Response to a survey of approximately 250 leading geophysicists worldwide, conducted by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Center for History of Physics and the Committee on History of Geophysics of the American Geophysical Union in 1997. Recipients were asked to send copies of their curriculum vitae and a list of publications as Part One of the survey and were then asked to discuss their entry into science in general and geophysics specifically as a career; how their scientific achievements came about and major efforts they were involved in which did not achieve the hoped for results; changes from one discipline to another; funding sources; the role of other disciplines in their own research; their work as educators; and their involvement in geophysics-related institutions. Contents include Part One of the Questionnaire, a letter, curriculum vitae, publications list, an autobiographical statement entitled "Looking back over the years", and five published or to-be-published articles. Parker recounts his childhood interests and his graduate studies at California Institute of Technology. Noteworthy figures that influenced his career include Walter M. Elsasser, S. Chandrasekhar, and J. A. Simpson. Parker clearly establishes his divergence from the scientific community over the theory of the magnetosphere.