Peter B. Everett, age 71, passed away on April 22, 2014, after a valiant three-year battle with neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer.
He was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Feb. 22, 1943, to Newton Ben Everett and Naomi Briggs Everett. After graduating from Shoreline High in Seattle in 1961, Peter attended the University of Washington and received a B.S. degree in Psychology in 1966. From 1966-1968 he served in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the Army Institute for Research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Peter met Carol Lindborg from Missoula, Mont., while skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho, on college spring break; they were married in 1967.
Peter attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, graduating in 1972 with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology and city and regional planning. He was a faculty member at the Pennsylvania State University at the University Park Campus in State College from 1972-2005. Peter and Carol have two children, Holly and Benjamin.
During his 33 years at Penn State University, Peter’s teaching and research were focused on the environment and transportation policy. This work was carried out in both an interdisciplinary urban planning program in the College of Health and Human Development and in the marketing department in the Smeal College of Business. With expertise in areas such as services and environmental marketing, Peter was ahead of his time in the classroom as the teacher of a popular course on problems of overconsumption and green marketing solutions. Peter was a member of four National Academy of Science Panels, overseeing research on modern management techniques for state departments of transportation and the future of automobile transportation in the United States. He worked with President Jimmy Carter’s administration to reduce automobile usage during the Arab oil embargo. During the 1980s, Peter chaired the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Public Transportation Marketing and Fare Policy. He conducted customer satisfaction studies for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, and in 1998 and 2005, he played a major role in writing Pennsylvania’s 25-year transportation plan.
Peter authored two books on behavior, the environment and transportation, wrote over 40 articles on this topic, and presented numerous talks throughout the world on consumer behavior, green marketing, environmental issues, public involvement in planning, and transportation and public policy. Peter was also active in the State College community and chaired the city’s Planning Commission for 10 years.
Upon retirement from Penn State in 2005, Peter and Carol spent their summers on Lopez Island, Wash., where they had lived for two months each summer with their children while they were growing up. Winters in retirement were spent skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho. While there, Peter also chaired the board of directors for Mountain Rides, the regional public transportation system, from 2005-2013.
All his life, Peter loved boats. He could name the designer and manufacturer of any Northwest yacht or sailboat. When he was 18 years old, Peter spent his summer in Alaska as a deck-hand on the yacht Sobre Los Olas. For over 15 years, he shared a partnership with Alan Hoffman and Loren Anderson in a 40-foot C&C sailboat, Audacious, and sailed with his family in the British Columbia waters of Desolation Sound. Peter enjoyed building boats from scrap lumber with his grandson.
When Peter was 10 years old, he took the ski bus from Buzz Fiorini’s Sports Shop in the University Village along with hundreds of other kids to Snoqualmie Pass to learn to ski, often at night and in the rain. By the time he was in college, skiing had become a passion and he spent the winter of his junior year in St. Anton, Austria, skiing in the Alps. In exchange for a free lift ticket, his job was to get up every morning at dawn and ski the fresh powder to pack it down for the tourists. Not only had Peter and Carol met skiing in Sun Valley, but over the years they devoted nearly every winter vacation to driving across the country from Pennsylvania to the Rockies with their children to ski in Colorado, Utah and Montana. Back home in Pennsylvania, Peter was a founding member and president of the Tussey Mt. Ski Club and was a race official when his son raced in alpine events in two junior Olympics.
When Peter was a teenager, he water-skied in the summer on Lake Washington with his friends; one afternoon he water-skied into Puget Sound and half-way to Whidbey Island, a distance of nearly 20 miles. Peter was proud of his custom-made Wally Burr slalom ski and competed in waterski races into his 20s. One popular race course ran up a 30-foot-wide river called the Sammamish Slough. The slough flowed 13 miles through dairy farms and meadows, connecting the north end of Lake Washington to Lake Sammamish. During the race, many boats ran up onto the bank and across farmers’ fields, some ran into trees, and quite a few skiers fell. The race was considered too dangerous and was discontinued in the ’70s. Nevertheless, Peter won third place the year he competed. Later in his 30s and 40s, when Peter and Carol would spend part of their summer vacation at Carol’s parents’ cabin on Seeley Lake in Montana, one of Peter’s favorite activities was to get up before dawn and water-ski on the pristine, calm lake as the sun came up. When Holly and Ben became old enough to water-ski, Peter would pull them behind his 19-foot Reinell speedboat on the inland waters near their home on the southwest corner of Lopez Island, cautioning them to avoid the seaweed and driftwood.
Bicycles also competed for Peter’s free time. He owned one of the first 10-speed bicycles in the ’60s in Seattle, and founded the Chapel Hill, N.C. Bicycle Club on the first Earth Day in 1970 while a graduate student at UNC. He loved riding his bike to work, dropping off Holly, and later Ben, at university day care along the way. There was never a bike too old or beat up that Peter couldn’t fix or use for parts; he took pride in his ability to repair bikes and then couldn’t bear to part with them.
For much of his life, Peter enjoyed backpacking and camping with his family and friends in the Cascade and Olympic mountains. In 1960, when he was 17, he summited Mount Rainier with a climbing party led by Lou Whittaker. Peter was a self-taught architect who designed his homes in State College, Lopez Island and Ketchum. He shunned elevators and made sure his homes had lots of stairs to keep his family in shape. Peter enjoyed listening to classical music, especially Beethoven’s 9th and the Vienna Men’s Chorus singing J. Strauss. He was forever on the lookout for a good cinnamon roll, spicy Asian food and a “hoppy” IPA. Peter was a great story teller.
Peter is survived by his wife of 47 years, Carol Lindborg Everett; his son, Benjamin Peter Everett (Kauai, Hawaii); his daughter, Holly Everett Bieniawski, son-in-law, Stefan Richard Bieniawski, and two grandchildren, Hugo Russell Bieniawski and Evelyn Jean Bieniawski (Seattle); and his brother, James Everett and sister-in-law, Marisa Everett (Seattle). Honoring Peter’s request, a private service will be held for family members. Gifts in Peter’s memory may be sent to San Juan Preservation Trust, P.O. Box 327, Lopez Island, WA 98261, or to Blaine County Recreation District—Galena and the Trails, 1050 Fox Acres Road, Suite 107, Hailey, ID 83333.
