Gordon Culp knew his way around the halls of power

Gordon Culp had a knack for asking just the right question, finding common ground between adversaries, making friends.

Those skills won him admiration in all of his many roles: U.S. Senate staffer, utilities-law expert, University of Washington regent, board member for the UW Medical Center and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Mr. Culp tried to avoid the spotlight, friends say, but loved working behind the scenes to get things done.

"I was always struck by how this unassuming, short man with a generally rather quiet voice carried so much weight," said William Gerberding, the former UW president whom Mr. Culp helped recruit.

Mr. Culp died Sunday of cancer. He was 80.

He grew up in Auburn and, in 1944, joined the Navy, where he was an electronic electrician's mate for two years. He then went to the UW on the G.I. Bill, where he met many people he would later work with: Mary Gates, who overlapped with him on the UW Board of Regents; and William Dwyer and Murray Guterson, who later were his law partners.

He earned his law degree from the UW in 1952 and, after several years of practicing law, moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as counsel for the Subcommittee on Territories and Interior Affairs, then chaired by Washington Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

In that job, Mr. Culp handled the statehood bills for Alaska and Hawaii. He also met Joan Proctor, to whom he was married from 1954 until her death in 1996.

The couple returned to the Northwest and, in 1957, Mr. Culp opened a law firm with Guterson, now a longtime criminal-defense attorney, and Dwyer, who became one of the nation's foremost trial judges, known for a number of important decisions, including the 1991 case in which he restricted logging to protect the spotted owl.

Mr. Culp became an expert in public-power policy and, at one point, represented the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) during its nuclear power-plant fiasco.

He had great credibility with public power leaders, federal officials and Washington's congressional delegation, and he helped define some of the positions the agency took, said William Van Ness Jr., an attorney who has known Mr. Culp since they both worked with the late Sen. Jackson.

"He wasn't always looking for a fight," Van Ness said. "He was looking for a good public-policy result that had benefit for the consumers and was long-lasting."

Mr. Culp also stayed involved with politics, helping Jackson in 1960 when Jackson was Democratic national chairman and, in 1972, when Jackson ran for president.

"Scoop very much respected his honesty, his integrity, his advice and his counsel," Van Ness said. "Gordon, unlike others, was not a 'yes' man. He'd say, 'Here's the way I see it.' It was told that way and there was no gloss at all on it."

Mr. Culp joined the UW Board of Regents in 1977 and served two six-year terms during which he chaired the search committee that hired Gerberding as president.

Mr. Culp impressed his fellow regents with his careful analysis of all issues, Gerberding said.

"Sometimes he'd just drive us nuts because we thought we had come to a conclusion about something, but Gordon wasn't satisfied. He wanted to take another run or two or three ... to make sure everything had been considered."

"His ego never got out in front of him," said Gerry Grinstein, another longtime friend and now chief executive of Delta Airlines. "He was always a person who thought about what the goal was and how you worked toward it."

Mr. Culp also was a huge Huskies football fan, Gerberding said.

"The two biggest Husky football fanatics that I ever encountered — and boy, that's a high standard — were Dan Evans and Gordon Culp," he said.

When Mr. Culp left the regents board in 1989, Gerberding asked him to join the board of the UW Medical Center, where he served another nine years and helped create the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a partnership of the UW, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.

He also served on the board of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and was a key player in helping create what is now the UW Jackson School of International Studies.

In 2002, Mr. Culp married Kathie Werner after a five-year courtship.

He never lost touch with his childhood friends, who called themselves the "Auburn boys," and he usually attended their monthly lunches in their old hometown. They were some of the last people to see him before he died.

Lara Iglitzin, executive director of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, said she was struck by how many of Mr. Culp's friends considered him their favorite. "Everyone felt that way," she said.

In addition to Werner, Mr. Culp is survived by sisters Audrey Walker of Auburn and Wilda Leick of Renton.

A celebration of his life will be held at 10:30 a.m. today in room 130 of Kane Hall at the University of Washington. A reception in the Walker Ames Room in Kane Hall will follow. Memorials may be sent to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, P.O. Box 19023, Seattle, WA 98109.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com