Max C. Brewer

Max Clifton Brewer (1924–2012) was an Arctic scientist, geophysicist, geological engineer, environmentalist, educator, and philosopher, and is best known for his expertise in the scientific field of permafrost. He was the longest-serving director (1956-1971) of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) in Utqiaġvik, Alaska (formerly known as Barrow) where he established and managed the NARL ice stations in the Arctic Ocean. From 1971-1974 he served in the gubernatorial cabinet of William A. Egan as the first commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Born in Blackfalds, Alberta, Canada, in 1924, Max Brewer grew up in Alberta and in Washington state. He served during World War II in the United States Army Air Force from October 1942 until his honorable discharge in April 1944. Brewer first moved to Alaska in 1948 to work with the USGS researching the “electrical restitivity of permafrost.” In 1950, he received a bachelor’s degree in geological engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. in 1956 he married an Utqiaġvik-based and Seattle-born nurse, Marylou Cunningham and became the youngest director of NARL. In 1965 he received an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Alaska for his work in the Alaskan Arctic. Brewer died in 2012 at the age of 88 and is buried in Utqiaġvik.