Awards Committee

Annual Report – November 2009
Theresa Tanner, Committee Chair

There were two changes of significance for the Awards Committee in 2009.  First, Cheryl Anderson stepped down as committee chair after 3 years of service.  Cheryl did a wonderful job heading this committee; her time and commitment was appreciated.  Second, in coordination with Ted Otis of the Wally Noerenberg Committee, the deadline for submitting all chapter award nominations is now January 31, 2010. 

The Awards Committee is responsible for selecting the Meritorious Service Award, Alaska Chapter Service Award, Almost Darwin Award, and the best student paper and poster presented at the annual Chapter Meetings.  The committee did not receive any nominations for the 2009 Meritorious Service Award, Alaska Chapter Service Award, or the Almost Darwin Award. 

Fourteen members volunteered to judge and select the best student paper and student poster at this year’s annual meeting.  The best student paper was awarded to Jason R. Neuswanger, and the best student poster was awarded to David R. Roon, both students with the Alaska Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  I commend all of the 2009 student presenters for sharing their work. 

Lastly, I am soliciting for new committee members.  

See the History of Awards page for listing of the annual meeting best paper/poster awards.

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Continuing Education Committee

Annual Report – October 2009
Jan Conitz and Tammy Hoem, Committee Co-Chairs

Activities:

The new CE committee started in January 2009 with two requests for stand-alone workshops and courses:

1. AD Model Builder class, one week in winter/spring;

2. Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) course, one week sometime in spring or summer.

The AD Model Builder workshop was held in Juneau in April, taught by Jim Ianelli of the NMFS Alaska Science Center, and was well attended with 16 participants. We had some conversations with Joe Klein of ADF&G Sport Fish about organizing the Instream Flow course, but due to impending spring and summer field season schedules, the course was postponed.

In late summer we began planning workshops for the annual meeting. We had two people who volunteered to teach at the outset, we made several other contacts, and we got some additional ideas and contacts from Debbie Hart, an ADF&G workforce development coordinator. In all, we were able to offer five outstanding half-day workshops, covering a broad range of topics of interest to fisheries professionals in Alaska, including how to have more productive meetings, education in fisheries, cross cultural communication, electrofishing techniques, and genetics. Unfortunately, due in part to Sunday scheduling and many people’s reduced travel budgets, the two Sunday courses were cancelled for insufficient enrollment. For Monday’s electrofishing, genetics, and cross-cultural communication workshops, forty-four people were signed up by the end of pre-registration and more inquiries for last-minute registration are still coming in. We thank all of our volunteer instructors.

Announcements:

The instructors of the cancelled courses are interested in offering their courses at some time in the future, hopefully on a schedule that will work better for people. Laurel Devaney and Erik Anderson are willing to try again at next year’s meeting with their fisheries education course. Margo Matthews and Teri Arnold are available to teach their “How to Have More Productive Meetings” course on request, and can tailor it to specific workplace or agency needs.

In order to help plan future courses, including those for next year’s annual meeting, we put together a brief survey for the Chapter membership, which will be distributed at the meeting and online. The online survey will be announced through the Chapter email list and in the newsletter and will be available after the end of the meeting. We also welcome members’ workshop ideas or suggestions at any time, just contact one of us.

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Cultural Diversity Committee

Annual Report – November 2009
Sara Gilk, Chair

The Cultural Diversity Travel Award helps fund entry-level applicants who are involved in the natural resource field to attend the annual Alaska Chapter conference of the American Fisheries Society (AFS). The committee selects the top candidate(s) and then tries to get as many recipients to the meeting as possible depending on the meeting location and where the candidate(s) reside. The main goal of this committee has been to help diversify our Chapter membership and get young upcoming people active with AFS.

I solicited applications from around the state and received applications from three highly qualified individuals. After scoring applications with a panel of anonymous judges, we were able to fund two candidates, Alissa Joseph and Jessica Davila, for the 2009 meeting in Fairbanks.

Alissa Joseph is currently a student under the ANSEP program, working towards a Biology Engineering Degree at UAF in Bethel. She has been inspired by her grandfather, who was actively involved in subsistence issues in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, and who instilled in her an appreciation of fish and wildlife resources for subsistence and commercial use. She has completed internships with BP and recently with Fish and Game at a coho radio tagging project on the Kuskokwim River, and is now working with the Natural Resource and Environmental Program at ONC in Bethel. She is interested in finding ways to bridge science and culture for sustainable fisheries management in Western Alaska.

Jessica Davila is currently enrolled at the University of Alaska Southeast’s Ketchikan campus seeking an Associates Degree in Fisheries Technology, and plans to continue pursuing an online fisheries degree from Oregon State this fall. She has worked as a STEP student with the Forest Service in Ketchikan, working at a remote salmon rearing site at Bakewell Lake. Additionally, she has worked at the University of Southeast’s fisheries department, including assisting in studies on invasive species and the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring Partnership. She has also volunteered at the Deer Mountain Tribal Hatchery. Her career goals are to work as a biologist for the Forest Service, working on habitat, monitoring, and enhancement in the Tongass National Forest.

Sara Gilk and Miranda Plumb took over chairmanship from Lisa Stuby and Jerry Berg in 2008. However, Miranda has since taken a position out-of-state and is no longer available to serve as co-chair. If anyone you know might be interested in serving as co-chair of this committee, please let Sara know (sara.gilk@alaska.gov).

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Annual Report - November 2009
Allen Bingham, Committee Chair

This committee was established at the 1995 Chapter annual meeting in Wasilla. The main purpose of this committee is to maintain and keep current the Alaska Chapter web site and the Chapter’s email distribution list.

During the past few years the web site has essentially just been “maintained” (i.e., no new improvements). The web site was successfully used to conduct on-line e-balloting for the elections in the past, but due to changes in the server hosting our site we have conducted e-balloting entirely through email during the past few years, and e-balloting is expected to be used in one form or another this year and on into the future. Each newsletter that has been put out during this past year has been made available on our web site in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format; and information about training courses and meetings of not only the Chapter but also the Parent Society and the Western Division have been posted. As has been the case for the last two years, continuing this year the newsletter was primarily distributed by a email-based system; with some hard-copies sent to some non-members, libraries, and members without email (or those requesting a hard-copy).

The Student Subunit web site is maintained as a portion of our site, and has continued to be maintained by the Electronics Communications Committee. Their web site address is:

http://www.fisheries.org/units/afs-ak/student

The Student Subunit’s web site includes postings of the officers, meetings, and special event announcements were posted for each of the following active Campus Groups:

• Fairbanks-UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks); and
• Juneau-UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks-Southeast).

Currently the Anchorage campus group is inactive. Also note that the Fairbanks campus group independently maintains an on-line blog site (at: http://uafafs.blogspot.com/).

The committee continued to maintain an email distribution list for most Chapter members with email addresses in the Chapter's membership database. The distribution list was used successfully to "get the word out" for Chapter activities such as the recent announcements for the 2009 Annual Conference, chapter elections, the chapter newsletter, and other items of interest. In 2006 the parent Society re-implemented support for our Chapter’s list server, and all Chapter members with an email address (who have chosen to participate) can be members of that list. Chapter members that are subscribed can post email to the list at the following address (they need to post from the email address that they are subscribed to the list):

akchap@lists.fisheries.org

The list is moderated by yours-truly to reduce SPAM messages sent out and to control for mistaken "Reply-to-All" responses to posted messages, that I filter-out before allowing transmission to subscribed Chapter members. Membership in the list is contingent upon membership in the Chapter. Periodically, postings from non-Chapter members have been permitted to be posted for distribution to the list on a case by case basis.

The committee is interested in hearing what members would like to see on our web site. The web site address is:

http://www.fisheries.org/units/afs-ak

and the e-mail address for sending comment about and contributions to the web site is:

allen.bingham@alaska.gov

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Annual Report – November 2009
Cecil Rich, Committee Chair

The Environmental Concerns Committee was established by the Executive Committee to provide coordinated technical and policy analysis and Chapter input and comments on environmental issues that affect Alaska’s fishery resources. This may occur, for example, when the Chapter’s opinion or position is solicited by members or by external organizations or agencies. The committee will formulate, through consensus, a Chapter position on such issues for review by the EXCOM. Such positions should reflect the concerns of the membership as a whole. Due to the time-sensitive nature of many environmental issues, review of positions formulated by the committee will be by the EXCOM.

In 2009, there were no issues brought to the Committee for consideration.  The Western Division of the American Fisheries Society at their 2009 annual meeting approved a resolution on the Pebble Mine Project recommending a formal independent scientific review and survey of potential environmental and socioeconomic consequences of large-scale mineral extraction in the Bristol Bay watershed (see, pages 7-11 in the following document on the Western Division's web site: Report  to the WDAFS Executive Committee, MSWord document).

If you would like to become involved with the committee on issues of concern, please contact Environmental Concerns Committee Chair, Cecil Rich at cecil@gci.net.

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Annual Report – November 2009
Ray Hander, Committee Chair
Tim Joyce, Lee Ann Gardner - Members

   Amounts rounded to the nearest $10 and percentages to the nearest whole percent.
   a – increase includes donation contributions

As of March 2009, all of the Chapter’s financial assets were transferred to Wedbush Morgan Securities (WMS) from UBS Financial Services (UBS).   The Chapter was not in agreement with UBS’s their investment and management practices.  We were able to retain Todd Fletcher’s (Senior VP for Investments) services after he moved from UBS to WMS.

The Chapter’s WMS investment portfolio gained approximately $39,130 since 31 December 2008 with individual accounts gains ranging from 8 to 60%.  This does not include the WMS checking account that fluxes with Chapter spending needs.  These gains are due to the ongoing stock market improvement.  The Chapter’s WMS portfolio is invested using a moderately conservative strategy with an investment horizon of 7 to 10 years as determined by the Finance Committee members in consultation with the WMS investment representative.  The Chapter’s strategy is for long-term growth and we weathered the recent financial volatility with losses similar to or slightly better than the stock market. 

During the past year the Wally Noerenberg and Cultural Diversity Funds dropped below the $15,000 level (the principle amount) but are now above that level and can be used to supply funds for part of the awards.  At present, we are experiencing returns in the 10% range while remaining moderately conservative.

The Finance Committee has met quarterly with the Chapter’s WMS representative, Todd Fletcher, to receive portfolio status updates and conduct maintenance of accounts as needed to conduct Chapter business.  Lee Ann Gardner is in frequent contact with WMS as she conducts day-to-day Chapter business and informs finance committee members with information on an as needed basis.

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Treasurer's Report

November 4, 2009
Lee Ann Gardner, Treasurer

Primary treasury-related efforts in 2009 were:

• Develop Spending Plan for 2009.
• Complete federal tax return filing for the Tax Year 12/1/2007 thru 11/30/2008.
• Serve on and provide support as needed to the Chapter’s Finance Committee and the Molly Ahlgren Scholarship Committee.
• Assisted in developing a proposal for an Alaska Chapter Life Membership category.

Alaska Chapter financial account balances, as of October 30, 2009:

Note:  The Wedbush Checking account is inflated at this time since most 2009 annual meeting bills are still outstanding.  The student travel fund balance is included in the Wedbush Checking account and will be calculated after 2009 student travel expenses are incurred and this year’s silent/audible auction and t-shirt sales are completed. 

Annual Meeting Registration Counts:

Continuing Education Student Counts:

 Total Meeting Gross Revenues:

 Fairbanks 2009 (to date):  $32,070 (w/ Molly Ahlgren donations of $1,120 received during
   meeting registration)
Anchorage 2009: $65.8 K
Ketchikan 2007:  $30.0 K
Fairbanks 2006:  $30.0 K

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Fisheries Communication and Education Committee

Annual Report - November 2009
Laurel Devaney , Committee chair

2009 Accomplishments:

Laurel Devaney, and Erik Anderson of ADF&G, developed the workshop, “Environmental Education Tips and Techniques” for the 2009 AFS meeting. This was cancelled due to low enrollment. We will offer likely the workshop again next year hoping for better enrollment.

Laurel Devaney made the presentation “Including Youth in Habitat Restoration Projects” as part of the “Habitat Restoration in Interior Alaska” session at the 2009 meeting. 

If you have any questions or suggestions for the Education committee, please feel free to contact:

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Annual Report – November 2009
Audra Brase, Committee Chair

The membership statistics for 2009 were somewhat lower than for similar figures for 2008 during the usual June-July reporting period. However, the committee got started a little late this year sending out reminder contacts for members who had not renewed. The somewhat later efforts on that front combined with members who renewed in time for our annual conference, resulted in similar membership roles by September of this year.

140 reminder letters (see Example letter to Renew Membership-2009 Membership Committee Report Attachment, PDF file) were “snail” mailed out on September 3 to folks who owed both parent chapter & local chapter dues. It was thought that a hard copy letter might get a better response rate as we are all deluged with emails every day and AFS information may get lost in the electronic shuffle. It would be nice if there was some way to assess how well those mailouts worked, i.e. was there a spike in membership renewals after the letters went out? This might be something for the next Committee Chair (Trent Sutton) to pursue.

The other notable action of the Committee this year was to work with the EXCOM developing a structure for the Chapter Life Membership category. The result of this work is the proposed resolution that we will vote on today.

Table 1. AFS membership summary (2004 to 2009).

The statistics listed for “State/Province” in Table 1 represent the number of different states or locations outside of Alaska where we have members; and the “Other” membership category for 2009 included only the “Young Professional” membership category (in the past it may have included Hutton, and Honorary members, or other special memberships that do not occur every year).

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Annual Report - November 2009
Hal Geiger, Committee Chair

The Molly Ahlgren Scholarship committee met several times through e-mail in the last year. We selected Matt Catterson to be this year's winner of the Molly Ahlgren scholarship. Matt earned a BA in Architecture from Hobart College in 2003, but after coming to Alaska he decided to pursue a different career path. Since 2007 he has been pursuing a BS in Fisheries from UAF. He has one more year of coursework to complete this second degree. He has a 3.9 GPA over the last three years, including in graduate level coursework. Matt has been involved in Alaskan fisheries outside the classroom as well. He has worked as a fisheries technician for ADF&G or USFS for the past six summers, based out of Yakutat. He volunteered last year for NOAA Fisheries to work on the “whole earth” project. He is pulling together worldwide fisheries data to project on the large globe that sits in the entryway to the Ted Steven Marine Research Institute in Juneau. Matt's facuilty advisor wrote, “In my opinion, Matt embodies both Molly Ahlgren’s intellectual curiosity as well as love of Alaskan organisms. As Molly once told me, 'Science is art'. Matt’s interest and background both in Architecture and Fisheries fully represent this duality.”

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Annual Report - December 2009
Gretchen Bishop, Committee Chair

The Oncorhynchus serves as a medium to distribute information to Alaska Chapter members and other interested individuals. The newsletter is produced by editor, Gretchen Bishop who compiles articles submitted by Chapter members then sends the articles to Connie Taylor of Fathom Publishing who designs, lays out, and mails the newsletter. The AFS style conventions described at http://www.fisheries.org/afs/publications_style.html are generally followed. Prior to finalizing the newsletter, the President and Electronic Communications Committee Chair Allen Bingham make a final edits. Each issue includes a front-page feature article and one or more photos supplied by a volunteer to the editor to include in the newsletter. An effort is made to distribute opportunities to write the feature article between agencies and regions of the state. Submissions of articles for inclusion in the newsletter are solicited quarterly via the AFS Alaska Chapter list-serv; photos are encouraged. During the past fiscal year, four electronic issues were printed, one at the beginning of each calendar quarter. Content was as follows:

Winter (Vol. 29 no. 1) Oncorhynchus

Counting Fish in Rivers with Sonar
President’s Corner
Alaska Chapter 35^th Annual Conference Awards
Wally Noerenberg Award Committee Report
UAF Museum Fish Collection
Jack Helle Retirement
New Student Subunit President
New AFS Publication
Parent Society 2009 Award Nominations
Meetings and Events

Spring (Vol. 29 no. 2) Oncorhynchus

Rockfish Genetics
President’s Corner
First Call for Papers, Alaska Chapter 36^th Annual Conference
Student Subunit Update
Committee Reports
Arctic Fishery Management Plan
Pebble Mine Project Update
Advocacy in AFS
Parent Society Award Nominations
Meetings and Events

Summer (Vol. 29 no. 3) Oncorhynchus

Mariculture and Aquatic Farming in Alaska
National AFS Meeting
President’s Corner
First Call for Papers, Alaska Chapter 36^th Annual Conference
New Titles from AFS
Call for Award Nominations
Nominations for Vice President
Meetings and Events 

Fall (Vol. 29 no. 4) Oncorhynchus

Sitkoh Creek Steelhead Project
President’s Corner
Alaska Chapter 36^th Annual Conference
Student Subunit Update
Bios for Candidates for Vice President and Secretary
Oncorhynchus editor opening
New Books from AFS
Graduate Fellowship Opportunity
Joe Margraf Receives AFS National Meritorious Service Award
Meetings and Events

This is the second year of fully electronic distribution for the Oncorhynchus, although paper copies continue to be archived and sent to subscribing libraries. This has permitted the distribution of a lengthier newsletter at little additional cost.  The committee began consideration of moving to a web-based newsletter this year, but after some discussion with the Excom, it was decided to table the idea for the present.  As this will be my last year of editing, the committee began soliciting for a new editor in the fall issue of Oncorhynchus. Newsletter submission deadlines are the 10th of March, June, September and December. If you have a possible newsletter contribution, please contact Gretchen at: 465-4269, or Gretchen.Bishop@alaska.gov.

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Annual Report  – November 2009
Bert Lewis

The Chapter was successful in recruiting 2 new officers will serve the chapter well. They are Trent Sutton from UAF for Vice President and Julie Bednarski from ADF&G for Chapter Secretary. Last year the Past Presidents discussed the most effective way to proceed with an external funding offer for a salmon straying workshop while maintaining the support of hatcheries and hatchery supporters. After several unsuccessful attempts to engage other entities to partner for that workshop the ExCom elected not to pursue the idea further.

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Resolutions and Bylaws Committee

Annual Report – November 2009
Bill Bechtol, Committee Chair

Annual Summary:  The Resolutions and Bylaws Committee is a standing committee of the Alaska Chapter and serves to review proposed resolutions and Bylaw changes and make recommendations to the Executive Committee.  This committee is also responsible for maintaining the Chapter Procedures Manual; minor updates were made to the Procedures Manual this past year.  The committee received no proposals for bylaws changes during the past year.  However, a proposed resolution to amend the Chapter membership structure by formally defining a Chapter life member category was received.  A report that identified the resolution’s background, pros, and cons was prepared and submitted to the Chapter Executive Committee with subsequent distribution to the Chapter membership.  That resolution is slated to be deliberated and potentially voted on during the business meeting at the Chapter’s annual meeting in November 2009.

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No reports this year.

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Annual Report - November 2009
Ted Otis, Committee Chair

The Wally Noerenberg Award (WNA) for Fishery Excellence is the highest award bestowed by the Alaska Chapter. It honors an individual's life-long achievements in a career affecting Alaska’s fisheries. Contributions may include, but are not limited to: fisheries research; technology development; species and habitat management; innovations in harvesting, processing or marketing; academics or fisheries education; and involvement in national and international affairs affecting Alaska fisheries. The award was created in 1981, and in 1982 was awarded posthumously to its namesake, Wally Noerenberg. Since then, there have been fourteen other recipients, including this year.

The WNA is administered by a committee comprised of three Chapter past-presidents and a committee chair that cannot be a past president. Committee members serve a staggered three-year term such that only one position becomes vacant and is refilled each year. Historically, the immediate past-president was automatically seated on the WNA committee following each year’s annual Chapter meeting. In 2006-2007, the WNA Committee Procedures Manual was modified so that new committee members are randomly selected from a list of past-presidents still active in the Alaska Chapter. The 2009 WNA committee consisted of Scott Maclean, Jim Reynolds, and Bill Hauser, whose 3-year term ended at the 2009 Fairbanks Meeting. Bill Wilson was selected to take Bill Hauser’s place on the committee.

This year, the committee received one WNA nomination prior to the historical July 31 deadline. After thoroughly reviewing the nomination and supporting materials, the WNA committee voted unanimously to recommend Dr. Terrence J. Quinn II for the WNA. Their recommendation was taken up by the Executive Committee during their August 25th meeting and they too voted unanimously to approve Terry as the 15th recipient of the Wally Noerenberg Award. The Executive Committee also approved a $1,000 cash award for Terry.

One final bit of committee business this year dealt with the nomination deadline for all chapter awards. The historical deadline of July 31 occurred amidst everyone’s busy field season and was viewed as a contributing factor for the lack of nominations in some years. Therefore, Ted Otis and Theresa Tanner, chairpersons for the chapter award committees, brought a proposal to the Executive Committee to change the nomination deadline to January 31st. The proposal was discussed and then unanimously approved by the Executive Committee at their April 2009 meeting and will go into effect January 31, 2010. Finally, the Chapter Awards Nomination Form was updated this year to reflect the new nomination deadline and to help provide guidance to nominators regarding which chapter award may be most appropriate for the person they wish to nominate.

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