Volunteer Spotlight

Matt Melton: Preparing for the unexpected

Volunteer Spotlight Matt Melton, like many others born and raised in Alaska, received an early education in oil spills. He was in fifth grade when he saw people on TV scooping up oil in buckets after the Exxon Valdez spill. His first instinct was to help. He asked his mom to take him to the … Read more

Cathy Hart: Photographer focuses on fostering environmental stewardship

Long-time Alaskan, and Council volunteer for over 16 years, Cathy Hart has always had a lot of different irons in a lot of different fires. Her passion for telling stories with photographs winds through almost everything she does, including her work on the Council’s Information and Education Committee.

Cathy Hart is a member of the Council’s Information and Education Committee. The committee supports the Council’s mission by fostering public awareness, responsibility, and participation through information and education. The committee sponsors projects such as Masters of Disaster, a special event for kids of all ages to learn about topics related to the Council’s mission. At a recent event, Hart (center) taught Kodiak students about oil spill response.

This passion ignited early, not long after her father’s job as an engineer in the oil industry moved the family to Alaska in the late 1960s. The teenaged Hart was exploring her new home state when she spotted an eagle.

“I watched him dive down and get something on the ground,” she recalls.

She was entranced and wanted to capture that moment. She soon got her first camera as a gift from her father.

She found she was good at capturing action shots. She photographed kids’ sports, theater, and dance, and sold the images. Her passion was for the outdoors though.

“Wildlife was always my true love.”

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Tim Robertson: Real-life experiences improve oil spill response

Volunteer Spotlight

Photo of Tim Robertson on a small motorized boat on the ocean with a rocky coast in the background.
Tim Robertson is a member of the Council’s Oil Spill Prevention & Response Committee. The committee works to minimize the risk and impacts associated with oil transportation through research, advice, and recommendations for strong and effective spill prevention and response measures, contingency planning, and regulations.

Growing up in western North Carolina, over 3,000 miles away from Alaska, Tim Robertson and his brothers Roy and Andy knew all about the 49th state. His dad was obsessed.

“If there was a TV show or a movie or anything about Alaska, he drug the whole family to see it,” Robertson says. All three brothers ended up moving here.

These days Tim splits his time between Alaska and Hawaii. At first glance, it might seem like the two states are very different, but Tim’s values are present in both.

“I’m a small-boat guy on big water,” he says. “There’s the same connection with the ocean. A lot of mornings I watch the sun rise from the water. It’s a big part of what I am.”

Robertson spent his first few years in Alaska working in an oil-related field, first as a research biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game, then for an oil field service company.

He dreamt of a different career though. Robertson acquired land in Seldovia in 1985, and partnered with another family to build Harmony Point Wilderness Lodge, an ecotourism business. They had only been in business a few short years when the Exxon Valdez ran aground.

“The first time I ever heard of ICS [Incident Command System] was when we had a community meeting after the spill,” says Robertson.

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