Gil Sparks

Gil Sparks is a Rotarian who serves Rotary and the community quietly and effectively. He is a Paul Scea Fellow. Both he and his wife Kay are Paul Harris Fellows.

Gil grew up in Prescott, Arizona and started college at the University of Arizona. In 1966, after a year of college, he withdrew to enlist in the U.S.Army. After basic training and advanced training, he went to officer training school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. OCS took him to Fort Leavenwood, Missouri and then to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital for an operation, where he met his future wife, Kay, who was a nurse at Fitzsimmons.

Gil, and later Kay, volunteered for service in Viet Nam. Their Viet Nam tours overlapped by seven months. They were only 50 miles apart during that time and occasionally were able to see each other. Their ways parted, however, when Gil left Viet Nam and returned to school at the the University of Arizona.

After Kay returned to the U.S., she was assigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona and eventually they got back together and were married in August 1971.

Gil graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Arizona and with dual majors in Business Administration and Labor Relations. Six years at Arizona Public Service in their labor relations department was followed by a move to Butte Montana. In Butte he was the Personnel Manager for Mountain States Energy and Vice President of their Alaskan subsidiary. Mountain States Energy was a government contractor developing an alternateve energy source called magneto hydro dynamics.

They remained in Butte for six years before Gil decided to attend law school at the University of Puget Sound, in a class of 360 students. He graduated from UPS in 1988 with the distinction of being "first in his class" of the 250 students who graduated.

After graduation he was employed by Ogden Murphy Wallace, a Seattle based law firm which started in the early 1900s. His goal was to develop an employment/labor law practice in a small community and Ogden Murphy Wallace had a branch office in Wenatchee. He and Kay had both grown up in small communities and they preferred to raise their children in a similar environment.

Gil principally represents management clients on employment/labor law matters. Currently, in addition to his law practice, he periodically writes articles for the Wenatchee Business Journal and the Apple Valley Human Resources Association on employment and labor law issues. He also provides employment law training seminars for a variety of public and private employers.

Gil's civic activities include serving on the Board of Directors of:

• Wenatchee Chamber of Commerce
  
• East Wenatchee Chamber of Commerce
  
• Wenatchee Visitor and Convention Bureau
  
• Wenatchee Rotary

He also is a member of:

• Apple Valley Human Resources Association
  
• Wenatchee Job Service Employers Committee
  
• Society for Human Resource Management
  
• Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
  
• Trout Unlimited

Gil and Kay have been married for 29 years.

Their first son, Russell, was born in Phoenix in 1976 and recently graduated from Western Washington University with a degree in Creative Education. He is contemplating moving to San Francisco to attend bartending school.

Their second son, Chris, was born in Butte in 1979 and is a student at the University of Portland, majoring in Spanish and Environmental Science. He is doing interpretation and translation work for the Department of Economic Security this summer.

Kay is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, currently working as the Community Resource Coordinator for the Chelan Douglas Public Health District.

Gil likes to play softball, fish, bike and dabble in the stock market. He and Kay also like foreign travel, their latest being two months in Australia and New Zeland in 1999.

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