2008 Iditarod Musher Profile

 <>Eric Rogers, 60, a PhD Physicist who moved to Alaska from Houston, Texas in 1992, achieved a childhood dream by finishing the 2006 Iditarod as that year's oldest rookie. In 2008, Eric continues to follow the dream as he joins the 60 and over club. Born in California, Eric spent his early years watching Sgt. Preston and reading Jack London. In 1970 he enlisted in the U.S.Air Force and trained as a navigator in KC-135-s for the Strategic Air Command. In 1972, as a graduation exercise from Navigator School, he flew to Anchorage for the first time and says, "Alaska was everything I had dreamed." He served a brief tour in Southeast Asia in 1973 and made his second trip to Alaska, TDY to Fairbanks in September of that year. He left the Air Force with sinus problems in 1975, returned to graduate school and finished his PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Washington in 1981. He joined Shell Oil in Houston as a geophysicist. In February, 1988, he and his wife, Marti, took a "second honeymoon" to Alaska and drove from Seward to Coldfoot. He says Marti fell in love with it just like he had. He left Shell in 1991 and they moved to Alaska following a childhood dream. Eric says, "It is an open question whether he will get good at Iditarod or get old first." He is a member of the American Physical Society, Chugiak Dog Mushers, Iditarod and P.R.I.D.E.His hobbies are dogs, history of the North Country, mountains, weather, geology, physics and Alaska. He and Marti are the parents of Delphine, 33, Dawn, 30, Andi, 26 and Liz, 25.