The Observer, July 2005
Volunteer Profile: Committee volunteer found his direction in life early
Besides being a chemistry professor and researcher at the University of Alaska Anchorage, John Kennish is an avid outdoorsman, which is a big part of what drew him to Alaska. Upper left, with a couple of salmon at Deep Creek on the Kenai Peninsula. Bottom, hauling out a load of caribou from Monument Mountain, near Eureka. Top right, during a visit to the citizens’ council offices in Anchorage. Photos courtesy of John Kennish, except top right photo by Stan Jones.
It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say that John Kennish has taken to heart the advice of Horace Greeley.
Greeley was the newspaper editor who counseled “Go West, young man!” in an 1865 editorial.
And that’s about what John Kennish has been doing since he reached the age of independence. He was born in New Jersey, got his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from a New Jersey school – Rutgers University – and landed his first job out of school, with DuPont.
It’s been westward ho! ever since: A master’s degree from a college in central Pennsylvania, then a move to Oregon for graduate study that led to his doctorate in chemistry.
“I wanted to go where the fishing was better,” Kennish explained in an interview with the Observer. “And that’s a fact.”
He spent six years in Oregon, enjoying the beautiful mountains and water. Then came another jump.
“There were two things I was interested in,” Kennish said. “I really like teaching, and I wanted to be living somewhere where the fishing was really great.”
He started applying for jobs in Alaska, and in 1979 landed one at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He and his wife, Patricia, piled three-week-old Meghan Kennish into the car and headed up the AlCan Highway.
And the university’s Anchorage campus is where he’s been ever since. He’s a full professor now, teaching chemistry courses like Quantitative Analysis and Instrumental Methods of Analysis, conducting research and writing scholarly articles with titles like “Fatty Acid Analysis of Blood Serum in Black-Legged Kittiwakes: What’s Chromatography Got To Do With It?” and “Cytochrome P-4501A1 Isozyme Induction in Kenai River Sculpin as a Monitor of Freshwater Pollution Effects.”
Besides teaching at UAA, he volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and is a board member of the Alaska Public Interest Research Group.
He’s also, as the reader may have guessed already, a member of the council’s Scientific Advisory Committee. SAC, as it’s known, is tasked with ensuring council projects are based on the best available scientific information and its membership roster is heavy with Ph.D.s like Kennish. (The other doctorate holders on SAC are John French, Peter Armato, Roger Green, and A.J. Paul.)
Kennish was recruited by Lisa Ka’aihue, the council staffer whose projects are primarily of interest to the the science committee. That grew out of a tour by Ka’aihue and Green of UAA’s Applied Science, Engineering and Technology Laboratory, where Kennish does much of his research.
“It was evident that he thoroughly enjoys his profession as well as working with the students,” Ka’aihue said. “John brings a lot of knowledge and experience to the Scientific Advisory Committee.”
Kennish had long been interested in environmental chemistry and toxicology, and had worked with Jeff Short, a frequent council contractor on scientific research. In addition, he was aware in a general way of the council and its work after the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989.
So he joined SAC, where he soon found himself involved in – among other things – one of the council’s perennial preoccupations: chemical oil-spill dispersants.
“I’m really fascinated by the fact that the dispersant issue is still unresolved after all these years,” he said.
The diversity of the council has impressed him, along with its focus on preserving the citizen voice in oil-transportation decisions.
“It’s an attempt to maximize input, to keep all the stakeholders involved at every level,” he said. “I wish government worked that way because, in some ways, it seems to be the mission of government to ignore input.”