The Observer, May 2005
Volunteer Profile
Committee head steps down after nine years as chair
When Jerry Brookman took over as chairman of the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Committee, the citizens’ council was only seven years old, email was still a novelty, and Alyeska Pipeline had yet to bring its first Enhanced Tractor Tug into Valdez.
That was in 1996. This spring, Brookman, a Kenai retiree, decided to give up the chair to become just a regular member of the committee.
COMMITTED -– Jerry Brookman of Kenai has spent a decade on the Oil Spill Prevention/Response Committee, including nine years as chairman.
“I’ve never been a believer in term limits,” Brookman said. “But I figured that, after nine years, it was about time to turn it over to somebody else. Every year, at the first meeting when we had a quorum, I’d ask for volunteers, and never got one, until this year.”
The ‘volunteer’ was John French, who also serves on the council’s board of directors, where he represents Seward. His accession to the slot of chairman may not have been entirely voluntary – Brookman admits to discussing it with him first.
Brookman puts improved tug escorts at the top of the list of the committee’s big issues. Alyeska’s current fleet of high-performance tugs began entering service in 1998 and is now regarded as one of the best in the world. The development of this fleet was partly due to a series of technical studies led by the council in the mid-1990s.
Also on Brookman’s list of top issues: dispersants, response readiness, and the development of Geographic Response Strategies.
The escort system is also on Brookman’s list of big issues still facing the committee. That’s because, with the switchover to double-hull tankers, the main federal requirement for tanker escorts will end, and there is already talk of scaling back the escort fleet. The council’s position is that the present system of two tugs escorting each loaded tanker should continue.
Brookman joined the committee in 1995, the year before he became chair. What does he make of it all after a decade of service?
“Industry may not love us, but we have a mandate to look over their shoulders and let them know what we think,” Brookman said. “While this process has a potential for chaos and hostility, I think it pretty much works. I respect the industry and regulators, and for the most part the people who run them that I’ve come into contact with. Nevertheless, nobody’s perfect.”
Brookman has been in Alaska about five times as long as he’s been with the citizens’ council. He first came to the then-territory in 1957 as a radar technician in the private sector, later switching to similar work with the Federal Aviation Administration. He was stationed in the Anchorage area for 16 years before transferring to Kenai, where he worked until his retirement in 1990.
“I didn’t really want to come to Alaska, but they sent me,” Brookman said. “But I liked it, and I guess I still must – I’m still here.”
Jon Dahlman, a Seward resident who joined the committee the same week in 1995 that Brookman did, describes the former chairman as “one in a bunch.”
“He is the individual who has held all our meetings together,” Dahlman said. “I don’t know that he’s ever missed a meeting, except when he was deathly ill.”
Like many council volunteers, Brookman has other irons in the fire. At the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council, he serves on a committee similar to the one he chaired at the Prince William Sound council. And, for the past couple of years, he has been a volunteer for the Veterans Administration, driving Kenai-area residents to the agency’s clinic in Anchorage for exams and treatment once or twice a month.
He’s also an avid hiker, having trekked not only the Kenai Peninsula, but the northeast corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well.
Brookman was born and raised in LaSalle County, Illinois. He joined the Marines on his 18th birthday and served in the Corps from 1952-55, including a tour in Korea.
His wife, Janet, is British. He met her while working in Canada, just before he came to Alaska. She went back to England, he went north and they were apart until she came to Alaska in 1971. They married in 1972.
After nearly five decades in Alaska, Brookman has no plans to move out any time soon.
“Where else could I go?” he says. “I don’t think I’d really fit in anywhere else.”