Dear Alaska,

[Jim~]

My wife and I are hard working, indipendent, resourseful, thrifty, and generally unbearable to be around here in Pennsylvania since we recieved confirmation from my new employer I have been hired.. in ALASKA!!

I worked in Alaska as a packer and Asisstant Guide for three years. Since leaving that profession (and generally doing well in my current endeavors) we have worked very hard everyday to make myself more attractive professionaly to companies in Alaska within my primary skill sets. Finally, our persistence has paid off. We are coming home!

I feel like I'm about to be reunited with a lost love... We can hardly wait.

I promise; We will be good, upstanding Alaskans anyone would like to have as neighbors, protect what's ours, teach our boys how fortunate and blessed we are to be in the most breath-taking land in the world (belive me, my wife and I have been around this planet in our young lives), work hard everyday, progress professionaly, and set the example for others who wish to do the same.

On My Honor,

Jim~

[Brian M]

Good deal, Jim. Where are you going to be setting up camp?

[cdubbin]

AAAAHHHH...... fresh meat :shot:

[G3_Guy]

Congratulations Jim! I hope to be able to make similar post about my family moving to AK in the very near future!

[Jim~]

Brian

Right now it looks like camp is an appropriate term. I'm electing to live in our fifth wheel until my wife comes up later to shop with me for the right home. Spring will be here soon and my wife will follow shortly, so it won't be too miserable for very long.

I was origionaly looking at Glennallen (my first choice) but that didn't work out, so I will be managing the Mat-Su (the entire valley as I've been told). Hey, I'm not complaining. Being in Alaska was priority one for us, and we are exstatic none the less.

So we are pretty flexible where we make our home for now. We could legitamately be anywhere from north of Willow to Wasilla to Palmer to Chickaloon. Besides this gives us time to survey the area and find what we really want. Quite a luxury, all thing considered.

[ret25yo]

thank you for starting off right on this forum, that was a great post, just a few more like it before asking us to vote for you on some silly contest..lol

[NDTerminator]

My wife and I are hard working, indipendent, resourseful, thrifty, and generally unbearable to be around here in Pennsylvania since we recieved confirmation from my new employer I have been hired.. in ALASKA!!

I worked in Alaska as a packer and Asisstant Guide for three years. Since leaving that profession (and generally doing well in my current endeavors) we have worked very hard everyday to make myself more attractive professionaly to companies in Alaska within my primary skill sets. Finally, our persistence has paid off. We are coming home!

I feel like I'm about to be reunited with a lost love... We can hardly wait.

I promise; We will be good, upstanding Alaskans anyone would like to have as neighbors, protect what's ours, teach our boys how fortunate and blessed we are to be in the most breath-taking land in the world (belive me, my wife and I have been around this planet in our young lives), work hard everyday, progress professionaly, and set the example for others who wish to do the same.

On My Honor,

Jim~

If a frustrated wanne be & trying desperately to be Alaskan may be so bold, what kind of work are you in? How did you go about landing the job w/o actually living in AK, if I got you correctly?

I swear, every job I look at seems to want the applicant to be an Alaskan resident. I'm having hell's own time getting my foot in the door from here in ND....

[kodiakrain]

Yeah Jim, that's a prettty good intro post, and a Good Plan for finding your eventual location also.

Have Fun with the Anticipation, It all only gets More Real the closer you get,
Cool you have boys to raise here also. it's perfect for that in Alaska,
Welcome, Big Time

Hey Terminator, just curious, what do you do for a living, or how wide a range of skills are you marketing?
there are entire industries up here, that could not care less if you are a resident,

just looking for, "Motivated and Hungry" ones

[Jim~]

Thank you all for the warm welcomes and encouragement.

As I said before in the opening of this thread we are no strangers to Alaska. My wife and I fell in love here (a rather lengthy story). After I stopped guiding (the beginning of the recession) I restarted my old career in the communications and utility construction business.

I can build systems, troubleshoot faults, locate, splice, bury, install, and wire any buried utility (water, sewer, phone, cable, power, gas). I have a class A CDL, clean driving record, adaquate computer skills (note I didn't include spelling), I'm CAD literate, and can operate earth moving machinery (D5C, D6N LX, D6N LGP, D6T, 308, 315, 320, 325, Ditch Witch cable plows, Vermeer cable plows and trenchers..etc.)

Enough about that stuff.

Here's how I landed the job: After finally coming to the conclusion that job sites are a rip-off waste of my time and I was not (even with all my confidence) going to fall into a job up on the slope with my back-ground (not even sure I'd really want to now...), I started researching every utility, communications, power, and highway contractor in the state. I gently insisted on talking only to HR managers (HR managers remember names, HR minions remember their friends, know this to be a fact) with companies I felt I legitimately had services to offer.

In the end, it payed off. Alaska. Communications. My own area.

Be persistant! Don't hem yourself into the mindset "This is what I do here, I'll do it in Alaska too!" Be flexable with your experience. My persistance yielded me a company truck (home garaged), unlimited (phone, internet) communications, the usual other bennies, and a $23K/yr. raise. But all this is academic... I would have taken the same job if I'd been offered what I make now. We have truely been blessed and will honor this blessing accordingly.

Remember! If I can do it you know you can! Never give up on your dream. Ever!

[NDTerminator]

Yeah Jim, that's a prettty good intro post, and a Good Plan for finding your eventual location also.

Have Fun with the Anticipation, It all only gets More Real the closer you get,
Cool you have boys to raise here also. it's perfect for that in Alaska,
Welcome, Big Time

Hey Terminator, just curious, what do you do for a living, or how wide a range of skills are you marketing?
there are entire industries up here, that could not care less if you are a resident,

just looking for, "Motivated and Hungry" ones

I'm a 53 year old Deputy Chief the PD of a community of about 7500, #10 of the 11 "major cities" in ND. Been with the DLPD since 1983. Put on my first badge in 1979 so I'm getting onto the tail of my career. I have been a patrol supervisor, Investigations Supervisor, and SWAT Team Leader for most of it. I was promoted off the street to Captain a couple years ago. 7 months after I was promoted to Deputy Chief, my Chief retired and I served as Acting Chief until the current Chief was hired. I have a number of responsibilities but my primary is command of the Patrol Division consisting of 3 Sgts, 11 Patrol Officers, 1 School Resource Officer, and a non-sworn Community Service Officer. Been an instructor for over two decades certified to teach virtually all Patrol Functions, Tactical Ops, Firearms, and Defensive Tactics (2nd degree BB in Jujitsu). Also a private pilot but haven't flown for 20 years.

When I finish LE here in this state, I wan't no more part of it.

What I can't do? I can't nail two boards together, I have no mechanical apptitude beyond PM on my bike, I can't fix a computer, I can't operate heavy machinery, and I can't type 70 words a minute.

What I'm finding out is that my 2 decades of supervisory & management experience doesn't count for much in the private sector w/o a 4 year degree. I have a 2 year degree. When I came in this field few had even that, now we rarely hire a patrolman who doesn't have a 4 year. I have a patrol officer about to get his MS, for cripes sake.

W/O that 4 year degree, it looks like a guy better have some very specialized technical training, like the orginal poster.

BTW, my congrats to Jim for landing his gig in AK...

[Derby06]

NDTerminator,
Not exactly in AK, but they are always looking for LEO's to contract overseas and pay is really good. Again, not in AK now but you darn sure could afford to live here after a hitch or two there and your ND retirement.
That being said, I qualify for many of these overseas gigs, but just retired from the military and if I wanted to be there, I'd a stayed in. Have to admit seeing the pay sometimes makes me think twice....but the wife says no waaay....lol

[Cowboy Logic]

NDTerminator,
Derby06 is giving you some great advise. I spent 6 years working in Iraq and Afghanistan after I retired from the USBP and the money a made was very good to say the least. I spent a lot of that time making and building a network of contacts either in Alaska or from Alaska as my wife and I knew we wanted to move there about 15years ago but needed to stay put not only for work but also for her older parents. My last in-law past on about 18 months ago, and while it may sound cold, I began spreading the word to everyone I had met and gotten to know over the years up in Alaska that I was now looking to make the move and needed help landing a good job. It took time but I landed a really good job in Anchorage which is where the wife and kids wanted to live in the first place. We are now preparing to move up there this summer and I will be leaving for Anchorage in the next few weeks.
As for having LEOs applying for a job with an MS or MBA, well anytime I was on one’s hiring board I would always ask why they wanted to be a Border Patrol Agent. No matter what their answer my follow up was always something to the effect of “why would a person who is smart enough to get a Bachelors Degree and then move on and receive a Masters Degree want to get into a entry level Law Enforcement job” then after they answered I would ask them something like “So let me get this right you spent roughly 6 years and a 100K plus to get a job that starts at 40K per year and only requires an Associates degree or 2 years of military service, now does that sound like an intelligent plan for ones job future…especially considering that the BP will pay for all your education after you are hired…so why wouldn’t you just get an associates degree or spend a couple of years in the military and have us pay for your education?” I never hired one of these guys and every one I ever met who worked for us ended up Bigger Better dealing us and using the BP as a stepping stone to get to other Federal Agencies (they were smart enough to use us to get their foot in the door and as a stepping stone to get where they wanted to go).
Anyway whatever you do don’t give up and build a network of people who are in the know up in Alaska and be patient. I found this forum not to long ago and the folks here have been a big help as well.

[NDTerminator]

Thanks for the advice, if nothing else, we sure do have networks in LE, don't we? Up until maybe a 7 or 8 years ago, the network of patrol sgts in our state had a ton of influence on how things ran & who got hired. As we've promoted up or pulled the pin, that network has been replaced with HR people. Used to be able to make a couple calls and know all about an applicant, now we have to refer each other HR. God help the guy who honestly advises a guy we might be looking at is a slug. Our HR sasquatch (so named that we think she might exist but never actually see her) is in her mid 20s and knows nothing about LE, but dictates much of our policy, way too much IMO. Spooky...

Didn't mean to hijack this thread. Again, my sincere congrats to the OP...

[Jim~]

Didn't mean to hijack this thread. Again, my sincere congrats to the OP...

Hey, no sweat NDT. I wanted this thread to give Alaskans a sense of peace that there are good and decent people moving to their state and becoming thier neighbors. Whether it's my family or yours, it makes no difference to me. I hope you realize your dream and make it a reality as we are.

AMB,

Jim