swamc 25yrs II  
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Economic Development and Advocacy for Southwest Alaska
January 2014  
SWAMC celebrated our 26th year, March 5-7th with our Annual Economic Summit and Membership Meeting - Accessing Opportunity. Planning for the conference we put a great effort into identifying one unifying theme for the year, and we feel we got it just right with Accessing Opportunity (both LG Treadwell and Senator Begich agreed). Southwest Alaska is such a unique and special place, but its not necessary an easy place - opportunity abounds, but attainment requires a coordinated effort and commitment from all of us. We tackled this challenge by focusing on three priority areas, as defined by our constituents and investigated where resources are needed within Energy, People and Fisheries. All-in-all, our feedback was positive, and we were on target to make a positive contribution the region's economic opportunity. 
2014 Conference Recap:
 

Our survey responses are in! If you have not yet taken the opportunity, please share you thoughts with us. Accessing Opportunity Survey

According to your responses, our conference was again a success. 2014 was our best attended conference in recent memory with 199 total participants, continuing the trend of increasing participation in SWAMC. 87% thought we do a good job of incorporating your feedback, but unfortunately 7% did not feel their voice was heard. Darn, we'll have to listen a little better next time, and in the mean time please provide us a second chance to hear your feedback. All attendees reported the conference was either valuable or extremely valuable. Energy was once again the number one rated topic of importance, followed by Infrastructure and Fisheries. Interactive Workshops were rated poorest with only 5% reporting this as a priority - next year we'll have to replace a workshop with an Ignite panel. Every respondent but one, reported the SWAMC Conference was good value for money. Everyone indicated we are responsive, though not extremely responsive. Generally measuring conference quality, the vast majority of feedback was positive in all categories, except a few who did not appreciate the interactive workshops and a few more who were unhappy with the food - we can improve the workshops, but I would encourage any feedback to improve the food experience (more healthy options or sweets). You indicated that SWAMC serves a range of services for any particular entity, although two areas that this organization would like to improve: 1) Data collection/information gaps and 2) Marketing your message. Let us know if you have ideas about how we might be more effective in these areas.

Thank you for all who attended! We are already making notes to make next year's conference even better than this one. Please see www.SWAMC.org and see the LINK to our conference page, complete with the 2014 conference agenda, links to presentations with audio (thank you Mike Mason, KDLG), speaker info and resolutions the organization passed. Be sure to check back from time to time as we will be including meeting minutes and other updates to the website in the coming weeks.

See you all at next year's conference.
2014 SWAMC Board  

SWAMC is happy to announce returning Board members: Alice Ruby, President, Bristol Bay Municipal; Layton Lockett, Treasurer, Aleutian Municipal; Dan Clarion, Kodiak Municipal; Glen Gardner Jr., At-Large; Paul Gronholdt, Aleutian Associate; Shirley Marquardt, Aleutian Municipal; Dan O'Hara, Bristol Bay Associate; Michelle Ravenmoon, Bristol Bay Municipal; and Joe Sullivan, At-Large.

Joining the 2014 Board is Carol Austerman, Vice President, Kodiak Municipal and Cynthia Berns, Kodiak Associate. Carol represents the Kodiak Island Borough through her seat on the Assembly, and is a life-long Southwest Alaskan with deep roots in the Kodiak community. "Growing up in a family involved in state and local government, I have been raised to know the importance of public service and providing leadership - it is part of my heritage" Cynthia Berns represents the Old Harbor Native Corporation, where she is Vice President for Corporate Affairs, and is also a lifelong Southwest Alaskan with deep roots to the Kodiak community, growing up in the village of Old Harbor and later Kodiak City. "I look forward to working with municipalities and organizations throughout Southwest Alaska to promote healthy and economically stable communities. Solid infrastructure, a strong economy and education are all factors that lead to a healthy community and I am excited to work with the {SWAMC} Board of Directors on these issues. Quyanaa!"

With gratitude and thanks we welcome the 2014 SWAMC Board.
 
Energy Planning

Energy was a primary conference theme, its also one of the most important issues facing the region. Many are aware that SWAMC is conducting Energy Planning in Kodiak (Resource Assessment), Bristol Bay (Stakeholder Outreach) and Aleutians (Stakeholder Outreach). Our final object is no easy task - to reduce the long-term cost of power - and within that, promoting stakeholder buy-in. It is an unfortunate truth that public funds will not flow as freely as they once did when our State was awash in petrol-dollars. Projects will still be funded by the State, but many more will require local stakeholders to champion and fight for progress to be made, coordinating the activity of numerous partners that will be required to fund large projects. It is this reality that precipitates the most important objective of the Energy Planning process, like all things, is the people. We need you to be involved, we need to you care, we need you to lead and most importantly we need to look to you for direction on the future of regional energy projects - and SWAMC will be right there alongside fighting for investments in energy infrastructure that will form the base of our long-term economic viability. Many exciting possibilities exist on the Energy Frontier!
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy

Another focus area we will carry forward from the conference is our rewrite of our regional CEDS Document. Between feedback provided from our Business Council and confirmed by membership, the SWAMC Board and Staff have direction. The CEDS Update is an opportunity for this organization to collect a vast amount of regional economic data, mash it together, analyze what we find and take a broad look, as a region, to take actionable steps towards achieving our focus areas. In the past, the CEDS document was a vast manual, displaying tables of information, but that is changing this year, as we will strip most data tables out (but readily available), only displaying and discussing more complex compilations of data where we can identify strength/weakness trends, in a short document. If there is any one goal for this document, it is to be usable to our communities and members. At 50 pages, this document will only be 25% the size of its predecessor, but still that is more than most are willing to undertake, so the document will be partitioned into focus areas: Workforce; Infrastructure and Energy; Basic Resources and Partnerships - but even these will be distilled into an Executive Summary, short and direct enough to reach a wider audience. Please stay tuned as we anticipate this important document will be widely used by members.
Fisheries Ecosystem Science

One theme covered during our fisheries day is the interconnectedness of marine systems. Much of the discussion is currently focused on the biological ecosystem, but from our perspective the true ecosystem is the entire SWAMC Region - including biology, but also people, business and communities, where finding balance in any one sphere is easy enough but limiting scope has the potential to crowd out our other aspects of the SWAMC ecosystem - Completely protecting our businesses risks our communities, and likewise, an absolute focus on communities risks our business. Everything must balance.  
Bering Sea Science Project

The "Bering Sea Project" is a partnership between the North Pacific Research Board and the National Science Foundation aimed at improving understanding the impact of changing climate and dynamic sea ice cover on the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem. More than one hundred scientists engaged in field research and ecosystem modeling to link climate, physical oceanography, plankton, fishes, seabirds, marine mammals, humans, traditional knowledge and economic outcomes to learn more about the mechanisms that sustain this highly productive region. Additional partners included local and state agencies, local residents, research assistants, NOAA, the Coast Guard, private vessel and commercial fishing crews, all working together.

This huge effort consisted of nearly 25,000 person-days of fieldwork over four years, including everything from socio-economic movements of the commercial pollock fleet and interviews of coastal residents about subsistence harvest practices, to detailed biological oceanography research like collecting seawater samples to measure availability of nutrients and pulling up grabs of bottom mud to learn more about invertebrate animals living on and in the seafloor.

To spread the word and share results, 2-page Headlines written in plain language and peer-reviewed scientific publications in the marine science journal "Deep-Sea Research Part II" are currently being circulated. One of the many interesting findings, is how the pollock catcher/processor fleet concentrated their effort further south in warm years, contrary to our expectations - and much much more! Please visit the project website to view these Headlines and publications or to explore further. Or email the program manager, Tom Van Pelt, with questions.
Membership Photo Sharing Opportunity
Anyone who is still reading this far into a long newsletter should receive an added benefit - here it is. We strive to show appreciation for our members; we would like to invite any and all members to share your photos with us and we will display those on the next newsletter! We have an amazing region, please share community, nature, industry, business projects, people, new developments - everything that makes us all so proud of our SWAMC Region.  
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In This Issue...
Conference Recap
2014 Board
Energy
CEDS
Fisheries Ecosystem
Bering Sea Science
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SWAMC Board of Directors
 
Alice Ruby, Pres.
Carol Austerman, Vice Pres. 
Layton Lockett, Treasurer 
Cynthia Berns   
Dan Clarion
 
Glen Gardner
Paul Gronholdt
Shirley Marquardt  
Dan O'Hara
Michelle Ravenmoon  
Joe Sullivan 

SWAMC Staff

Erik O'Brien 
Interim Director

Paul Oliva
STEM Coordinator

Richelle Johnson
Intern 

The SWAMC Region 
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Carol Austerman  
 
Cynthia Berns 
 

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Upcoming Events & Dates to Remember
As always...
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