Reporter and former APC member Naomi Klouda will speak at the April 7 luncheon regarding “Reporting the news for a weekly newspaper.”

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, April 7
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, April 5.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

More about Naomi Klouda

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, 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.”

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.

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, February 3
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, February 1.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

More about Jerry Balistreri

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.

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!

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, January 6
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, January 4.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

More about Sarah Hurst

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.

A summary of our October 2010 speaker, Dan Fauske
By Dianne O’Connell

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.

Join us in November when Deb Vanasse and Andromeda Romano-Lax will discuss “The 49 Alaska Writing Center: Chapters 1 and 2 of a Successful Start-up Story.” The center’s mission is to support “creative writers from throughout Alaska at all stages of their development while building an audience for Alaska literature.”

Luncheon Information
11:30 a.m., Thursday, November 4
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar
3230 Seward Hwy.
Anchorage

Lunch: members $19; others $25

Reservations:
1. RSVP and payment through PayPal.

2. Email: akpc at gci dot net by noon Tuesday, November 2.

3. Call 274-4723 and leave a message, including a phone number where you can be reached. When calling or sending an email, please include how many people are coming and their names.

More about Deb Vanasse

Deb’s first novel, the Junior Literary Guild selection A Distant Enemy, was published by Penguin/Lodestar in 1997. Her tenth published book, Lucy’s Dance, is scheduled with the University of Alaska Press for 2011 release. With an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s degree in the Humanities with a literary emphasis, Deb taught high school and college English for twenty years. An Alaskan for over thirty years, her to-do list includes applying for membership in the Pioneers of Alaska. She’s convinced the teaching of writing sharpens her attention to precision and depth in her own work. In 2009, she joined blog forces with Andromeda Romano-Lax at www.49writers.blogspot.com, and in 2010, she became one of the founding Directors of 49 Writers, Inc. Deb lives in Anchorage and retreats to a cabin near the Matanuska Glacier whenever she gets a chance. Her author website is www.debvanasse.com.

More about Andromeda Romano-Lax

Born in 1970 in Chicago, Andromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow (Harcourt, 2007), was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and was translated into 11 languages. Her second novel, The Discus Thrower, enlarges upon themes introduced in her debut novel, including questions about the role of art – and the promise of love – during wartime. Among Romano-Lax’s nonfiction works are ten travel and natural history interpretive guidebooks to Alaska and Mexico, as well as a travel narrative, Searching for Steinbeck’s Sea of Cortez: A Makeshift Expedition Along Baja’s Desert Coast (Sasquatch Books). She lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her husband and two children, and is a founding Director of 49 Writers, Inc. She is the recipient of grants from the Alaska Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, which named her a 2009 Artist Fellow. A life-long student, she is currently pursuing her MFA at Antioch University in Los Angeles. Her official author website is www.romanolax.com.