Businessman Harold Johnson, 74

Standing 6-foot-5 and crowned with a thatch of wavy white hair, Harold Walton Johnson would fix people in his Arctic-blue gaze, then transfix them with tales of his adventures delivered in a Southern drawl.

Or he'd sell them a diesel engine.

He is best known for founding the business that became Alaska Diesel Electric on Seattle's Ship Canal. It is world-renowned for manufacturing Northern Lights generator sets and Lugger diesel engines for fishing boats and luxury yachts.

But he also is known as a perennially curious man whose wanderlust led him from his boyhood home near Weaverville, N.C., to China, Hawaii, Alaska and eventually Seattle.

"He worked hard, but he also had a lot of hobbies like photography and gunsmithing," said his wife of 34 years, Lorraine Johnson of Seattle. "He was an interesting person. He was his own man, that's for sure."

"He was very much a hands-on president," said Alaska Diesel spokesman Kurt Hoehne. "At any time he could tell you what was going on in any part of the company."

Mr. Johnson died Sunday (April 12) of a brain hemorrhage. He was 74.

The son of a respected camp director, Mr. Johnson grew up at Camp Sequoyah in North Carolina. At age 17, enthralled with the lore of Alaska, he hitched rides on freight trains across North America, landing in Seward, Alaska, in 1941. He washed dishes, drove a bulldozer during construction of the Al-Can Highway and serviced aircraft.

"A lot of his stories were about servicing aircraft and boats," said Hoehne. "During the war the officers took these young guys and made them aircraft mechanics even though the guys didn't think they could do it. . . . At our business he was always telling us we could do a lot more than we thought we could."

Mr. Johnson joined the Marines in World War II, taught jungle survival in Hawaii and maintained Army aircraft in China. After the war he became a big-game guide in Alaska.

But he soon traded his guns for cameras, and opened one of Alaska's first mail-order slide businesses.

In 1956 he started a boat dealership in Anchorage. He brought the first snowmobiles to the area and developed his diesel-generator line.

Mr. Johnson moved to Seattle in 1971 and became the Volvo Penta

engine distributor for five Northwest states. The business grew into Alaska Diesel Electric.

Among his pleasures was traveling with family and friends aboard his yacht, "Northern Lights," to southeast Alaska each summer.

Other survivors include his sons Mark Johnson of Seattle and Jeff Johnson of Anchorage; daughter, Alecia Elsasser of Portland; sister, Karen Conway of Gastonia, N.C.; brother, William Johnson of Asheville, N.C.; and five grandchildren.

Services will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at University Congregational Church, 4515 16th Ave. N.E., Seattle.

Carole Beers' phone message number is 206-464-2391. Her e-mail address is: cbee-new@seatimes.com