NATIONAL DEFENSE EXPERT JOINS SHIMER COLLEGE BOARD

Patrick Johnston Parker, of Penn Valley, California, an entrepreneur and expert on defense systems and management, has been elected Trustee of Shimer College, the Great Books College of Chicago.

Parker, an experienced member of both corporate and non-profit boards and currently the President of the Aequus Institute, attended Shimer in the 1950s and served on its Board from 1970-74.  Shimer President William Craig Rice said Parker had reconnected with Shimer College because “he believes Shimer can be one of America’s most important liberal arts colleges, bucking trends and standing by its core principles.”  As President of Aequus, Parker has greatly helped Shimer to gain financial support during and after its recent relocation to Chicago.

A recurring theme of Parker’s career has been work related to the nation’s defense, and especially arms control.  In 1974 he joined the faculty of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, where he served as chairman of the National Security Affairs Department and is now Professor Emeritus of System Engineering.  He has served on the staff and the governing board of the Center for Naval Analysis, and  as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the 1970s, at the time of the SALT nuclear disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union.  He is the author of numerous reports and articles on defense issues and, with Brian Dailey, of Soviet Strategic Deception (Lexington 1986).  Parker has also served as associate Dean of the Graduate School of Management  at the University of Rochester where he taught economics and statistics and at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds Bachelor’s and MBA degrees from the University of Chicago and is deeply conversant with the Chicago school of economics. In the early 1970s he served as president and CEO of the Hickok Manufacturing Company. He is a long-standing member of the Mt. Pelerin Society.

President Rice describes Parker, who now spends much of his time at his horse ranch in California, as “a gracious, brilliant, well-informed man with a fine sense of humor and love of conversation--an exemplary Shimerian.”