PeopleAK: 1 Degree of Separation

Whale Encounters & Ocean Science with Sheyna Wisdom

• Upper One Solutions • Season 1 • Episode 7

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What keeps someone in Alaska for 20+ years? In this episode, we talk with marine scientist Sheyna Wisdom, Executive Director of the Alaska Ocean Observing System, about her journey from the deserts of New Mexico to studying whales, ocean acoustics, and marine ecosystems across the world.

She shares incredible behind-the-scenes stories from the field, explains how ocean data helps protect communities and wildlife, and discusses serving as a bridge among science, industry, and conservation. From unforgettable whale encounters to lessons about leadership, teamwork, and resilience, this episode blends humor, science, and a real Alaska perspective.

Subscribe for more conversations with people shaping Alaska’s story.


Produced by Upper 1 Solutions


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SPEAKER_00

Well, Shana, I don't know if you've listened into one of these podcasts. Um when you have absolutely nothing to do, you might uh uh I don't know, sign in to do whatever you do to listen to a podcast. Um it occurred to me after COVID that people were just sort of bitching about Anchorage a lot. And um I was kind of getting bummed out myself. Um different socioeconomic challenges, those kind of things. And I thought, you know, for a long time in my career, I used to recruit physicians to come to work up here. And I had a certain set of prideful pieces of anchorage that I would point to and say, This is a great place to live, and I could really talk it up. And then I realized that I was kind of down on things. So I started talking to my friends and um, you know, what keeps you here? What what drives you to stay in Alaska? And then this idea of the one degree of separation, because it never fails when you're on vacation. You end up at a store or you know, at a function, and somebody will say, Well, you're from Alaska. Do you know so-and-so? And lo and behold, there you are. And I think you had you mentioned you had that experience today. Yep. So this is one degree of separation. We have no agenda. We're just talking about Alaska. And I know that you have a passion for a lot of things up here. So I just want to pick your brain a little bit and um hopefully get a couple of stories out of you. So um, for people who don't know you, explain what it is you do.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Well, I'm Shana Wisdom. Uh, right now I'm the executive director for the Alaska Ocean Observing System, or AUS, which is one of the 11 regional associations under the Integrated Ocean Observing System or IUS, which is a NOAA program.

SPEAKER_00

Got it. Okay, so tell me, because I'm gonna geek out for a minute, I always forget the statistic for our coastal line in Alaska. There's some statistic of how big it is.

SPEAKER_02

You know, I should know this, but right now I don't, which is a really bad thing for me as a director. It's the biggest of the of the US for sure. So we have a huge, huge coastline in it because it goes in and out, you know, it's also the most least populated. So that's part of one of the things that we deal with a lot is the biggest coastline, the most extreme, but the fewest amount of people.

SPEAKER_00

Got it. And so you've had how many, how long have you been up here now?

SPEAKER_02

Uh 20 years.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. So you could literally live anywhere uh really uh on the on the planet and have a job. Why Alaska?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I grew up in New Mexico, so I was as landlocked as could be, a little desert rat in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Um, but wanted to be a marine biologist since I was a little kid, since I can remember. And ended up um in Hawaii living for like a year after college, um, and then moved to San Diego and was there for 10 years. And I was working for a company there who had a bunch of um, we had a bunch, it was URS Corporation, and so we worked all over the country, in fact, all over the world. But they had a bunch of new marine mammal projects up in Alaska. And so I used to work with a bunch of different offices, and I had started working with the Anchorage Office, and they brought me up for a few meetings and then they offered me a transfer. So URS actually paid for my transfer to move up here.

SPEAKER_00

So so far here we've I've interviewed um Rick Rydell, the piece radio, he's all kinds of things. We talked hunting, we talked a lot of things. Um, we haven't had uh an expert to your degree, at least. So this is the first. So when I ask um slow questions, be nice, be kind, be kind. So when you say you were working, what were you actually, what were you doing? What was your job?

SPEAKER_02

Uh so my background is marine, marine acoustics, sound, noise, biology. So I got my degree in just straight up biology because I stayed in New Mexico to play basketball. It was a way for me to have my school paid for, um, get four years of a free degree, play ball for a little bit longer, stay in New Mexico, and then from there I started kind of moving on. So I um went to grad school at University of San Diego, okay, and where I got my degree, master's in marine science, and my thesis was on sound production in Grey Wells. So I got to work with Grey Wells. So can you make this? Can you I've asked everybody else to sing? And brrp, brrp.

SPEAKER_00

You can make them. Yep, look at that. Who knew? Well, fun fact.

SPEAKER_02

You're great at a party. Yeah, see? I have all kinds of so Gray, I like my master's is on Gray Wells. I had trained dolphins for a research lab in Hawaii for a year. So my passion is really marine mammals. But kind of how I got into like noise was I was just interested in the acoustics. And that was a huge opportunity at URS because no, not many people did noise effects, but every environmental compliance has a noise aspect that you have to analyze. So if they're gonna build a new highway or if they're gonna put in a power plant or do pile driving, you have to analyze how loud is it gonna be for the humans as well as the animals. Now that's fascinating. Yeah. And so I did that for 10 years. And like I was able to travel all over. I got to go to um El Salvador, to Panama, to Dominican Republic. Oh, wow. Because of that, because I spoke Spanish, I did I they could send one person to do the noise and the biology. And do they sound different in the South? Do they have an accent? The gray wholesale, no, they're born Mexican. Oh, there you go. So they actually have probably a Spanish accent. Well, there you go. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, they're Mexicans by birth, is what they call it, because they were born down there. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00

All right. So uh, so you gotta you gotta tell us the story. So, you know, we don't get to spend very much time together. So we're just gonna go right to the story.

SPEAKER_02

So your favorite story. Every single time I talk to any of these groups, they're like, You gotta hear this story. You gotta hear this story. I know. Okay, so it's the whale penis story.

SPEAKER_00

Was now was this while you were in El Salvador?

SPEAKER_02

No, this was in Baja. Oh, was it? Yeah, this is where I did my master's work. Okay, so I can't wait for this. There's a few caveats, like these are important points to this story. One is gray whales have six foot long penises. Six foot. So they're about 60 feet long, 10%.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm not gonna get through this because inside I'm a 12-year-old little boy. So every time you say penis, I want to giggle. Yeah. Okay. You can. Okay.

SPEAKER_02

And they're hot pink. Well, so when you see them from across the way, when the gray whales are turned on, you we say pink Floyd. There's a pink Floyd. So pink Floyd was it. The second fact is they have two ton testicles. See it. This is great. Two tons. So um some animals fight with each other for the female. How gray whales fight is they don't actually fight each other. They have what's called sperm competition. So they flush out the previous one's sperm with the force of their ejaculation. Okay. Okay. So two ton testicles. I also get a lot of ejaculation, right? That's all the best parts of a story. So and so down in Baja in these lagoons on the on the Pacific side of Baja. Um, I was in San Ignacio, which is about halfway down the Baja coast. They come into these lagoons and they're both giving birth and mating. And so yeah, the females come down, they're having babies, they're nursing, they're kind of raising it at the same time as all the singles come down and get it on.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02

So it's a busy, loud lagoon during that time. Gray whales, compared to some of the other whales, aren't as vocal up in the Arctic here where they're eating. But down when they're mating, they're much more vocal. They're talking. Hey, baby, what's going on? You know, and then they're teaching the yeah. So I was studying the sounds of these guys, and I was in a um a zodiac. So like a 16-foot zodiac that had been red. It was somewhat faded pink. So if you know a zodiac, it's two like pontoons. Right. Okay. Another important point to the story. And all of the other boats in that lagoon are Mexicans. They have to have a Mexican permit, and they're it's a very regulated ecotourism, like very regulated. It's incredible. Um, so I'm up in the area of the lagoon, and these animals are these gray whales in these lagoons have exhibited this friendly behavior. And in Mexico, they call it amistosas, the lovers. They approach boats and you touch them, you rub it on their tongue. I mean, they're very, very social. And the females will actually push their calves to you as they get older. So it's this, and they built a whole ecotourism thing on it. So it's pretty amazing. So here I am. I'm 26, 27 years old, down in the lagoon. I'm the only female driving a boat. I'm the only white girl driving a boat. There's all this going on. And I was out in the lagoon. I have my little cooler with my hydrophone and everything in it, and I'm listening to the whales. And uh a Grey Well comes over, starts to get friendly with the boat. We're kind of playing. I'm still listening. She's making sounds. I mean, that goes on for like 20 minutes. It's amazing. And you keep your motor on because they seem to be attracted to the sound of the motor, but you have it a neutral. Yeah. So you're sitting there with it a neutral, and female comes over, starts messing with us. And then about 20 minutes after, this other graywell swims by and turns around. Now you can't tell what sex they are until they roll over and you see. And all of a sudden, we're like, oh, that's a male. He is interested in what's going on with this female. And we kind of joke that it was this like, she's making sounds like, hey, baby, what's going on with the boat? And he goes, Well, hello, are you already in the mood? I'm coming over. So this male starts trying to get with this female. And I'm sitting in this boat, and this female starts using, yeah, pink boat. Okay. Using my boat as like a blocker. I mean, let's put it out there. Like, my boat was the cock block. Gotcha. This male is coming over like this. And the other fact that I forgot to mention is their penises are prehensile, which means they can kind of like move it and touch and like, yeah. Can you imagine if humans were? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No, thank you. Nope. So I'm in this boat and this male's turned over and is trying to get with the female. So I'm literally dotting the dodging this six-foot penis. As I'm thinking, there's a two-ton testicle. Like, if he ejaculates, he is knocking me over, filling the boat. And I'm trying to like do this while I'm still recording the sounds, because this is a really cool sound thing, right? So I'm trying to do this, boat's gonna like this, and I finally realize it's getting a little too excited. I need to get out of here. Right. But the boat has been in neutral for 45 minutes at this point. So if you put it in gear, it's gonna flood, and then you're completely out of luck. Right. And so I put it in gear and I'm going like negative one. I mean, it feels like I'm doing this. Right. As the female is still rubbing up all over the boat, the male's still trying to get to me, I'm still dodging the penis. I finally get to shore the whole time, and all the Mexican paneros are standing up there on the thing, like clapping and called me Dildos Expeditions for the rest of the field season. And it was this joke of like, why have one when you can have two? That's right. Yeah. Well, there you go. There's the whale penis small. That's very good. That's very good. Anything that interesting in Alaska? Or is that limited opportunity? I mean, we've had some friendly grays up in the Arctic when I've been working up there. We had some that um some of the people on the boat were like, Shayna, come up here. Look at check out what this gray whale is doing. And I said, It's acting like it does in Baja. It was a very similar kind of approaching the boat, looking at it, doing like they did. But they're more focused up here on eating than they are. And how how far or do they migrate? Tell me a little bit. Oh, gray whales migrate like tw 2,000 miles. And what's what's crazy about the gray whale migration is so they're feeding up here. They come up into the Czech G C. I mean, there's some that are kind of resident off of Oregon, we think, but they come up here, they eat, they travel all the way down to Baja to mate and give birth. So if you think about this poor female, she's pregnant, she's gotten pregnant in the Baja, travels all the way up, doesn't eat until about Northern California, Oregon, starts eating. And they eat little ampipods, little little crabs that like basically live in the sediment, little ones. Got it. So they suck in a bunch of sand, push it out through their bay lane, wipe it off with their tongue. They're eating all the way up. They come up into the Chuck Chi, they're eating. Um, she's growing her baby this whole time. At the towards the end of her pregnancy, they start leaving and they start traveling down. At about California, they stop eating. So she's in her last trimester, not eating, gets down to the lagoon, has a baby. Now they're nursing, and they nurse to the point where like the gray wool calf that we worked with was growing at a rate of like two and a half pounds per hour. Wow. So they're eating all the time. Their milk is like 42% fat. And you think that's fascinating. Right? 4% is whole milk. Yeah, right. And you think about the difference of when you drink 4% whole milk to when you drink skim, it tastes like water, right? Right. So that's 42% fat.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02

And they're drinking underwater and they're all the time. So she's nursing, she's this calf starts to get more and more crazy as they get older, and she hasn't eaten, she hasn't eaten, she hasn't eaten. And then they finally, three months after, start to go back up. And as they reach kind of towards appears, when they their babies go separate ways. That's amazing. So they go from at the beginning of like the season, their backs are flat and big, and towards the end of the season, like you can see the dip.

SPEAKER_00

Oh wow. So then, so you migrate up here with the whales, you're up here. What keeps you here? Um the people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Anchorage itself to me is not very pretty, but everything else outside of it is. Um, the work I get to work with, I mean, I work with Alaska natives from all of all across the coast. I love working in those communities. Um, the first time I went up to Point Hope, I was up for a, it was 2007, up for a meeting, and it was for Noah. And Noah had set it up. It was my first time up there, so I didn't really know much about it. And they had set it up the same night as a basketball game. Oh, wow. Having no idea that was the important basketball is to us. Oh and so I was kind of going, why isn't anyone here? And they finally when I asked you. Yeah, and I was like, Can we go? And right, we walked in and I just thought, I've found my people. Yeah. You know, it was just as obsessed with basketball as I was. And so over the years, like I've gone and played with kids all in all the communities. I go just shoot in the gym and I'm in. Right. So basketball. Um, I mean the the marine mammals, but it's also like I was able to work in oil and gas and marine construction and research to make a difference, which is what drives me. So when I say oil and gas, I mean I love driving my car. My dad was a race car mechanic. Like I am a car kid. I have a Chevy tattoo. Like I'm I'm a car person, and a V8 is my favorite. So those are gas guzzlers. Right. I also like to travel. So being part of the oil and gas where that's that's what we're using right now until we all change as a collective human, right? That's what we're using. But there's ways that you can develop and extract without just killing and raping everything. Right. You can do it, you can do it safely, you can do it with conservation in mind. And that was my job to be that interface. And the fact that I could, like, I grew up very blue-collar, my dad was a mechanic, I could work on a boat, like I had that blue collar, but I had the education. And I what I found myself really good at was that translation. Sure. Of being able to be that person that could talk to both, hear, translate, understand, and try to do that. And so that was my favorite part was being able to go in and make a difference. How do you feel about whale hunting? That when I first moved up here, that was that was a little tough for me. Yeah. I mean, especially, you know, I'd bonded with these whales down in Baja where they're coming up to the boats and interacting. Right. Um, but as I started to learn about them from the people of just them teaching me, they're the best scientists, the best conservationists. They believe very strongly that the whales give themselves to people that are worthy. Wow. And that it was just based on their entire culture. They taught me so much about the science, the anatomy, the culture, the beauty.

SPEAKER_00

I am still fascinated as a grown adult. I was born here, and I'm still fascinated by the fact of all the things they do with a harvested whale. It's shocking.

SPEAKER_02

But it's and it's it's not just like the the Western way is you go in and just take what you need, and the rest of it is waste. Right. There's no waste. Everything is used. What was most surprising to you for what what what they used? Well, it was just how they ate everything right then. And then like every piece, the sinew, the all of the different things they used to make, you know, before it was just about art. It was about survival, right? And they used every single thing. And it was just there's still some of the food. Like I I actually tasted everything. I generally like most of it. There's a few that I just can't like this fermented seal flipper is hard for me. Yeah, that would be rough. I've learned to just travel in communities with a can of soda, and I can kind of drink that after I try something. Um it but it honestly what impressed me the most was that cultural connection, like the religious, spiritual, cultural connection to the whale and knowing every little thing about like they could look at a whale and know about the size and about the age class and about like, no, we don't take those ones. Those are the first ones that kind of set the trail. We take these ones. We like all of the timing, it just how much I learned every single time I'm up there. That's really great. So it took me, but it did that first kind of time. It was this uh just the thought of, but I'm a meat eater, so who am I to So exactly how is an oosik made? An oosik? Yes. So that's a that's a walrus penis bone. Okay, yeah. Yep, but I wheels.

SPEAKER_00

I told you I was gonna be asking lots of questions.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and I wasn't sticking with just Well there's a lot of mammals that actually have penis bones. Raccoons have them. They're called a baculum is the the name for them, but walrus um has the largest one, and it's a so they they use it for art. They use it, I mean, but it's like I have one in my office that's like this size with a little thing that says don't be an oosic. Oh, there you go. I've there's been a few times where I've been in situations where I was working with scientists from outside who were just had no clue what was going on. And one particularly, like he was incredibly sexist, incredibly racist, and had no idea what he was talking about. And he was not listening to anything I was saying and kept wanting the men to come in and give him the like feedback. And so we went to the Alaska Marine Science Symposium was on at the time we're writing this big proposal for Shell. And I kept saying, you know, we're working with the Lunic, the Alaska Native firm, and he kept changing it to Native Alaskans, and I kept saying that's different. That's a different that's right. And um, so we're we're sitting there at a table at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium with my bosses, all the guys, right, and me and him, and he was totally kissing up to them, and he was like, I just sat in this great workshop with this um uh learning about the native Alaskan tribes, like the UPIC tribe. Oh, oh boy. And I said, Do you mean the Usyk tribe? And yeah, that's who I met. And my boss is kicking me under the table. Like I go, You sh you're totally part of the Usik tribe. Like you, I you're like you should totally be a part of the Usik tribe. Like you, I bet they would take you on as an honorary member. Oh, and no one corrected me. And later they were like, stop. I go, he fits, dude. I don't know what else to say. He's a total Usyk. Yeah, that's that's great. Yeah, was one of my in trouble a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

So today my most curious thing is like, a desk job, how are you doing? No, it sucks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, okay. One of my friends the other day made a comment to me of what drives you? Is it being in the field or is it making a difference? And I said, Well, on a personal level, it's definitely being in the field. Anytime I can wear a hoodie and my dirty car hearts and my boots and just be in the field and not really have to talk to people and I'm seeing animals or seeing anything, that's my favorite place to be, and that's where I feel most grounded. Um, but where I make the most impact and where I can make the most difference is in this desk job because I'm communicating to congressional and to mariners, and I'm able to be that translator again.

SPEAKER_00

So what I really appreciate about that, and having worked with lots of different industries over the years, that you actually don't make me feel slow slow by asking silly questions, and you're able to explain things in a way that is meaningful and impactful. Um, and you're clearly passionate, but you do it with fact, right? And not trying to talk someone into another point of view, just presenting. And so that's um really a gift. It's kind of like an IT guy that can actually talk to people and explain things.

SPEAKER_02

The translator is how I've mostly I've kind of realized. I had someone comment, I was working on the slope on a polar bear project, and he said, I've I've worked up here for 15 years, and I always thought you environmentalists were just trying to stop everything we did. And after spending two hours with you, I have much more of a respect for what you do and how we're a part of this. And so thank you. And it kind of taught me like that's where I can be impactful of making those differences. That I was, I'm not as happy in the office all the time, but so I just need to find my little breaks to get out. That's my goal.

SPEAKER_00

What's like what's one thing? Can you think of something that that um people who haven't been to Alaska or sort of speculate how we are environmentally sort of because I would say that most Alaskans are pretty close to being environment environmentalists, but yet using the land, using our resources, it's not exactly I I get the feeling from some environmentalists, as soon as you say that that word, there's a certain connotation. Like if you wish there was one thing that no matter where someone is at and the whole spectrum of environmental causes, what what would you say?

SPEAKER_02

I think one of the the one of the things I really appreciate about Alaskans of all walks of life is we love and respect the wildness and we don't want to challenge we don't want to challenge that. Our escape is to go into the wild, right? One way, shape, or form. Whether that's on a boat, out to your cabin, up in the mountains. That's the most people that live up here, that's where they're going. And they don't want to do things to mess that up. And so they find different ways to be a part of that conservation. And they're also not just thinking about it for them, they're thinking about it for the future. They want this to be there for the kids. They want this to be there for their kids' kids.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, a good example of just people not understanding how even right in the middle of the oil field people are there's conservation going on. I had a group of scientists, we were doing a crew change out in Prudhoe. So we would, I'd get everyone to dead horse, and then we take a bus out to Weststock and do a crew change because the boats can't come all the way in because of the depth. So you have to shuttle them out to the boat, which is about a mile and a half off. And we're driving on these roads and we're going 25 miles an hour, you know, with all the safety gear on that they're griping about. Why do we have to wear this? This is stupid. We're going 25 and we stop because there's some geese crossing the road and with all their little goslings behind them. And we stop and wait. And the geese stop and sit down, you know, and I just I'm radio in the boat, like, hey, we got some geese on the road. We'll be there as soon as we can. And these scientists are getting pissed that we're waiting. And they said, What do we do? And I said, We're waiting for the geese. Why? And like, this is their house, this is their house, not ours. Right. We're waiting. Wow. And they had, and this is a bunch of PhD, like, you know, biologists who had no idea that that was truly the case.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And then this was one of those days where the wildlife was like, we're teaching you all kinds of things. We get out to the site, and a poll the two polar bears had decided to take a nap right in front of the little crew change. Oh no. So we had to wait. And so I also had these like group of scientists in their orange work suits, and I, you know, they're wanting to just run around. And I was like, You you guys need to go in the building that I asked you to go in because you look like little candy corn for these polar bears. So you're staying in the building. And we have to wait for them to leave. Well, we're not gonna move them. No, this is their house. Right. And it was that to me was a perfect opportunity to show these scientists who live in Alaska that have think they have an understanding of how the oil fields are, and they did clearly did not.

SPEAKER_00

They did not at all. Yeah. I think that sometimes there's a whole group of people that and it doesn't matter, you know, why they come up here, but they come up here to uh garner some benefit, right? And then um realize that you've got to be pretty tough to live up here. Yeah. But they sort of, you know, romanticize it, so to speak. And if you're not willing to give back, this isn't the place for you. I mean, um, on all fronts, I think.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and even just the helping of each other, I think that was the I grew up in a small town and Hispanic town, and so I kind of grew up being the only, not the only, but not many white girls, and you know, and and really taken care of by everyone in the small town, and everyone knows everything about each other, but you still help each other. Right. And then I lived in these bigger cities where that wasn't necessarily the case. And up here, everyone just helps each other. Right. But everyone kind of has their own space too. Like there's that good mix of I see it, does okay, we're good. She's, you know, like you're allowed to be weird, right? Then when you need help, you get the help. I mean, the the earthquake was a perfect example, right? In 2018, when people just were helping each other, bringing water, doing things to help each other. And I was a single parent with one kid, like that was huge for me of having that village around me. Oh, absolutely. And around my kid. I mean, that's where that's one of the big reasons why I stay. Every time I think of going, I think I don't I wouldn't have my village around my kid. Right. I mean, we've we've you know, we've had some tragedies in our family with my ex-husband dying and my kid kind of and it was traumatic, you know, and and having the people around me appear has that's why we stay.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Um, what any any any landlocked areas you like? I know you like the water, but what do you do for fun outside of Oh, I'm I mean, all of the places I've traveled in Alaska I love.

SPEAKER_02

The ocean is definitely my my grounding, but I can be in the mountains. So I love hiking. I try to go out hiking whatever wherever I can. I love camping. Like COVID was an awesome year, honestly. Well, you don't like people and you like the land, you know? So I mean, COVID was incredible.

SPEAKER_00

It was like it was designed for you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, it was it we had our bubble, right? And we were camping all the entire time. Like it was um, yeah, it just kind of getting out and being near streams is close to beaches for me. But I also I coach high school softball.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So I I the people, I love people, but I love I hate people, but I love people. It's that like I like them from a distance. Yeah. But I coach, I coach softball, so fast pitch softball. So um, I love that part of it and getting to coach kids in Fairbanks, that's a big thing we do every summer. Sure.

SPEAKER_00

Have you seen that documentary about the basketball team in Southeast? It's a great documentary. I don't remember the name. Do you? Uh no, but it's it was Chris Pratt who's who produced it. Yeah, it's it's really good. Yeah, Mala Kyle, yeah. Yep, and I remember all yep, it was really cool. Yes, somebody listening is curious. It's a it's a good one. Yeah, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02

I've seen it, but I can't remember the name of it. But yeah, yeah, I just the the family piece of it, the small town feel. I mean, there's times where that gets old as well. Everyone knows everyone, and there's like you said, half the like half a degree of separation mostly up here. And um, I teach that a lot to people that I mentor about how you leave a company, you have to be very careful. It's a small, incestuous breaking market.

SPEAKER_00

Honestly, as a manager, tell employees, you don't have to like each other to keep each other safe and do a good job. Yep. You don't have to be close friends, and I think that speaks to my sort of my upbringing. Um yeah, so it's just it's a generational thing. You just you do your part, yeah, right? Yeah, and contribute. Um, what do you what's something I should have asked you? What what what's something where somebody people are really surprised about you? Um I sing, I'm a singer.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know if you knew that.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, that's right.

unknown

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00

You can sing, but why? You can sing right now. I've asked everybody to do this.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Um Lord, want you by me a Mercedes Benz. My friends are dry pushes. I must make amense. Worked hard all my lifetime with no help from my friends. So Lord, want you buy me a Mercedes Benz. Well, now it just makes me mad.

SPEAKER_00

That's really good. That's really good. Thank you. I think you might have won the competition I didn't know we were gonna have. So this is really great. This is great. Um what else? What else you got?

SPEAKER_02

Um well my d I gotta talk about my daughter. Oh, she's please do. Yeah. So Keya is her name. She's 19. Um she is also hugely talented. She's wicked smart. She is. Yeah. Um she is a she's what the kindest, sweetest person I've ever met. And just I'm all the time like look at her going, how did this sweet kid come from me? Because I'm not exactly sweet.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I it's good adjectives. I just that wouldn't be the first one that came to mind.

SPEAKER_02

She's so smart, she has such a great sense of humor. Um, she went to San Diego for six months, and this is a true Alaska kid. Like, I was so excited to send her to San Diego, my stomping ground, and hooked her up with all my friends. And it was just, and after about four months, she's like, I don't really like it. Like, it's fun to visit, but the weather's too nice. Oh, it's the same every day. So she's back up here and then gonna try to go to Oregon for the for August.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, when I first met her, she gave up a seat for me at the Copper River Nouveau. Yep. Uh kind of a fancy dinner, and she gave up a seat for me and she had never met me. So I thought that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02

She's a she's a good kid. It's fun, it's it's amazing watching our kids become adults, and it's hard to not like that. We struggle. I've been coaching her for a long time. Um, and I stepped off, like I stayed JV when she went to varsity to just give her that separation because it took me a few years to get to this like we're very different athletes. I I played basketball in in college. I didn't do much in college, but I played a lot after. Um and I'm so competitive and driven and just and I love the sport and I'm obsessed with it. And I work out and I like that's I love it. Right. And which is why I've had eight surgeries and of all the things, but um I just that's me, that's not her. But she's good at it, but she's not obsessed. And I've had to really back off of like how she plays is not how I play, and it's you know, I can try to guide, but that's not her, and that's gonna be so you're not a screaming parent. No, no, well, one, I'm a coach, so I'm allowed, but I'm a very positive, like especially coaching JV. Right. Um, JV, it's interesting in high school. We get half of the girls we get have never touched a softball. Like I had a girl last night because we've started open gyms. I had a girl last night who showed up, said, Well, I was kind of interested last year. I didn't, but everyone was talking about how fun how much fun they had. And so I wanted to come, but I've never actually done this. Oh, that's great. What do I put? Which hand do I put the glove on? And by the end of the practice, she was hitting off of a T and catching the ball, and you know, and I love that. And so you cannot be ultra competitive at that level. Right. Because they're just learning the game, right? And learning. And so I've I tried to.

SPEAKER_00

And it's what you do to introduce him.

SPEAKER_02

Like that's their experience. And what you're teaching. I have one assistant coach, she and I worked together. Um, Sherry, she she was a college softball player. Okay. And her daughter was a year older than mine, they were besties. And um, she and I started coaching, and we realized we loved that level. Right. Because you're teaching them to be good sportswomen and good people and supportive. And sports for girls, especially, is all about being independent, not like not feeling the need to impress a boy. Right. Because some of the stuff the boys are trying to impress them with, you're like, I can do that. Right. And it teaches them to be big. Like softball is you're you're big and strong, and you're standing big and strong, and you're taking up space. And I love that for girls.

SPEAKER_00

I I actually I love that too. Um, I played softball growing up. I'm horribly, horribly not coordinated at all. But I would stick with things, you know, until I was competent, I would say. Yeah, it didn't come naturally, but um loved softball.

SPEAKER_02

Bringing each other up, like the some of the rules we have very much for our team is you're never gonna sit for mistakes. I mean, errors are part of the game, that's why they're a stat. Right. In fact, softball, baseball is kind of a game of failures. You know, the best hitters hit 32% of the time. Yeah. Um, so it's it is a game of failures. So you're teaching yourself how to stand back up and succeed after failure.

SPEAKER_00

I think you're modeling too for the for women to actually disagree, right? And have to continue being part of a a team, leave it on the field, so to speak, and move on. And I having managed women for a lot of years, that doesn't always happen in the workplace, right? You know, we tend to hold on and yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's little things that like now I've been doing it. I'm on her on my sixth year, I think, of high school. So little things of like, you're not gonna sit if you make a mistake, but you'll sit if you're not supportive of yourself or each other. Oh, that's right. If you get really down on yourself, you're you're coming out, we're gonna talk about it, and you're gonna go right back out. And if I have a girl like, I don't want to, it's too hard, she is absolutely playing. Because that won't work. If you sit on the bench, I saw that going different. Yep. And then I they also get 15 seconds to cry because they're I mean it's they're high school girls, that's part of the emotions. But I'll come up to them and I'll get in their face and say, Okay, I know that sucked and you're hurting about it. Right. You get 15 seconds to cry, and then we're moving on. And I set my watch and I let them, and then I come back and go, Okay, it's over. Let's move on. That's great. And it takes them a little bit, but towards the end, like I and I also talk to parents. I mean, that's actually a big thing.

SPEAKER_00

Having somebody coach how to recover from being upset, right? Not just being upset, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Angry, crying, learning from it. Right. And not, and then the other is not blaming. Like I that was at the beginning of the armoise to the parents. So these are our goals. We're teaching these girls this, this positive. It's, you know, we're we're gonna work hard. This is JV to get everyone playing time, which means some girls are gonna be sitting, but everyone will play every game. Right. But, you know, and we kind of talk about it, and I said, what I need is positive. You cannot be at home griping about the umps, griping about me, griping about other players, because that's what they get in their head, and it's always someone else's fault.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't actually know we had this in common. I really didn't. Because when I was managing a lot of women, I would say things like, if you're gonna come in with a complaint or a or a concern, either way, let me know coming out of the gate, is it a gripe where you just need to be heard for a second? Or are you coming in with a complaint? And if it's a complaint, please don't start with somebody else's name. Yep. Don't don't start the sentence, just turn back around and come back in because I'm very operationally minded. Yes. And if it's not something I can fix, you know, I'm not gonna fix people. Now, um and it takes them a while to get used to that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And to to speak up for themselves without holding on to something that was um, you know, detrimental during the day for whatever reason. The other thing we I zero tolerance for gossip in the workplace. And that you're basically talking about that. Because if you're going home, you're taking it home, you're talking about work after there's anything you can do about it. Um, it demotivates yourself, by the way, impacts your own job satisfaction. And it would be very similar for young girls in sports. If you go home and complain about it all the time, you can start modeling that behavior where it becomes natural. Yeah. And and you you don't realize that you might even be talking poorly about something you love to do. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So that's really great. Yeah. And it like we had, I've had a few girls where they were disappointed that they were on the JV team and felt they should have been on varsity. And the parents thought they should have been on varsity.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

You know, and and so the parents would call me, and I've been doing it a long time, and I would say, these are the decisions we made as coaches. You may not agree. If you feel this strongly and feel that you know as much about the sport, you should volunteer to be a coach. I don't get paid for this. Right. I have a job. Yeah, so do I.

SPEAKER_00

It goes, yeah. I actually have a day job.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And these aren't even my kids. Yeah. And I, and so I had this one, she and I'd been coaching her for a while. And I said, I know you're really disappointed that you're not on varsity. And you were right on that cusp. I'm going to tell you why the decision, and I was the one who advocated for you to stay. So if you're mad at anyone, you're mad at me. Right. Not anyone else. This is my decision. This is what you need to do to move up. And your goal is to make me look stupid for saying you should have been down here. Right. You should be on the field and people should go, why is she on JV? Right. And you're showing that as a leader in how you talk to people and as a leader of how you play. And if you come at that with for a few weeks, I guarantee you will be moving up.

SPEAKER_00

And the other thing that the, you know, um you're teaching sportsmanship from the standpoint of when you say you're better than JV, you what you're speaking volumes to are your teammates saying, I'm better than you, and my time, your time is not valuable. Right. Right. I I think that that's some of the nonverbal. And um, I think that's just a really great lesson.

SPEAKER_02

Well and how you yell at the like that was the other was um I kind of pulled her aside and I said, I see what you're doing. You're you're trying to lead the girls, but what you're doing is yelling and you're demeaning. Leading is, you know, and we talked a lot about, and and she's, I mean, she's now in college, and I've had a few of them kind of come back to me. And I had one, I have a note, actually, a card up on my above my desk at home. And it was one of those cards that I got that I just like it hit you, you know, of like okay, I I'm doing good. This is okay. And well, well, climped, right? That's right. And it said, Coach Shayna, you believed in me before I even believed in myself. Your belief in me has given me the self-confidence to do things. And I'm leaving for school and doing all these things being me. And you're a big part of that because I was one of the coaches that I was like, nope, she is she's the smartest one on the team. She might be slower, but she's the smartest one and the best leader. And she's gonna play there. And I would, like her mom would kind of question me, and I said, Nope, she's absolutely she's gonna be there. And her senior year, she got MVP of this one tournament. And she's doing great things now and is very much her. Like she's a unique individual and she did it her way. And but that card just kind of that's why I keep doing what I that's just awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I love it. I know. I was gonna ask you what what you want your legacy to be. Like if KO's listen to this right now and just me, I like I think about it a lot.

SPEAKER_02

I've had um I've had some friends pass away young and been at their celebrations and helped put it on. And I think I think a lot, like, what would I want people to talk about?

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And just that I made them laugh. I love make people laugh.

SPEAKER_00

We have no problem with that.

SPEAKER_02

And uh and that I always fought for people. I'm fierce and for what I believe in, and that I made a difference. And made a difference, it can kind of be in whatever, right? Right? Like in my individual animals' life, in conservation as a whole, in ed like I do a lot of speaking at at high schools. Yeah. I talk about marine mammal sounds, and I always play the whale fart. Oh, is it? I have a whale fart sound. Yeah. Did you do it? Well, I have a I have a actually recording. Well, I thought maybe you were like, well, I can do the invitation of it. Can you? It's just a release of huge pressure. I mean, you think about it's still, you know, farting in the bathtub. Yeah. It just goes poo-doo doo doo doo boop. And it's all the bubbles going up to the surface. Oh, gee, it's never boring. It is never boring. It's never boring. Just it's fun. Um, like one of the other things I used to laugh at this, I used to do this uh X-rayed SeaWorld tour. That was my other fun. When I taught Seacamp, you have these kids that are coming to Seacamp, and especially like the seniors, they're coming to camp in the summer. They they're not as interested in this sea camp. Like they're interested in what's going on with each other. And so I always taught this marine mammal lab in the evening, you know, and I'd kind of like, you guys need to can you just pay attention and you know, give me. And I finally said, if you guys would give me an hour and a half of your time tonight of engagement, then tomorrow when we go to SeaWorld for the tour, I'll give you the X-rated tour. Oh, wow. And you could see they were all like, uh, what? And I said, Well, I'm just gonna let you know, especially boy there with your pillow in your lap. Right. Like, I know what's going on. I said, uh, marine mammals are hornier than you guys, and they masturbate all the time and are having sex all the time. But you have to sit and watch. And they're all like, seriously. And so the next day, sure enough, like we're at every enclosure and it happens. Yep. And I mean, I there was this one where there was five manatees in the exhibit at SeaWorld, and they're all males, and they can rotate their flippers. Down, and there was lots of rubbing and rubbing on each other and lots of fun. And I had this one kid, and this was you know, this was in the late 90s. Yep. And he comes up to me and he said, Um, Miss Sheena, so those were all males? Yeah. And like they're doing things with each other. And I said, Yep. And you can tell he's just in his face trying to, and I and I said, You have any questions about it? Well, is this like normal? And I said, Absolutely, it's normal. And you see it in every single one of these things we've been at today. It's totally normal. And he just like gets this look, rushes up, gives me this huge fierce hug, and then runs off. Like you could tell he just he'd been really struggling with it.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Little thing. I think it was one of these podcasts, somebody brought up the monkey wharf. Was that here when you probably not when you first moved here? There was a bar right around the corner, and behind glass, they had monkeys. Monkeys are clean.

SPEAKER_02

Really?

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah. Oh, lovely.

SPEAKER_02

They like to wipe feces on things.

SPEAKER_00

I was gonna say there was lots. And I would um leave my mom worked in a dress store and I would sneak over and get a Shirley Temple in the bar because they'd let me in early, you know. And um, yeah, you learn a lot about activity.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah. Yeah. We're we like to think we're the only ones, and it's not even remotely the case.

SPEAKER_00

So I just got one more question. Well, it's two part. Um, what do you hope for? You've raised a great kid, you're you've got a full life, like not a bucket list, but what do you what do you want to fiercely drive for um just for Shayna? I'm trying to figure that out, honestly.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Um it's been an interesting year of kind of my daughter leaving to college and she's back, but she's leaving again. Of I don't I don't really know. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um Yeah, I just you've always struck me as being super dedicated and driven and all of those things. Um I I would think it would be a hard thing for you just to say, well, yeah, yeah. I mean front and center.

SPEAKER_02

There's yeah, I don't know. Um there's times where I think I'm gonna go just kind of be a wanderer again and and kind of follow whales and do more naturalist type of ecotourism things. Um maybe just being like the bull's mascot. I mean, that would be really fun, I think. Benny the bull, you just get to mess with people on a basketball court. You can sing. And I just think that'd be like a mass singer thing.

SPEAKER_00

Like, yeah. Uh yeah your own version.

SPEAKER_02

I just I don't I don't really know. I know that I'm committed for like another five years with where I'm at because we're in this major transition with AUs to to um transition with some grants and and become our own organization because we've been under the Alaska Sea Life Center for a long time. Okay. So I'm committed to to getting us through that. It's it's been an interesting, like my experience with science and I love spreadsheets. So it's kind of a perfect thing in the business I learned being at Fairweather. Sure. Um, managing all those big programs. So I feel I'm the right person to get them here and to set them up for success. And I think AUS is a really important uh organization to Alaska and to what's going on in the ocean. And what what what fundamentally drives the their efforts? Our mission is all about um collecting and sharing ocean information for users, for safety decisions, for Coast Guard, for mariners, for subsistence. So we have buoys, we have weather stations, we have all these different types of observing, and it can be assets to people.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_02

And then we have this huge data portal and then products that we're doing. And then we fill a role of a connector. We're, I mean, I've I've joked about it, but I feel like we're kind of this ocean match, right? Like we I encourage my staff to get out there in meetings and get to know people. And we don't have to go with an ask if you just show up and are there and listening and you hear like, oh, this person, this group is doing this, but this group is doing this. What if we brought you guys together and made this a bigger, better, more leveraged program?

SPEAKER_00

I happen to be in Juno um this this week and um and last week actually met with a couple of people from Cordova and we were talking high level with the um, is it the Prince William Science Center um and uh that group over there and what they're doing. And for me, it's um fascinating that I'm not sure that people recognize um what we're studying in the water, what's happening with salmon impacts income, but not necessarily just with the fishermen and sort of the impactful um presence that game meat that fish have on small communities, especially in remote Alaska. We're talking about subsistence hunting, um, but we're also talking about livelihood, and it's not a it's not a big leap to know that uh these remote villages rely on a healthy ecosystem. Yeah. And it's not, it's not, it isn't just, you know, because they're fishermen and because they eat fish. Right. Um there's all kinds of things that um one thing has to do with another. Um and and finding out why something's depleting or why something's flourishing. And if if there's a certain species that's flourishing, it's um why is that? There might, there might be some unknown consequences that aren't necessarily positive.

SPEAKER_02

Well, like there's there's a small thing like it's called there's we have algae everywhere, right? We have these cells everywhere, but because there's changes in the ocean temperature, these cysts that have been, these Alexandrium cysts that have been come out of the water into the uh sediment, because there's slight warming and a decreased ice and all of the things, now we have these cysts that are blooming. Well, they're harmful, they create toxins. Oh. Who then the fish eat them, the walrus eat them, the people eat them. And so it that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. Right. We also have some that causes saxatosin that has demoic acid poisoning. And so you're seeing deaths of first eating. I'm shaking my head like I understand what you're saying. So I just there's these harm, they're called harmful algal blooms or habs. Yeah. And that's the thing that really affects people as a whole, both directly, like they're eating whatever it is, or they're eating walrus that have eaten it. Right. And so, and it causes death in people. Like it, this is not just killing animals, it's killing people. And those are the type of things that A use is monitoring, but also helping to connect people. So we do like community sampling where people in communities can collect a sample and go, uh, should I eat this? We help get it to the lab, they can test it. And maybe it's too late to eat that one piece. But if we know there's a bloom, then we can recommend. And we're not a public health, so all we can do is say, based on our observations, there's an increase in the probability of this bloom. Right. So maybe don't eat right now. Right. But then the public health one is the one that can go in and test. So our observations like fill so many different roles of Coast Guard making decisions or mariners making decisions to subsistence people going in or out, or providing data where like FAA or these big organizations can't put them. We work on putting little innovative, like low-cost affordable. I work on this program called Backyard Buoys, where all the whaling captains deploy these wave buoys. They deploy them versus big research boats going out, science is scientists going out.

SPEAKER_00

It's probably the most, it's the least disruptive, I would assume.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. Yeah. And it's deployed where they need it. Right. And so, but we've helped develop an app. So, like John Hobson, who's the chair of the Alaska Eskimo whaling commission, right? His favorite story is he's like, now I can just roll over in my bed, look at the app and go, not today. I'm gonna go upriver instead, instead of going out to sea where he's wasted fuel, he's risked his people, he's you know, there's all of the things that affect that. Instead, he's going up and able to fill his freezer in other ways. Just from a small wave buoy. And it complements his traditional knowledge because it's not, he's already looking at other things, but it's just another tool. And we really thrive on that type of thing. So that's what AUES does.

SPEAKER_00

That's great. Okay, then the last thing, what are you hoping that like Alaska looks like in five years?

SPEAKER_02

As a community and as a I would love to hear that science. I mean, that's one of the things I love about Alaska compared to some others. Right now, there's a huge war on science. Sure. Um, and the use of it and the importance of it and how it can be used, both negatively and positively. Um, I would hope in five years we're not in that same battle. Right. And that it's not just Alaskans who see the beauty. And I would love to see things not be so damn divisive.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah. I try to give pep talks all the time. You know, this is actually not a political discussion.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I I'm very moderate on a lot of different things. I have a lot of strong beliefs, but I work with so many different people, and you can find the balance. Right. It doesn't have to be an us versus them.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right. I think that's I think that's the message too is spirituality and um science, they don't have to be unique for mutually exclusive. That's right. That's right. So I appreciate that. Good words of advice from Aunt Shana. Thank you, kids. Okay. One question I was supposed to ask. Anything? Nope. No, that's it. Well, I what do you where do you see?

SPEAKER_02

What do you see? You're the one kind of with this idea. What would you like to see in five years?

SPEAKER_00

I'm I would like to piece all of these commonalities together and um and uh figure out how to generationally pass that on to the next the workforce coming up behind us, make room for them, um, make sure there's jobs for them so that they can choose to uh live, work and play, and raise their kids. Um and I I just see there's been a there's been a shift. I just went to a conference for two days and listened about um out migration. Um and my own daughter lives in the valley instead of Anchorage. And what does that look like for our kids? My I was born here, my dad was born here, my grandmother was raised in Ketchcan. Like I I'm it's in my bones somewhere. And for me personally, the whole podcast has been to sort of rejuvenate my love for community, not necessarily Alaska, because that's easy. So I'm I'm hoping that um that same loyalty and passion for community um finds its way back.

SPEAKER_02

So how long how many podcasts have you done now? Six, I think.

SPEAKER_00

What has been the commonality that you've heard from those six people that um I think uh Binkley from Fairbanks said, you know, it's walking out your front door and it's 60 below and it's deathly cold. And you look over, check on your neighbor, whether you like them or not, I suppose. I I don't know that he said that part, but but you go back in and um finding finding that sense of community and the the coldness actually brings you together, not drives you apart. Um somebody else who moved up here from for the oil and gas, he just he said, you know, I I've been up here now 30 years, I can't imagine living anywhere else because the people, it's just my friends, and my friends have become family. That's a common, yeah, um, a common thing. And um, I was talking to a friend who's Alaska Native yesterday, and I said, you know, I've always felt like there's a business case for what I think is an Alaska Native belief system in taking care of your land, taking care of the people, um, not just coming up here raping the land and leaving, um, but rather leaving things better than you found them. So to answer your question, when I kick the bucket, I'm just hoping for the but the bar's pretty low when I'm hoping for, and it's just, you know, she left things just a teeny bit better than she found them. That would be it. So that's it.

unknown

Cool.