For the fifth year in a row, the Alaska Seafood Processor Leadership Institute convened in Kodiak to guide seafood plant employees through the business and technical sides of the seafood processing industry. Listen to the full story on KMXT.
Source: KMXT 100.1 FM – Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
December Trends summarizes Alaska’s housing market indicators for the first half of 2015. Also this month we look at the top 5 percent of Alaska earners under the age of 30, and how Christmas hiring and yearly peaks in jobs and sales differ in Alaska.
Source: Alaska Department of Labor & Workforce Development
The University of Alaska, industry and agency partners continue to collaborate to address maritime workforce training needs through UA’s Fisheries Seafood Maritime Initiative. The need for skilled employees is ongoing, with one in seven jobs in Alaska being maritime related. During the fourth annual FSMI meeting in Anchorage Oct. 21, state, university and industry leaders met to share program successes, discuss the FY15 UA Maritime Education and Training Inventory and consider challenges and opportunities before them as they continue to address Alaska’s maritime workforce needs. Read the full article here.
Source: University of Alaska Statewide Voice
The Alaska Seafood Processing Leadership Institute (ASPLI) session 1 was held in November at the Kodiak Seafood and Marine Science Center. Twenty two participants are attending the institute, from Alaska General Seafoods, APICDA, Coastal Cold Storage, Icicle Seafoods, Norton Sound Seafood Products, Peter Pan Seafoods, Silver Bay Seafoods, Trident Seafoods, Unisea, two direct marketers supported by the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation and a CES faculty member. They traveled from Ketchikan, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, Naknek, Pilot Point, Larsen Bay, Homer, Nome, Unalakleet, Dillingham, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Seattle for the institute. The group includes individuals with titles of production manager, assistant plant manager, HR director, QC manager, field office coordinator, assistant fleet manager, production supervisor, first machinist, retort operator and plant owner.
The first intensive 5-day session included information on the business of seafood processing; seafood safety and quality as part of corporate identity; upcoming changes in requirements for seafood processors; innovations in seafood packaging and mec
hanization and the DEC regulatory process. Lean manufacturing was the subject of a daylong session and another day was devoted to project management training. The group heard from long time plant manager Jim Majors and toured the Trident plant and Pickled Willys smoking operation in Kodiak. A local seafood chef prepared lunch each day and the group processed salmon jerky in the seafood processing pilot plant as a team building activity.
Over the winter, each participant will work with a mentor to complete a project of value to his or her company. In early March, the group comes back together in Anchorage for another 5 days of training with a focus on leadership, human resources, marketing and understanding and participating in the seafood regulatory process. Following the Anchorage class, a number of ASPLI participants will travel together to the International Seafood Expo in Boston.
ASPLI is an intensive professional development program offered by the Alaska Sea Grant Program targeting rising leaders in Alaska’s seafood industry. Funding for ASPLI is from participant fees, University of Alaska TVEP funds and Alaska Sea Grant. Coordinators are Marine Advisory faculty members -Dr. Quentin Fong (qsfong@alaska.edu), Chris Sannito and Paula Cullenberg.
From construction and welding to culinary arts and veterinary science, the King Career Center is helping students open doors to their future.
Wednesday, Cari-Ann Ketterling with Alaska Process Industry Career Consortium and Lou Pondolfino, the principal at King Career Center, joined Daybreak to talk about programs open to local teens with an interest in a certain career.
Pondolfino said The school serves over 1,500 primarily junior and senior students each year.
“All our programs are advised by industry members and they meet and they look over our curriculum and our equipment and they give us advice and we follow their advice on how we do things,” he said. “And we’re open to high school students throughout Anchorage. ”
King Career Center offers on-the-job training programs through employer such as:
Contact the King Career Center to learn more.
Source: Workforce Wednesday: Training options for Anchorage teens | KTVA Anchorage CBS 11
UA Workforce Development News 