Moody, Frank

Corporate jet pilot and tugboat captain extraordinaire, Frank 
Moody, 65, died unexpectedly Aug. 25, 2010, in Anchorage.

Services will be held in San Diego in November. 

He was born Sept. 20, 1944, in Palmer. 

Frank was raised in the village of Aleknagik, where he was 
regularly exposed to boating and flying with his family. He grew 
up commercial fishing in Bristol Bay and later attended college in 
Washington state. Following his passion for aviation, he worked 
for a variety of airlines and as a flight instructor.

During the 1960s, he was drafted and served as an Army medic 
in Vietnam. After serving his country, he returned to Alaska, and 
one of his first jobs was as a flight instructor in Bethel, where he 
became an active member of the Bethel VFW Post 10041.

As his aviation career advanced, he moved to Southern 
California, where he worked as a pilot on corporate jets. Before 
the age of 40, he was appointed president of Nucorp Financial, a 
publicly traded company, and was a member of the Young 
Presidents Club. Always returning to aviation, he became a pilot 
of choice for several Hollywood studios and was on a first-name 
basis with many of the stars of the 1980s. For almost a decade, 
Frank regularly flew Barbara Walters between her California home 
and her New York studio.

The family tug and barge business called Frank back to spend a 
portion of his summer captaining salmon tenders and towing 
fuel barges. He enjoyed the contrast between his Alaska frontier 
roots and the glamorous life in Southern California. Frank and 
his brother Richard took over the family business and remained 
in the marine transportation industry.

Frank enjoyed sharing his roots and was able to engage his two 
daughters, Monica and Jacquie; two sons, Brian and Sean; and 
wife Joyce in his Alaska endeavors. 

Frank had a legendary gift of gab and was an appreciated source 
of stories and anecdotes. Frank will live on through these sayings 
and will be missed greatly by his family and countless friends in 
the marine and aviation industries.

Published in adn.com from September 5 to September 6, 2010