Michelle: Can you tell us a little more about your work with the MEP?

Alyssa: Oh yeah. I can go back to the beginning. Our MEP started on July 1st of 2019. And we were just starting to figure out who we are and what we did when COVID hit. It was maybe an interesting time, to say the least, to come of age as an MEP and had a lot of opportunities for us to be really involved in trying to help people make PPE, and get PPE, and all those different things.

But once that was over, then we were again trying to figure out, who are we? What do we do? We have a lot of other MEPs to look to for guidance, but what's particular to Alaska? What does Alaska need and is it different? Or is it really a lot of what the other sectors need? And so, yeah, we've been honing in on it for the last couple of years and I am feeling like we got it. I feel like we understand. More about what our manufacturers need and how we can help them.

Michelle: Can you tell us how you got interested in manufacturing?

Alyssa: I had kind of an interesting path to get here. My background is in forestry, forest management, economics. And then I was lucky enough to find a position in Alaska back in 2007 that was as a labor economist, which was really wonderful because it gave me a lot of experience and understanding of Alaska's economy as a whole. I would say, like a lot of other Alaskans, I didn't pay too much attention to manufacturing. So in my head at the time, manufacturing was really seafood processing. So there were seafood processing and then not really much else. I would say I probably held that view for a while until, we wrote an article about other manufacturing. It still was really small compared to the rest of our economy or labor market, but the depth and variety of manufacturing was really astonishing to me. And there's so much more that we make in Alaska than I had really ever thought of. Very shortly after that article came out, I had an opportunity to go and work inside the state with their Division of Economic Development. I was really excited to do that. And in that position, I oversaw the Made in Alaska program. A lot of other states have similar programs where they really highlight what's made there. And that was another eye opener in terms of all of what is made in Alaska, big and small.

I'm sure this is very similar to other states, but our manufacturers are proud to have products that are made in Alaska. It doesn't matter if they're huge vessels, or if they're crocheted pot holders, people are putting in for those permits and they're getting their main Alaska logo on whatever they are making. And so even that was just a really big eye opener in terms of how many people touch manufacturing.