Staff news

Lisa Matlock joined the council’s staff on August 12. Matlock brings almost twenty years of experience in coastal Alaska education and outreach to the position.

Originally from southwestern Colorado, she is a “green brat,” a term for kids whose parents work for natural resource agencies, so she bounced around beautiful places in the west during her childhood. Her family moved to Alaska to 1974. They returned to the lower 48 in 1976, but Matlock never got over her time in Alaska.

Always torn between a love for science and a love for communications, she majored in English and minored in Biology at the University of Chicago. She returned to Alaska for graduate school at the University of Alaska Anchorage, specializing in nature writing and science communications. This background led to her nearly two decades of work for natural resource agencies in the state.

After working for several years as a seasonal park ranger in Anchorage, Skagway, and Gustavus, Matlock’s first permanent job was in Seward at Kenai Fjords National Park in 2000. She worked as the park’s education specialist on tour boats in the fjords and at Exit Glacier. She was part of the Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center, a research and education partnership between the National Park Service and the Alaska SeaLife Center, from its inception.

Matlock was the education specialist for Sitka National Historical Park from 2003-2007. There she interpreted the rich and emotional connections between land and water, people and places. The park’s 100 acres in Sitka includes totem poles in the rainforest and the Russian Bishop’s House. For parts of each summer, Matlock worked on the M/V Spirit of Endeavor as an onboard naturalist for Cruise West. She interpreted the phenomenal marine environment and special communities along the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to Juneau during 8-day cruises.

From 2007-2012, Matlock traveled a huge swath of Alaska’s coast, doing education and community outreach for the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Matlock worked in communities both large and small doing wildlife education, including oil spill-related subjects, during this time. Most recently, Matlock worked as an outreach specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage. For the past year she did a variety of communication projects for the relatively new Landscape Conservation Cooperative partnerships.

Matlock is very excited to be working for the council and looks forward to meeting those who live in communities new to her. She also is excited about reconnecting with those she has worked with in the past in a new capacity. Look for her visiting the region’s communities this fall and winter.

Council staff visited Eleanor Island in central Prince William Sound this past August to look for residual oil from 1989’s Exxon Valdez oil spill. While several staff experienced the Exxon Valdez spill first-hand, many had never seen the oil other than in photographs and in small sample jars collected each year and displayed in our offices.

The group was accompanied by David Janka, owner of Auklet Charters. Each year, Janka visits several beaches in the Sound where oil can still be found. He documents the locations and collects samples which he shares with the council.
This area of Prince William Sound was hardest hit with oil.

Alicia Zorzetto, who joined council staff in January, says she remembers the spill only vaguely, as she was 6 years old at the time. The images of the dead animals on TV were memorable because they were scary for a young kid. Later, her environmental politics classes in college discussed the spill through an historical lens.

“It’s one thing to study in a classroom, and then to come here and see and imagine what the fishermen and the locals had to go through, it’s like looking into a little part of our dark history,” said Zorzetto.

The experience was a reminder that the council’s mission to promote environmentally safe transportation of oil in Prince William Sound is an important one.

“We live with oil, we need oil, and we appreciate our oil industry and all it does for our state,” said Mark Swanson, the council’s executive director, “but we really have to be mindful that a lot of protection is required to make sure we don’t have another spill because the consequences just don’t go away.”

Anna Carey, project manager assistant for the council, has taken a position with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. She will replace Vince Kelly.

Her new position, titled “Environmental Program Specialist III,” is in the department’s Industry Preparedness Program’s Marine Vessels section. She will be working with oil spill contingency plans, and says she hopes her duties at the new job will keep her in contact with the council.

“We look forward to continuing to work with her in support of our mission in her new capacity,” said Mark Swanson, executive director for the council.

Carey joined the council in May of 2011. She provided support to project managers and the council’s Terminal Operations and Environmental Monitoring, Port Operations and Vessel Traffic System, Legislative Affairs, Board Governance and Long Range Planning committee volunteers and their projects. She also managed several projects including the review of fire protection assets at the Valdez Marine Terminal.

Carey helped monitor Port Valdez for invasive species such as tunicates and European green crab. The council is concerned that these two species, among others, could arrive in oil tanker’s ballast water, which is discharged into Prince William Sound before loading North Slope crude at the Alyeska terminal in Valdez. Invasions like this can harm valuable native species such as salmon.

Carey also helped with outreach and education presentations in the Valdez schools and for several youth education programs during summer months.

Her last day with the council was September 13. The council is currently in the hiring process to fill the vacancy.

Former Coast Guard commander Stephen Rothchild has been hired as administrative deputy director for the council. Rothchild began work in the Anchorage office on April 1.

He replaced Stan Jones, who retired after 17 years with the council.

“We are delighted to have someone with Steve’s knowledge of Prince William Sound taking over this position,” said Mark Swanson, executive director of the council, “Stan will of course be a hard act to follow, but Steve is so easy going and brings such a great skill set, I’m sure everyone will enjoy working with him.”

Rothchild comes to the council from Juneau where he has been a tour boat captain for the past several years.

In 2008, Rothchild retired from the Coast Guard after 23 years, ten of those years stationed in Alaska. While in Alaska, he spent time as captain of Coast Guard Cutters Sweetbrier and Sycamore in Cordova.

His career experiences include a broad mix of management, vessel operation, strategic planning, and leadership roles.
Patience Andersen Faulkner, council representative for the Cordova District Fishermen United, remembers Steve and his family from his days in Cordova fondly.

“Steve brings with him great skills working with communities,” Andersen said, “In Cordova, he led a crew of Coast Guard recruits who joined in and became part of the Cordova/Prince William Sound community.”

Rothchild combines his familiarity of Prince William Sound with his management skills to fill the critical role of administrative deputy director at the council. He oversees staff administration, provides media relations and public information for the council, and leads the Anchorage staff office.

“Steve’s leadership on the Sycamore was reflected in his crew’s involvement and engagement with Cordova and Prince William Sound residents,” Faulkner said, “I know he will be bringing those relationship and leadership skills to the council.”

Rothchild is a native of New York City. He graduated in 1985 from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.

His first taste of Alaska was as a senior Coast Guard academy cadet on a vessel patrolling fisheries in the Bering Sea and Bristol Bay during the summer. As his last duty with the service, he patrolled king crab fisheries on board the Munro, which had just moved to Kodiak.

Rothchild and his wife, Mimi, will be finishing their relocation to Anchorage this summer and are looking forward to learning all about what Alaska’s only big city has to offer.