Dartmouth Workshops Help With Remote Alaska Workforce Training

ACEP’s Gwen Holdmann and Baxter Bond participated in an event last week held by the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society. The goal of the event was to learn about energy systems in remote, rural and cold environments to explore whether the institute can help create sustainable energy systems.

Holdmann and Bond participated in workshops aimed at tackling problems in the Arctic from a high-level perspective. Holdmann presentation on several special challenges specific to Alaska, and both led a case clinic where they provided the other participants an Alaska-specific problem statement and received coaching and feedback on how to approach it.

The problem shared was that individuals who could most benefit the community through training or knowledge-sharing opportunities that require travel often are not able to leave, for even short periods of time, because the community depends on them to keep systems functional.

The event drew participants from Alaska, Greenland, the University of Saskatchewan, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, and Dartmouth College.