William J. Conklin

After the election of 2008, Conklin sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama on November 22, 2008 with an idea for Obama's inauguration. He suggested that in the inaugural parade up Pennsylvania Avenue, Obama could emerge from his limo at the point between the Navy Memorial and the National Archive. “This momentary action on your part could express your admiration of (and support for) the Founding American Documents, and also perhaps show your appreciation of the military,” Conklin wrote. “Then you would return to your car and be on your way to the White House.” In the post-inauguration parade, despite elevated security concerns which called for a new highly armored limo, President Obama and the First Lady essentially followed Conklin's idea and walked a couple blocks in the frigid weather. The Conklins watched from their balcony over the Navy Memorial while hosting 16 journalism students and a professor from their alma mater Doane College.

William J. Conklin (May 2, 1923 – November 22, 2018) was an American architect and archaeologist. In the field of architecture, he is best known as the designer of the U.S. Navy Memorial and co-designer of Reston, the planned community in Virginia. His work in archaeology focused on Incan textiles, Quipus, and textile preservation techniques used in unwrapping the Incan mummy Juanita.

William J. Conklin was born in 1923 in Hubbell, Nebraska. His father J. E. Conklin was a local banker and state legislator. Conklin attended the Phillips Exeter Academy and, in 1944, he graduated with a degree in chemistry from Doane College, where he was the president of the student council. After completing his classes, instead of attending the graduation ceremony he immediately joined the United States Navy, serving as an electronics technician in the Pacific during World War II. He was stationed on a ship off the coast of Japan which recorded signals emitted from the first nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In 1950 he earned a master's degree in architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.