northern Utah? SP: Utah Defense Alliance, for one. I mean, I think one of the things that Hill/DDO'95 did was maybe get the attention of state officials. You mentioned the governor, and I don't know that it's fair to say that they weren't paying attention until then, but it really helped. I think that's part of it. I'm not sure that the most recent governor and the present governor are any more tuned in, but they’re tuned in, there's no doubt about it, to what's going on at Hill. I'm not sure that's changed a lot, because Mike was really, really tuned in and active and encouraging. In fact, we got money from the state, right? Yes. Yeah, we did. I remember that. SL: Yeah, a lot of people have said that BRAC'95, woke up Salt Lake County and south about the importance of Hill Air Force Base. That a lot of them didn't realize because it was too far disconnected for them. SP: Yeah, that might be true. Again, I was kind of alluding to the state. I'm sure that for the mayor of Salt Lake County and the mayor of Salt Lake City, Hill Air Force Base isn't really top of mind. But, probably got a lot of their constituents working there, right? Or for contractors. Yeah, the biggies were, of course, Weber and Davis County, but for the whole northern end of the state it's really important. AK: Sorry, I know we're trying to wrap up here, but I have one more question. So, you said that Hill/DDO'95 was mainly formed out of the Weber Chamber of 10 Commerce. How did it turn into— SP: Don't tell all the Davis people that. [All laugh] But I think it's true anyway. AK: Okay. Well, I was just wondering, how did it turn into the Utah Defense Alliance, where it's not just northern Utah? SP: You know, I don't know. It's kind of a natural thing. Again, that was right at the time I was making my transition out. Actually, I think Utah Defense Alliance even came along a little later. Do you have a date on that? SL: I don't remember a date, but it took a minute. It wasn't immediate. SP: By the way, regarding Davis County, the Chamber there was not really robust. Is that a fair statement? I mean, you know. Actually, I think that's another thing that was maybe some of the legacy: the Davis Chamber became really pretty active right around that time. So, that probably helped that. Interesting. I haven't thought too much about that recently. SL: Well, thank you, Scott. SP: Oh, I hope I helped a little [laughs]. SL: You gave us some interesting insights into things, so we appreciate it. 11