May 6, 2011–Communications Contest and Scholarship Winners Announced

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Ravensong

Alaska Professional Communicators recognized winners in the annual Communications Contest at our awards luncheon on Thursday, May 6. We also announced our college scholarship winner and heard a presentation by Dean Franklin on “Ignite! Anchorage,” a forum for ideas, entertainment and information in short, lively speeches.

Paula Dobbyn, who works in public relations for Trout Unlimited, was the Sweepstakes winner–she got the most awards in this year’s contest. Paula was the entrant or co-entrant on nine winning entries, eight of which achieved first place.

Erik Judson, a senior at the University of Alaska Anchorage majoring in Journalism and Public Communications (JPC), won the $1,000 scholarship. Erik hopes to work in the Anchorage area as a writer/photographer or in public relations. Paola Banchero, chair of the JPC department at the university, attended the luncheon to support and introduce Erik.

We recognized 35 contest winners at the luncheon for outstanding work during the year. The contest committee, who conducted the competition, was made up of Lee Ault, contest coordinator; Carolyn Rinehart, mentor; and Elise Patkotak, who wrote the presentation speech. The speech was delivered by the AkProComm president, Connie Huff. Of the original 42 entries, 24 placed first and were sent to the national competition run by the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW). National winners will be announced Sept. 10 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at the NFPW annual conference.

Paula Dobbyn, right, receives her Sweepstakes certificate from Carolyn Rinehart, representing the AkProComm contest committee.

Erick Judson - 2011 Alaska Professional Communicators Scholarship

UAA student Erik Judson received the Alaska Professional Communicators scholarship. Pictured with him are Connie Huff, left, AkProComm president, and Paola Banchero, right, chair of the Department of Journalism and Public Communications at the university.

April 7, 2011–Reporting the news for a weekly newspaper–Naomi Klouda

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Ravensong

Naomi Klouda began her career in Alaska journalism after graduating from Gonzaga University at the Anchorage Times in 1983. There she covered obits, courts, features, police and virtually every beat prior to its folding in 1992. She earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree in 1992 in Creative Writing Fiction from the University of Alaska Anchorage and taught adjunct for a few years for UAA campuses in Anchorage and Kodiak. Through the years, she wrote for the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the Wasilla Frontiersman, the Anchorage Chronicle and at the Tundra Drums in Bethel, where she spent three years as the managing editor. From Bethel she moved to Homer, in 2006, and has worked for the Homer Tribune since then.

Her news writing has garnered many awards, including best series from Alaska Press Club three years in a row. The Homer Tribune was also selected for first place Best Weekly in the APC awards for 2008, 2009, and 2010.

Having spent time in both journalism and in creative fiction/non fiction, Naomi has published a number of essays and short stories. One, “Old Harbor,” is published in an anthology “Alaska Passages.”

About APC, Naomi writes: “I was also a member of the Alaska Press Women from my first days at the Anchorage Times. Betzi Woodman visited the newsroom, and during one she invited me to a luncheon. That was in 1983-84, and I was then a member for a number of years. One of the awards I am most proud of is having won the Spark Plug Award two years in row.”

Naomi Klouda

Feb. 3, 2011–Non-Verbal Communication–Jerry Balistreri

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Ravensong

Have you ever met someone who seems to know what you’re thinking before you say it? Someone with that “special something” that makes them seem like they’re totally in tune with people? Join us as professional educator and trainer Jerry Balistreri demystifies the world of non-verbal communication, or “tells.” Reading the tells is a skill that anyone can master in order to become a better communicator.

Jerry has been training, researching, writing, and speaking on non-verbal communication for over thirty years. He delivers customized trainings, keynote addresses, and conference sessions that create a memorable experience for participants.

His past experience and education include:

Professional educator, administrator, trainer, and speaker
B.S, M.S., M.Ed., DTE
Twenty-five years experience in public education
Ten years experience in training
University department chair
HS Principal
State Supervisor with two state education departments
ASTD certified trainer

Jerry and his wife Sheila live in Anchorage, Alaska. They have two grown children.

Jerry Balistreri

2010 Gold Nugget Award Winner – Sheila Balestreri

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Ravensong

Sheila Balistreri has been with Channel 2 News for 16 years. She’s been the producer and anchor of the “Morning Edition” for 9 years, getting up at 3 a.m. to go to work. Sheila is a graduate of UCLA and a military veteran, having spent three years in the Women’s Army Corps.

Sheila started her 30-plus year journalism career in Bismarck, North Dakota, then went on to work in Salt Lake City, Utah as a radio news director.

Sheila and her family moved to Anchorage in 1989 where she worked in both radio and television.

She has won numerous awards, including four Edward R. Murrow regional awards, Goldie awards from the Alaska Broadcasters Association, AP awards and awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Her most recent awards for “Best Newscast, Television” and “Best Presentation, Television” come from Alaska Professional Communicators. Sheila’s entries moved to National Federation of Press Women, and for the past four years, including 2010, have won first place in those categories at the national level.

After she attended her first NFPW conference, she was hooked and has attended almost every year since.

Sheila has done community service in Anchorage for years for many groups including: American Diabetes Association, Salvation Army, Bean’s Cafe, and many, many more.

Joan Harris, Spark Plug Winner, with Sheila Balestreri, Gold Nugget Winner

Kay Kennedy Gold Nugget Award

2010 Spark Plug Award Winner – Joan Harris

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Ravensong

As 3rd vice president and co-program chair, Joan Harris deserves the Spark Plug Award for her unprecedented success in transforming her quiet spark into a flame of action that, months in advance, has secured, scheduled and coordinated monthly luncheon speakers for Alaska Professional Communicators.

Joan graciously shoulders her responsibility with focus and devotion to our organization. She has secured interesting speakers, and has done an awesome job in following up to ensure that they have a successful speaking engagement at our meetings.

Joan Harris, Spark Plug Winner, with Sheila Balestreri, Gold Nugget Winner

Betzi Woodman Spark Plug Award

Jan. 3, 2011–Alaska Statehood 50th Anniversary Grants–Sarah Hurst

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Ravensong

Journalist, author and translator Sarah Hurst will speak on January 6 about some large projects she worked on that were funded by Alaska Statehood 50th Anniversary grants. She wrote a play about Alaska history for schools called A Native Lad and later, with the help of nine Alaskan artists, created a graphic novel version of it that was published by Anchorage’s Greatland Graphics. She was also research director on a two-hour documentary for PBS called Statehood!

Sarah Hurst was born and raised in England and lived in Russia, Azerbaijan and China before moving to Anchorage in 2001. As a journalist she has written articles for publications all over the world, and she has written several books and plays. She also translates articles and books from Russian to English. Sarah founded the organization Alaska’s Kids to implement creative projects in the 49th state, and A Native Lad, funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum, was the first of those. She has a two-year-old daughter, Cecilia.

Sarah Hurst

Jan. 27, 2011–Social Media Seminar–The Basics and Beyond (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and More…)–

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Ravensong

For months now the buzz has been social media. You’ve put off jumping into the fray, and you feel you may have missed the boat. It’s not too late, but how do you begin? Or maybe you’ve been using Facebook (and even Twitter or LinkedIn) for a few months, but where do you go from here?

Learn from an expert about using social media to promote your business, your books, or your cause.

– Find out the most efficient ways to start using social media or if you’re already dabbling, how to optimize what you’re doing to leverage these tools and channels for your work.

– You’ve heard of Digg, MySpace, Jaiku, and others, but which ones do you really need to use? Discover the best tools for whatever you’re trying to do, from SlideShare to Flickr to YouTube, RedRoom and more.

– If you’re looking to get the most out of social media, you’ll need tools to help you manage and measure what you’re doing. Learn about a few handy tools that can get you organized and help you measure your results.

Join Alaska Professional Communicators as we welcome seminar presenters Aliza Sherman and Sherrie Simmonds for an afternoon dedicated to the ins and outs of social media! You’ll learn how social media gives you the tools you need to boost your communications, marketing, brand-building, and more.

Fulfill your New Year’s resolution to continue learning and expand your social media presence. Register today!

Location: Elim Café, 561 W. Dimond Blvd., Anchorage (near Arctic Blvd.)

Date and Time:

Thursday, January 27, 2011

12 – 1 p.m. Lunch and Networking,

1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Seminar
Registration Fee: Members $50; non-members $75 (prepaid by January 19)

Registrations after January 19: Members $60; non-members $85

Seating is limited. Register today.

Aliza Sherman

Aliza Sherman is a social media innovator and commentator. She speaks around the world about Internet and social media-related topics. In 1995, she founded the first woman-owned, full-service Internet company, Cybergirl, Inc. and the first global Internet networking organization for women, Webgrrls International. Aliza is recognized for her writing and blogging and was named by Fast Company as one of the “Most Powerful Women in Technology.”

In 2003, she started a consulting firm that would become the social media agency Conversify to provide high-level, strategic Internet and social media consulting to companies and organizations. Aliza is also the author of seven books, including The Everything Blogging Book, Streetwise, Ecommerce, and PowerTools for Women in Business. She is working on her 8th: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Crowdsourcing, out July 2011. Her new company – Mediaegg – develops iPhone and iPad apps for women and children.

Sherrie Simmonds

Sherrie Simmonds has managed communications for Alaska Housing Finance Corp. for 15 years. She is a Distinguished Toastmasters and has won numerous state and national speaking, writing and public relations awards. She has been a frequent speaker on social media at meetings and conferences, including Oregon State Clerks Association annual conference and Yukon/Alaska Council of Toastmasters fall conference.[metaslider id=1013]

Oct. 7, 2010–Gasline Development President Talks of Whales and Pipeline Routes–Dan Fauske

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Ravensong

Dan Fauske, President of the newly formed Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), was the featured speaker during the October 7 meeting of the Alaska Professional Communicators, held at Kinley’s Restaurant. AGDC is a subsidiary of Alaska Housing Finance Corp., of which Fauske is CEO/Executive Director. The AGDC was mandated by the state legislature in the spring of 2010 to take over planning for an in-state gas pipeline. The goal is to determine the most economically feasible plan to deliver North Slope natural gas to Alaskans; deadline for the plan is July 1, 2011.

Speaking informally and affably, Fauske shared stories with the communicators about when he lived in Barrow in 1988, the time when three California gray whales were trapped in the Arctic ice. The local whalers normally hunt bowhead whales for food, but they took pity on these gray whales. The community worked tirelessly chopping ice blocks, jumping on them until they sank low enough to push under the edge of the surrounding ice. The point was to keep a channel clear so that the whales could breathe and eventually find open water. Community elders knew where the water was more shallow and warmer and also knew that the whales would not go there for fear of getting further stuck. A Soviet icebreaker joined the effort which became a five million dollar international media event.

Fauske’s remarks were relevant in that Hollywood film crews have been in Anchorage this past month making a movie of the story, “Everybody Loves Whales,” with Ted Danson and Drew Barrymore. Fauske said he’s curious how Hollywood will handle the role the native elders’ traditional knowledge played in the rescue effort. Plus, the Barrow area would be the starting point for the natural gas line.

Turning to his work with the AGDC, Fauske addressed several issues which have emerged during his team’s early months of study, including both the route of the proposed 24-inch bullet pipeline and the funding. The project is estimated to cost between $6 billion and $12 billion.

The proposed route will supply Fairbanks through a proposed pipeline route which would run west of the city, requiring a 43.7-mile 12-inch spur line to supply gas to the Interior city. The spur would cost about $235 million.

A question was asked about the probability of having the gasline follow the route to Valdez? A bullet line from the North Slope using the Glennallen route is longer, a significant consideration with pipeline construction costs of about $5 million per mile, Fauske says.

Furthermore, Fauske says the gas is needed where the population is – Southcentral Alaska and Fairbanks.

With regard to a state subsidy for the project, Fauske indicated that a subsidy of some sort seems likely.

“Without an anchor tenant, we will not make the project pencil out,” he explained. For the project to be feasible a couple of large industrial buyers and a possible one-time infusion of state investment so the tariff, or the transportation charge, for moving North Slope gas would be affordable by both consumers and industrial customers. Without some form of state contribution, gas moved 800 miles through the pipeline would cost about twice what consumers and industries now pay for Cook Inlet natural gas just forty miles away. With gas supply dwindling, this is an important issue.

Fauske also indicated that his team will present a range of options for meeting Southcentral and Interior energy needs in its report to the legislature and will primarily focus on the pipeline.

More about Dan Fauske

Dan Fauske has been the CEO/Executive Director of the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation since March 1, 1995. He directs the management of the self-supporting, public corporation with assets of $4.8 billion.

AHFC has 360 employees in 16 communities and owns 1,700 public housing units. The Corporation has returned $1.9 billion in annual transfer payments to the State of Alaska through cash transfers, capital projects and debt service payments.

Mr. Fauske serves on the governor’s gas line team and was appointed by the current Legislature to manage the In-State Natural Gas Pipeline Development Team.

Dan chairs the Alaska Council on Homelessness and has serves on the boards of directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle and the National Housing Development Corporation. In 2002 he was appointed by Congress to serve on the Bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission.

Prior to his career at AHFC, he served as chief financial officer and chief administrative officer for Alaska’s North Slope Borough.

Dan holds a master’s degree in business administration from Gonzaga University.

Dan Fauske

Sept. 2, 2010–The Fate of Nature–Charles Wohlforth

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Ravensong

A summary of our September 2010 speaker, Charles Wohlforth
By Kay Vreeland

Charles Wohlforth’s subtitle for his recent book, The Fate of Nature, is “Rediscovering our Ability to Rescue the Earth” and in his talk to the APC luncheon meeting September 2, 2010, he marked out the paths toward this rescue. Chief among these is being grounded in our communities and in the stories we tell about our world. Writers, especially journalists, create and define culture in large measure, and culture is the key to solutions of environmental issues. We have known for some time that we are using up our biosphere and know the solutions for preserving it, but we have not gone very far toward rescuing the earth. In the end, said Wolhforth, it is culture rather than science, engineering or technology that will lead to rescue.

Culture grows out of stories we tell and our trust in these stories. Wohlforth’s early journalism career was at the Homer News where he learned his readers accepted what he wrote as true, since he saw the subjects of his stories every day. He learned then what statistics continue to show, that we believe people around us are most trustworthy, and that the message of corporate and government elites has far less influence. How stories are presented to us affects our actions; sadly, the current sensationalist climate in journalism skews reality by creating the perception that many others are not working for the good of society.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill ignited Wohlforth’s passion for the environment by the happy coincidence that he had a four-wheel-drive vehicle that could take reporters from Anchorage and the Valley to the scene. As a journalist there, he learned that the government, the Coast Guard and the oil company stood in adversarial conflict and many bad decisions were made. The shutdown of scientific studies through project cancellation and enforced secrecy meant that true stories were hard to come by and we still lack a lot of clear answers to the mystery of ongoing ecosystem damage.

Moving oversight from hierarchical institutions into the hands of the local community through organizations such as the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council (RCAC) was successful in the aftermath of the 1989 oil spill. Unfortunately, although the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill had different physical aspects, the initial response was the same. Local involvement means a big company cedes power, but in the latest spill scenario, community involvement and scientific contribution are needed for real solutions to emerge.

Alaskans are strongly connected to place, as Wolhforth’s background slide show of nature scenes around the state emphasized. This relation to nature is part of the network of values that gives meaning in life. Values reside in connection, not only to nature, but to family and community. As Wolhforth quoted from his book, “The [environmental] problem is unimaginable in scale, nonlinear in shape, and infinite in complexity, and so may be the solution – in the interlocking relationships of human societies. And the solution may also be small enough for a single person to choose, which is important, since individual people alone are capable of making choices.”

Individual choices create new cultural norms, and individual action contributes most to changing culture, as we’ve seen in shrinking family size, facing race questions or environmental ethics such as less littering, or rescuing the earth. Journalists contribute to creating the cultural norms we live by, and they need to use this power well and conscientiously. Wolhforth’s message is that the fate of nature lies in great part in their, and our, hands.

About Wohlforth

Charles Wohlforth is a life-long Alaska resident and prize-winning author of numerous books about Alaska. His work includes writing about science and the environment, politics and history, travel, and as-told-to biography. A popular lecturer, he has spoken all over the United States and overseas. Wohlforth lives with his wife, Barbara, and their four children. They reside in Anchorage during the winter, where they are avid cross-country skiers, and in summer on a remote Kachemak Bay shore reachable only by boat.

Wohlforth, 46, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1986 before returning to Alaska to work six years as a newspaper reporter, including covering the Exxon Valdez oil spill for the Anchorage Daily News. He became a full-time freelance writer in 1993, publishing articles in The New Republic, Outside, Discover and other periodicals,and writing three travel books published by Wiley. He also served two 3-year terms on the Anchorage Assembly.

In 2004, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published Wohlforth’s widely acclaimed non-fiction account of climate change in the Arctic as experienced by the Eskimos and the scientists studying it, titled The Whale and the Supercomputer. The book won The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, among numerous other national and regional citations for science, culture, and journalism. His current projects include an upcoming book from Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press titled, The Fate of Nature: Rediscovering Our Ability to Rescue the Earth.

Charles Wohlforth

May 6, 2010–How I Stopped Worrying & Learned to Love My Web Site–Sonya Senkowsky

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Ravensong

A summary of our May 2010 speaker, Sonya Senkowsky
By Kay Vreeland

Sonya Senkowsky, founder and current Webmaster of AlaskaWriters.com, a site offering a Web presence and networked community to Alaska writers, spoke to the May 6 APC luncheon on “How I Stopped Worrying & Learned to Love My Web Site.” She described, with explanatory slides, the process of creating a site that includes DIY Web pages for Alaskan writers. She also told of the unexpected professional benefits that can come from such a project, like the book offer that resulted in the recent publication of Alaska Then and Now: Anchorage, Fairbanks & Juneau (co-authored with Amanda Coyne).

Senkowsky is Creative Services Coordinator and Webmaster for Bristol Industries, LLC, an Anchorage-based company owned by Bristol Bay Native Corporation. In 1996, she began her Alaskan career as a features writer for the ADN. In 2000, to jump-start a transition to freelance biological sciences writer, she decided to create a Web site to introduce herself to prospective clients. She kept it simple: her resume, her writing samples, her travels, and her contact information. From there, she expanded into the Alaska Writers Homestead site, which she created herself after she found that only pre-made templates for retail stores, small businesses, or professionals, like doctors, were available for building a site. Because those wouldn’t work for her purposes, she fashioned her own template that has evolved into the complex site she runs today.

The heart of the AlaskaWriters site is an information page about each author who is a member; these pages make up the nexus centered on the Alaska Bookshelf page. Senkowsky created the template a member can use for a personal page to showcase their own content as well as give off-site links to their Web site, booksellers, or other relevant information. Outgoing, as well as incoming, links are essential for showing up at the top of today’s search engine results, and interaction with members’ sites keeps these links active and relevant. The whole process also strengthens and helps the larger writers’ community.

To make all this happen, a member simply signs in and updates their page on a Web form. The Alaska Writer Laureate, Nancy Lord, uses her page to change photos and add fresh information about her work; another writer wanted to find an agent via the site, and the page she created did, indeed, bring an agent to her. Another wanted to show editors her writing samples and to promote her book, and another’s goal was to promote her book with a photo of herself and of her book’s cover and a link to show how she was active in her writing career. Senkowsky’s husband’s book and CD set include an order form, a first for the site. Senkowsky herself was signed by a book publisher whom she repeatedly redirected to suitable writers and who, in the end, made the book deal with her.

As she planned her site with the idea that it be hers forever, Senkowsky knew she could not use free providers of Web page creation tools because if their company disappears, the site does, too. A personal domain is important for this reason as well. For licensing reasons, the main AlaskaWriters site is on Expression Engine, which interacts with a second content management system licensed for its use on individual author pages. A dynamic site, that is, one that is constantly updated, the AlaskaWriters community grows constantly with fresh content and new members.

Senkowsky looked back to tell of all her site has brought her: in her freelance business, Web design clients; in her writing life, exposure to the publishing community and early information about it; in her public life, speaking engagements; and in collaborative projects, work with people who came to the site with plans in mind, like Web site developer Susannah Gardner, whose Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies (2005), Senkowsky contributed to via her site.

The most recent reward from her site is her current job. As she consulted with writers, she got a request from a CEO who wanted her to re-do their Web site to better serve the five companies in their industry and she agreed to take on the oversight of this project rather than its actual site design. As the project grew she moved into a fulltime job with Bristol Industries and has developed their writing and creative services department. This, along with publication of her recent book, shows some of the wonderful unanticipated consequences of her first small personal Web site started six years ago.

Always happy to share her expertise with others, Senkowsky invites everyone to check out the free-application Google site she created in preparation for this presentation, “5 Web Facts for Writers.” Here she explains basic Web vocabulary, pre-planning, how to build a site, the need for a host and a domain name (your URL), a decision whether to make a static site or a blog, the proper care and feeding of a site, and tips on promoting the site, including using social media (Twitter, Facebook). In conclusion, her advice, especially to those who are overwhelmed with the prospect of making and running a Web site, is to slow down and take it one step at a time, like she has done so successfully.

About Senkoysky

Senkowsky is a member of Alaska Professional Communicators and a two-time winner of its Sweepstakes award, given to the person who garners the most points in the annual Communications Contest.

After working a short stint in a suburban New Jersey bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sonya Senkowsky came to Alaska in 1996 to escape the persistent smell of oil refineries on her daily commute, and to write for the Anchorage Daily News.

At the time, the newspaper had a vibrant Lifestyles section, which she served first as a features reporter and later as a part-time copy editor; in 2001, she left to become a full-time freelancer. As such, Sonya specialized in documenting and reporting on science fieldwork throughout the state – from dinosaur digs above the Arctic Circle to geology at the bottom of the Gulf of Alaska.

It was then that Sonya started her first websites, including AlaskaWriters.com, an online service offering a web presence for writers through “do it yourself” websites.

Through her websites, she has offered consulting and coaching to writers and scientists on freelancing, multimedia content management and Web outreach. Clients of AlaskaWriters.com include a number of prominent writers, including the state’s writer laureate. The site has also been home to numerous Alaska writing organizations, including the Alaska Press Club, the Alaska Writer’s Guild, and the Alaska chapter of Romance Writers of America—and Alaska Professional Communicators.

Sonya earned her master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park and her undergraduate degree in English/Communications from La Salle University, Philadelphia. In addition to having written numerous newspaper and magazine articles, she is co-author—along with Amanda Coyne—of Alaska Then and Now: Anchorage, Fairbanks & Juneau (2008), and an author of Alaska’s South Coastal Wildlife Viewing Guide (2009).

In addition to being manager and editor of AlaskaWriters.com, Sonya Senkowsky is currently Creative Services Coordinator and Webmaster for Bristol Industries, LLC, an Anchorage-based company serving the administrative and communications needs of more than a half-dozen engineering, construction and environmental remediation firms owned by Bristol Bay Native Corporation.

Sonya Senkowsky