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Wendell Satre was born in Post Falls, Idaho on July 3, 1918. Satre was the first in his family to receive a college education. Wendell remembers arriving on the University of Idaho campus with $80 in his pocket and paying $37 for his first semester's registration. When his workday was over, the determined young student often carried water from the university's heating plant to the shack he lived in on the bank of Paradise Creek. This shack was one of five or so located near the corner of Sixth and Line streets. Many evenings, Satre cooked cracked wheat on the stove and slept in a bunk bed. During the summer, Wendell worked in a logging camp and was able to save enough money to move into the Idaho Club. In his junior year, he and his roommate purchased a 4-door Model A Ford car for $60 and rented it out to other students for 5 cents a mile, gas included.

In 1939, Satre graduated from the University of Idaho with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He met University of Idaho student Jessie Stewart before she transferred to Washington State University to participate in the home economics program. Following graduation, Wendell and Jessie began working for The Washington Water Power Company. Jessie was a home service adviser, instructing homemakers on the proper use of electric ranges and other electrical appliances and Wendell started as a personal application representative at a salary of $900 a year. In June of 1941, the two were married and over years their family grew to four children, Clark, Glen, Janet and Jeanne.

Wendell is the former chairman and president of Washington Water Power (WWP) (Avista). He was the firm's 2nd president, starting from a transmission clerk in 1940, moving quickly to residential salesman in 1941, to junior power supply engineer in 1943.

Satre served in the military service from 1944 to 1946. He returned to WWP as an associate electrical engineer and became operating engineer in 1948. He then climbed to production, maintenance and construction superintendent in 1953, construction and maintenance manager in 1958, and executive assistant to the president in 1963. He was assistant vice president in 1964, vice president and board of directors member in 1965, and then served as executive vice president in late 1965 before earning the top post.

Satre became president of WWP in 1971 and president and chairman in 1975. He was president and chairman of the Board in 1981 until he retired in 1985. Overall, Satre served WWP for 46 years.

On the 25th anniversary of Avista's Kettle Falls Generating Plant in 1983, Wendell reminded the crowd, "The issue today is not a choice between conservation, coal, nuclear, renewable or all other forms of generation, but rather it's the need to use all of them when practical... If we fail to plan and build today, tomorrow could be too late." Nearly three decades later, Satre's statements, in the context of renewable energy generation, are still true. It took guts to build the first wood waste plant made solely for the purpose of generating electricity. It had never been done before. At the outset, people didn't think it could be done. But WWP's leader was Satre, who had a vision and saw the potential. The plant has been an innovative piece of Avista's portfolio while producing clean, renewable biomass energy - decades before green energy legislation was commonplace.

Throughout his career Satre served as president and board chairman of various companies including president and board chairman of Consolidated Electronics, Inc. from 1994 to 1997, Key Tronic Corporation from 1991 to 2006 and chairman of the Output Technology Corporation from 1993 to 2007. Wendell was founding chairman of the board of Itron from 1977 to 1987.

Satre has held executive positions in close to 40 civic and community organizations in the Northwest and received an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Idaho in 1978, followed with the University of Idaho Alumni Hall of Fame Award and Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award.

These days, for Satre the good things come in the form of photographs, those he's taken of family, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Wendell and Jessie Satre gave their first President's Circle gift to the University of Idaho in 1970 and have been loyal President's Circle members supporting the University and the College of Engineering for over 35 years.