Alvin Duskin

Alvin Duskin (1931 – July 25, 2021) was a San Francisco Bay Area educator, entrepreneur, and activist known for a series of campaigns he led in the 1970s. These initiatives included anti-highrise ads, a battle to stop the sale of Alcatraz Island to a Texas oilman, and an initiative that stopped the development of nuclear power plants in California. Duskin was joined in these efforts by journalists, activists, and ad-men.

Duskin resides in the tiny town of Tomales on the Northern California coast, completing a biography that chronicles his many adventures. He continued to pursue new projects, both socialist and capitalist. He died on July 25, 2021.

In 1983, Duskin accepted a position as CEO of Northern Power, a specialist in remote power for telecommunications and defense. Northern built projects in Antarctica, Pakistan, and Norway. In 1986, he decided to leave the wind business and work on the lessening of Cold War tensions by developing joint ventures with industrial firms in the Soviet Union.

In 1979, Duskin left the Senate and co-founded US Windpower. He moved back to California and uncovered, before any of his competitors, a government study identifying Altamont Pass as the ideal location in California for wind farms. Duskin leased land in the Altamont Pass where US Windpower built one of the first wind farms in the United States.

In 1977, Duskin became a senior aide for energy legislation in the US Senate, working in the office of Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota. In that position he wrote the amendments to the Windfall Profits Tax Act that established a 15% tax credit on the price of wind and solar equipment. As there was already a 10% tax credit on the purchase of any business equipment, the combined 25% credit was crucial to the launch of the wind and solar industries.

Duskin announced that he would launch a third initiative that specified a limit of 40 feet, and that voters were clearly moving to a majority anti-high rise position. In 1973, the San Francisco board of supervisors voted to limit building heights in the residential neighborhoods, permitting skyscrapers only in the downtown financial districts.

The mayor at the time, Joseph Alioto, called him an "irresponsible extremist". Duskin's measure ultimately failed, with only 37.8% of voters supporting the proposal. Duskin launched another referendum in June 1972, which would have imposed limits 60 feet. That initiative garnered 43.2% approval of voters.

By 1971, Duskin was ready to leave the garment business and focus on political and environmental work. The Alvin Duskin Company was sold—under terms that proved to be unfavorable.

Hearing about the idea, Duskin took out full-page ads in local newspapers, starting a campaign that proclaimed the deal "As Big a Steal as Manhattan Island". His campaign was successful and the commission rescinded the sale, and a group of Native Americans moved onto the island. In May 1971, the General Services Administration announced that it planned to transfer Alcatraz to the Department of the Interior; and, in 1972, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area was created. Alcatraz was opened by the National Park Service for public tours, beginning in October 1973.

In 1971, Duskin started a ballot measure called Proposition T, which would have limited the height of buildings in San Francisco to 72 feet. Duskin compared high rises to "tombstones", and said that "the city was being controlled by developers". He took out full-page newspaper ads publicly denouncing turning San Francisco into "a skyline of tombstones" and predicting "The Manhattanization of San Francisco", with dramatic photos comparing the low San Francisco skyline to New York City's mighty towers.

In 1970, Duskin married Sara Urquhart, a Scottish woman who had worked with him as the head of the design department at the dress company, after several years managing the chain of high-fashion stores, Paraphernalia. They had three children: Ceres, David, and Zoe.

In 1962, his third child, Sarah, was born. With three children, Duskin needed a better income and was offered a position as head of the Summerhill School, which was to be formed in New York. He accepted the job, but the start date was delayed until 1965. To cover a year's loss of income he started a small store to sell women's sweaters with the intention of returning to teaching in a year.

Duskin was also known for founding The Alvin Duskin Company, a women's fashion label he created in the 1960s. The brand achieved national distribution and funded many of Duskin's anti-war and environmental campaigns. Later in his career he founded or co-founded start-ups, serving as CEO in wind, hydro, conservation, and food companies.

Early in 1960, Duskin heard that Emerson College was to be formed in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. Emerson would be part of a group of "free schools" on a plateau above Point Lobos that would be called Walden West. He called the founder, Mark Goldes; met with him; and, at 29 years of age, accepted a position as Dean of Emerson College and philosophy teacher. After the first year, as the school began receiving public recognition, he became president of the college and chairman of its board.

At the end of the 1960s, Texas billionaire Lamar Hunt presented a proposal, to the Surplus Property Commission, to completely redevelop Alcatraz and install a monument to the Apollo missions and a Victorian theme park. The commission accepted Hunt's proposal and approved the sale.

By 1958, Duskin realized there were no job opportunities for philosophy teachers at four-year colleges and universities, so he decided to earn a teaching credential as a graduate student at San Francisco State. After a semester of classes and student teaching, he was offered a faculty position at SF State teaching freshman English. When SF State College became San Francisco State University in 1959, he was told that he would have to finish his doctorate. He returned to Stanford, bought a house near the campus, and began his dissertation.

After his first year of graduate school, Duskin's funding under the G.I. Bill ran out. He became a part-time graduate student and took a job selling his family's sweaters to stores in Northern California. Duskin and Slater's first child, Marcus, was born in 1953, and his second child, Laura, was born in 1956.

In 1952, a few months before being drafted to serve in the Army in the Korean War, he volunteered for the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia. He completed what was essentially "boot camp" and was released into the Marine Corps Reserve. He returned to Stanford, was accepted as a doctoral candidate, and tutored first-year philosophy students in symbolic logic.

As an undergraduate, he was an English major. After two years, he transferred to San Francisco State, where he met his first wife, Constance Slater. They were married in 1951. He returned to Stanford as a graduate student, studying for a PhD in philosophy.

Alvin Duskin was born in San Francisco in 1931, went to public school, and worked in his family's sweater factory as a teenager. He enrolled at Stanford University in 1948.