The Observer, September 2004
Volunteer Profile: ‘Snowbird’ keeps hand in on science committee
Ask A.J. Paul how he wound up in Alaska, and he answers like a lot of the state’s residents: The lure was the land itself.
“I had no plans and no job,” Paul said. “I just wanted to see what Alaska was like. It sucked me in – the beautiful scenery, the constant daylight, the wildflowers.”
That was in 1970, 34 years ago this summer. Paul, then 23, fetched up in Fairbanks with a freshly minted bachelor’s degree in fisheries and marine biology from the University of Massachusetts. He started a master’s degree program at the University of Alaska that fall, and, a year later, took a job with the university’s Institute of Marine Science. The job became a career and he stayed with the institute until his retirement three years ago.
A.J. Paul, a member of the council's Scientific Advisory Committee, spends winters on a Texas ranch, where he helps with, among other things, feeding the giraffes. Photos by Stan Jones and Lisa Ka’aihue, citizens’ council.
In 1975, he made the move that would lead to his role as member of the citizens’ council’s Scientific Advisory Committee. He took a job as resident scientist at the institute’s Seward Marine Station, which provides shore support for research vessels.
And Seward is where he stayed, though he later made some trips to Japan while working on his doctorate at Hokkaido University, a sister institution to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
His involvement with the citizens’ council started a few months after the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. He got a call from Chris Gates, who was port director for the city of Seward and a board member of the citizens’ council. Gates let Paul know the council was forming the Scientific Advisory Committee and suggested he take one of the seats.
“I was a logical choice,” Paul said. “The university likes its faculty and staff to do public service, so it was a natural fit. I’ve been here ever since.”
In Paul’s view, the independent voice of the citizens’ council is a useful tool for improving the environmental safety of crude oil transportation.
“The oil industry is a for-profit industry and a for-profit industry is always looking for ways to cut costs,” Paul said. “They need oversight by people not in their profit stream and I think that’s never going to change.”
He regards the council as a “microcosm of democracy” because of the diversity of views and backgrounds among the board of directors and the volunteers like himself who make up the council’s four standing technical advisory committees.
“Things move slowly but I don’t think that’s a negative thing,” he said. “Things are discussed and thought about.”
One big risk, he believes, is that the complacency that allowed the Exxon Valdez to happen may set in again as the years pass without another big spill and memories fade.
“The biggest problem is to keep the motivation,” Paul said. “The glory is gone now. We’re not knights riding to battle. We’ve become a bureaucracy.”
Nowadays, Paul spends his summers in Fairbanks and his winters on the Y-O Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The Y-O is a 50,000-acre family owned ranch dating back to just after the Civil War. As is the case with many old-style ranches today, cattle-raising isn’t profitable enough to support it.
So the family has sold off part of the spread as homesites, and stocked the rest with exotic animals for hunting. The owners also bring in revenue by selling animals to zoos, and by hosting kids’ camps, cattle drives, weddings, corporate retreats and family reunions.
Paul’s home site covers 64 acres. His house includes all the modern conveniences, except for communications. He has no internet service and his only electronic link to the outside world is a 12-volt “bag phone,” which works by radio and, as the name suggests, is carried around in a bag.
As a result, Paul can’t be very active on the Scientific Advisory Committee in the winter, though he does still participate during his summers in Fairbanks.
“I’ll stay on as long as I’m needed,” Paul said, “but I’m not the best. I’m a snowbird, now.”
A.J. Paul, a member of the council’s Scientific Advisory Committee, now spends his winters on the Y-O Ranch in Texas (right), where he helps out by – among other things – feeding the giraffes. Above, he sports a pocket protector, official fashion accessory of the somewhat nerdy committee on which he has served for more than a decade.