Whether running or recruiting, Walker finds her strengths

November 28, 2018

Photo courtesy of Kelly Walker. Kelly Walker sets up a bottom trawl net on the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy during the Chukchi Borderlands Ocean Exploration Cruise in 2016.

Recruiting seems to come naturally to Kelly Walker. When she’s not trying to persuade students to come to the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, she’s enlisting women hockey players and triathlon participants.

Walker is the facilities coordinator and student recruiter for CFOS. She took the position in January 2018 after receiving both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in fisheries from the college. Now, some 10 years after she first came to UAF, she encourages other students to follow in her footsteps.

During a fourth-grade field trip from her home in Valdez to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Walker became fascinated by sea creatures. Working in the Valdez hatchery in high school shifted her focus to fisheries. She applied to UAF but was planning to go to Humboldt State University and enroll in its fisheries program.

Then Walker was contacted by Katie Straub, the student recruiter at the then-UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. UAF was in-state and closer to Walker’s family, on the road system and less expensive than schools in the Lower 48, and the conversation with Straub was persuasive. All were factors in her decision to attend UAF.

After receiving her undergraduate degree, working as a CFOS lab technician, and graduating in 2017 with her master’s degree, Walker began looking for a job in Fairbanks. The joint facilities and recruiting position was open at CFOS and sounded perfect — Walker figured she knew a lot about both.

When it came to facilities, she discovered, there was a steep learning curve.

“I didn’t realize how much actually goes on behind the scenes to make things work,” she said. “One day I’ll be moving boxes of old cruise data sheets and the next I’m watering the plants in one of our lobbies, moving a large minus-80-degree freezer with a couple of grad students, or having to clean out a freezer that failed with all sorts of yummy biological samples in it.”

Walker’s graduate project at UAF helped her appreciate the value of logistics, and she’s glad to be in a position now to make sure things go smoothly for CFOS researchers.

Recruiting came a bit easier. Walker keeps her own experience in mind. As a lifelong Alaskan, she reminds potential students that the university is close to home but removed from home.

“If Katie hadn’t reached out to me, I would have gone to Humboldt because I was like any other Alaska kid who wants to get out of Alaska as soon as they graduate high school,” she said. “I think about that when I’m talking to students.”

Photo courtesy of Kelly Walker. Kelly Walker finishes her seventh Gold Nugget Triathlon in Anchorage in May 2018.

One of Walker’s strengths is her openness to change. “She likes high adventure, and she’s OK with getting out of her comfort zone,” said CFOS academic manager Christina Sutton. “It’s a good trait to have for a recruiter. I think she can convince people to try something new, try something different.”

For Walker, attending UAF included adapting to a much different climate. Her first couple of winters were difficult because she hadn’t found activities to keep her busy. About five years ago, Walker became interested in women’s league hockey — or to be more accurate, she got enlisted by her “hockey godmother,” Héloïse Chenelot.

Walker didn’t know how to skate, and her first hockey game was only her second time on skates. “I spent most of that first game floundering around on the ice, trying to stand back up,” Walker said. “And it was so much fun.”

Hockey got her more involved in the Fairbanks community. She learned that she enjoyed the sport and found herself recruiting others to join the fun. “When people tell me, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to skate,’ I can honestly say, ‘Not necessary.’”

Walker has also talked a lot of women into competing in the Gold Nugget Triathlon in Anchorage, the biggest women-only triathlon in North America. She has competed in that event seven times so far. And the recruitment process still works both ways. Walker’s best friend talked her into competing in the 2018 Lavaman Triathlon in Hawaii, held at the end of March.

What scared her most was swimming in the ocean. But once she was in the water, her training took over and she had no problem.

“I even saw sea turtles and a small ray," she said. "And the feeling of accomplishment when I ran across the finish line at the end of that race was so much bigger than anything I had done before.”