Work-Life Balance

We lead increasingly rich and complex lives. That is a good and bad thing from an evolutionary perspective. The "good" part bundles better health care with things like amazing technology and convenience to access any part of the globe at a fraction of historic travel costs. The "bad" makes unprecedented demands on us 24/7/365 and makes it increasingly hard for us to commit our most precious resource (time) efficiently and equitably to meet family, personal, work, fitness and other social demands.

As I have moved around the world, it has been fascinating to learn how different cultures and religions view leisure and then to overlay that with both the different work organization systems that prevail and with the increasing demands for productivity gains - multi-tasking has become a shorthand for doing more in less time!

I think perhaps the most balanced work-life system I ever worked in was in Indonesia in the early 90s when I was seconded to a University to develop the national marine conservation curriculum. We were required to be at work 6 days/week, starting at 0700 in the morning, but finishing around 2pm. There was an obligatory afternoon nap (it was the tropics!) and then time for G+Ts and cards or other diversions in the evening. Fridays were even simpler - the morning was for sport and then the folks would head to the mosque at noon and then go home. Saturdays were a kind of compensation day for Friday's lack of output! Working that relaxed cycle I managed to write 32 papers or reports that year - my highest ever rate of written output...

An annual survey in the Economist magazine ranks and then evaluates different countries use of leisure time. Typically European countries rank highly on the amount of holidays available. However, many articles point out the productivity trade offs that such long vacation entails and these serve to further entrench the belief that somehow work is good and leisure is not. There is clearly a view in many modern economies that working longer and longer hours is meritorous and that in tough times such as we now face, we all need to work harder to get us out of the current economic mess. With the recent loss of retirement wealth, I regularly hear people talking about having to work until they are 70+ in order to be able to afford to retire! Yikes!

Increasingly people prefer to not distinguish between work and leisure - for many (and I think that now includes me), there is a big overlap betwen how I like to spend my time and how it might be "accounted for" -- work and leisure are clearly somewhat simplistic descriptions of how we use time! That overlap is attenuated by increasingly similar "platforms" for leisure and work - e.g. volunteering is now a more common "leisure activity". Similarly, there has been an explosion of research into internet psychology with many researchers noting that desoite the increasing problems of "videophilia" there are many benefits of internet use as a diversion from work! !

However you choose to spend your "leisure" or (perhaps more accurately) non- ASLC work time, I encourage all staff to be mindful of the importance of finding a balance that enables you to refresh your mind, recharge your batteries and renew your relationships outside work.

Simple things like using a full week of leave as leave from work and so not checking on email or voicemail, taking public holidays off to be with your family or even just taking a few hours off as leave to go for a walk on a sunny day can go a long way towards sustaining your long term health and happiness in the workplace and outside of work.

I'm increasingly "practicing what I preach" and so am heading off for a week (at the end of next week) with my family to enjoy the spring and scenery via boat - for the first time in many years, I won't have email or cell access! I have also asked all my direct reports to work on reducing excess leave carry forward and take time to talk with their staff about how to better balance work and life interests.

I encourage you to share your thoughts and sugestions on how to better balance your work and life outside of the SeaLife Center- what works well for you, what don't you recommend, what tips do you have for colleagues new to working at the Center?

Belugas = Big Wild Life

I don't know about you, but for me, being able to see wildlife in a natural setting is an important part of my quality of life. Alaskan wildlife is, for the most part, still so abundant and widely distributed that even living near a big city like Anchorage I can easily see animals that I could not have dreamt of seeing when we lived in Bethesda, MD. As the marketing slogan (http://www.bigwildlife.net/) says so well... Anchorage really does equate with big wild life!

For most residents, and especially at this time of the year when many animals are again active, most folks think of wild land animals like bear, moose and wolves. I have a fascination with them also, but what really grabbed my attention when we moved here from Maryland three years ago were the reports in various tourism pamphlets about the possibility of seeing Cook Inlet belugas around Anchorage. I have always been intrigued by whales of all species, and had been involved in stranded pilot whale recues off Tasmania and in various whale management initiatives on the Great Barrier Reef and in Indonesia. But I had only ever seen live belugas in the Mystic aquarium so was keen to get out and see them 'in the wild'.

As if on cue, the very first time we drove along Turnagain arm, we were fortunate enough to count 26 whales in 3 groups (near the pylons a few miles before Girdwood). Their agility and grace in the water was mesmerizing. I was hooked!

Watching for belugas has now become a compelling (and perhaps even obsessive) part of my drive betwen Anchorage and Seward. I couldn't wait for the ice to melt fast enough this past winter and was rewarded with my first view of a solitary beluga just a week ago - again near Girdwood. I am looking forward to helping out again this summer with the citizen beluga watch program at Ship Creek when my schedule permits.

That background may explain why I have followed the Cook Inlet beluga endangered species listing process with such interest. As a relative newcomer to the complex and politicized process of endangered species listing and management, I am struck by the need for both (a) greater public education and more targeted research to understand not only why Cook Inlet belugas are threatened, (and (b) also what steps we might take to sustain and then ultimately help the population to recover.

The SeaLife center has an active (although not widely known) beluga research program that we are hoping to build out in the years ahead as much of what we can learn from Cook Inlet may be applicable to other declining whale populations. We are reaching out to management agencies in local and State government, industry and other non-profit and research organizations to undertake and contribute to research to answer key unresolved issues such as why are Cook Inlet belugas so slow to recover from stress and what are the key threats to them and their habitat?

Clearly a healthy beluga population in Cook Inlet is a good measure of the health of the inlet. This charismatic species may also be a measure of public support for sound ocean management generally and so we'll be undertaking some social values research over the next few months to see what role we can play in public education about Cook Inlet belugas.

Stay tuned!

Learning from a Legend: a Drive to Seward with Gov. Walter Hickel

Today (May 1st) is the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Statehood in Alaska. It is fantastic that Seward has put this event together and is a timely reminder of the historical significance of Seward to the State of Alaska.
As a small contribution to that event, we have been helping the committee with organization of VIP tours and even with the logistics of shuttling VIPs and invited guests around Seward. And so yesterday I was more than happy to change my hat and drive former two times Governor of Alaska, Walter Hickel and his lovely wife Ermalee down to Seward.
As many times as I drive the Seward Highway I will never forget the stories that the Governor told on that journey and the observations about how much has changed on that journey over the past 60 years. He told me that he arrived in Seward in October 1940 from Kansas, via California and after borrowing $10 for food and a train fare (which he gave back with a $10 tip the next year!) he made his way up to Anchorage where he began his amazing career in construction and politics. An interesting sideline was that if he could have secured a passport he would have gone to Australia instead of Alaska, but Australia's loss is surely Alaska's gain!
During his early career, he built many links with Seward - his company built many of the houses on the city fringe. That affinity strengthened when, as Governor in the mid 1960s, he established the Seward Skill Center (now AVTECH).
But perhaps his greatest contribution to Seward was his unflinching support for the Alaska Sealife Center. In his second term as Governor of Alaska in the early 1990s he fought tooth and nail against critics in the Department of Interior to ensure that the SeaLife Center funding could be secured. He believed that the Center would ultimately play a key role in recovery and enhancement of affected systems and communities after the Exxon Valdez oil spill and that marine research was a key need to enable both processes to happen. Fortunately for Alaska, his views prevailed!

It was one of my most treasured moments since becoming CEO of the Center to see his clear delight in learning just how productive our research programs have been over the past decade. Even though he is a frequent visitor to the Center, he treats every visit as a unique learning experience and continually wants to know more about how our work can contribute to management of the Arctic and the ocean commons generally; subjects that he has an unparalleled passion for and on which he continues to campaign actively.
As a small token of appreciaton for the extraordinary support for our work and in keeping with his quest for knowledge I will make sure we keep Governor Hickel informed of our work and encourage all of us to keep striving to fulfil his vision for the Center.
As he constantly reminds us - "ideas are far more powerful than money".