Outlook; 203; Moose Future Jobs

Surreal. Roll up and stand right here. Hello everyone and welcome to Outlook. I'm Beverly Michaels. Tonight on our show you know those cute furry and feathery critters Well they're kind of getting out of hand. Urban wildlife are we going to do with them kill them or keep them and wake up Anchorage. There are good paying jobs to be had in the next century. But we need to act now to make them happen.

A look at the economic engines of Anchorage. It's a Lascaux ride. Wild animals belong here but in cities like Anchorage and at what cost. Well we moved into the animal's territory. Now what do we do with our wild neighbors. That's first on Outlook. Let us push back with. These moves we're caught roaming around Lake hood by the airport cops. The

seven day a week 24 hour a day Animal Control team from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their job is to chase wild animals and birds away from airports to keep airplanes and passengers safe. It's a lot of what's taking this all that just a look people get stalled. A steady increase of waterfall and animals in the average area has kept them busier than ever. We don't think that there were very few or no Canada geese nesting in it in the Anchorage area until in the late 60s. And since then because we've had the increasing number of lawns and human made ponds and lakes and stop numbers have been increasing and increasing year by year at about a 14 or 15 percent rate. Until now we have between four and 5000 Kennedys in Anchorage.

And if we just let the population continue to grow which it will in the near term at least in 10 years we'll have 15 to 20000 Anchorage at about two pounds of droppings birthday per bird or 8000 pounds per day for the 4000 and that's a lot of stuff to step in and mix with our water. He's live about 20 years and always return to the same nesting side. So natural reduction isn't in the cards and unsafe situation for a state so dependent on air travel. All were awakened several years ago by the. Crash of the AWACS plane and 24 people deaths it was primarily caused by running into a flock of geese at Elmendorf. That's of course happened in many other states and it was just the biggest thing that ever happened in Alaska as far as a crash. And there have killed people. Moose regularly charge skiers and they are pretty bushes and trees. They cause substantial damage to

cars and people when both collide. You know as a biologist I mean I love animals and just because these cause problems doesn't mean that they're bad and because most cause problems and bad I like them here I appreciate here but they can get into trouble especially at airports like Anchorage International with wide open spaces. Short grass water no predators. Why it's paradise for birds. But wait wasn't that a coyote. Yes and No. We use coyote effigies just to mimic natural predators out in open areas to discourage the geese especially from landing in those areas. They use of our methods pyrotechnic devices. There are. Just tools. True to. The launch of pyrotechnics projectile we use propane cannons that are set up on automatic timers to boom every so often.

And those passive methods work for a while. We'll have airports that will call and ask what to do we recommend a propane cannon. And over time at a few months later they'll call and say the thing worked great to begin with but now the gulls are sitting out on the can and using it for a purge and that they'll actually as they hear a click they'll jump up and hover and wait for the thing to bang and then set back down and continue to use it for Jeanette is just a result of the fact that they learn over time it's not going to hurt them. And that's the problem. You scare them from one place and they fly to another. So the multiplying population and the increasing safety hazards have caused the community to come to grips with the growing problem. Interestingly enough. About two thirds of the respondents felt that there were too many decent Anchorage and it was compared to probably two thirds of people saying that they were about the right number of moves and bears for their tastes and even with the problems of the new cars. About half the number of today is about right. According to a survey and a

report from the Anchorage water working group formed after the tragedy and charged with recommending ways to control the waterfowl population. One way is to stop people from feeding them. Jerry is being drafted assembly approval. People have more and more laws. Not a lot of people but we've tried to convince people to stop eating and some people have a lot of people up and down the road. So while we like seeing that gaggle of

responsibly with the population. And our neighbors lives together. The average waterfall Working Group is an example of smart concerned people working on a very sensible plan for all of us. Thanks coming up. Time to think ahead and these smart Anchorage What do we need to know and do to create a thriving economically stable city in the next century. That's next outlook. Everything important. Ten seconds. Simple but it. And that's why

you make sense of it all. The challenge is determining. Who. Dr. Patricia DeMarco is president of the anchorage Economic Development Corporation. Now that corporation ADC as it's called works with private industry with the state and with the city to encourage growth and diversity in the anchorage economy that's your mission. That's right. And more important you kind of keep us all pointed in the right in the same direction to see all the possibilities and all the probabilities really for growth in Anchorage. Pretty good job. It's a fun job. It's a good one. You have your handle or you've got your finger on really what Anchorage has to offer the global community. Tell us how are we going to get good paying jobs in anchorage in the future where the

the real possibilities for that is really the center of opportunity for the global marketplace in terms of tourism and development of trade and also in terms of the marketplace in Alaska. We are the business center of the state and we have a lot of opportunities for development in serving the rest of the state from Anchorage. And in terms of our global potential we really focus on the airport and air cargo activity as a principal economic engine in the city. Also the waterfront is a principal economic engine in the city for bringing cargo into the state for transmission to the rest of the Rena and potentially for taking things back out into the surface route. Now we're going to hear a little bit more in the program about that piece of it. And that's the global distribution on the low just sticks and we've read about it in the newspaper but let's talk a little bit about some of these other I don't know what you call them engines. Yeah that's what they are. Yes we have four economic engines in the city the airport being one the waterfront.

Being another where you have the multimodal transportation intersection of rail and roads and ships bringing goods into the state 80 percent of the material that is sold in the rest of Alaska come across a point of the port and bridge. And this is a tremendous distribution center and we have a foreign trade zone there which is marginally used only for fuel. It has a tremendous amount of potential for development and growth in the area of an expanded trade. We also have as an engine the provision of professional services to the rest of the state of Alaska health service education engineering insurance banking. We have a tremendous wealth of professional capability concentrating in our city and we have the potential to expand that program using the buy Alaska program is one way that we do reach out to the rest of the state. How do you think that we're really exploiting all of that potential. I think we have a long way to

go. The ADC has a goal of expanding professional services from Anchorage to the rest of Alaska by 5 percent in the next five years. What is it going to do for us as citizens. Lay people were not economists we don't really understand all those words that you're using. What do you need from us in order to support the kinds of of real possibilities for good paying jobs in the future. One of the things that we would like to do would be to make sure there are jobs for our kids to come home to. We've had the joyful experience this summer of having two internes who live in Alaska who are going to school out of state and they interned in our office over the summer. Both of them are now interested in looking for jobs in Alaska when they graduate. This is what we hope to be able to do is to have the kind of jobs our kids want to come home to. How important is a good university in that kind of scheme of things another word will visit. Do businesses need certain kinds of elements here in the city in order to relocate or to conduct business. Well it is true that a

large active University Center attracts business and supports business but it goes the other way as well. We have the potential to educate people here in areas that we excel in. And I think we we need to sell that more in terms of coming to Alaska to go to school and stay here to work. We have a lot of potential for aviation training for example. We have a world class training center out at the Merrill field operation of the UAE for training control room operators and aviation opportunities. There are very few places with that degree of excellence in it and even in the private sector the FedEx facility for training pilots and 11 use. It is a capability that we have in this city for training it at very high level of expertise in a field where we excel which is air cargo. If you had a magic wand and said Do this do this do this in order to move toward that potential language to really develop these jobs. Where would it be

where what would you want to see us do. Just education or in any area in any area I think we need to look at our infrastructure to allow places to be pre-prepared for industries to move in and operate. We already have an excellent business climate. But I think we need to improve the site preparation and the site availability tell me what you mean by that. For example if you are going to put in a new warehouse distribution center in Alaska and you're going to put it in Anchorage and you need a space of 80 to 100000 square feet. You might have to start by preparing a place that has Alder swamp on it and scrape away the peat and put in a gravel pad put in a road put in utilities put in a water and sewer system and a communications system before you're ready to operate. In some places that we compete with you could walk in and have all of that already there and just tilt up your

warehouse and be ready to go in 90 days. So you're saying the city should prepare some of those sites. It's something we have been discussing with the mayor's office in a very active way to look at areas that are appropriately zoned to look at the permit process so that they can be expedited and we have a piece of legislation pending to help with the infrastructure support costs. On a reimbursable basis with a person who would be interested in locating here for manufacturing and value added activity so economic stability doesn't happen you have to really plan for it you have to prepare for it long term and economic stability stability has been a part of our economy for a number of years. It's not the booming type of growth that we experienced after some of the large oil events but you know approaching 1 percent on a on a stable basis it's been not gone down drastically over the last seven years. We've had a very stable picture of the economy here almost to the point of being boring if you're forecasting. But I think having a sense of

stability in the economy gives people confidence in making investments here and in looking at development opportunities here. Certainly the opportunities that grow up around our air cargo capability are some of the most optimistic areas that we are pursuing right now. If you want to leave one thought with our viewers something we need to remember to help this process what would that be. Well I would just say that it takes a long time to add an industry and we are looking at adding global logistics opportunities in Anchorage and it takes persistence moving with companies over a long period of time to get them to consider an option they may not have considered before. We may be aware that you have 21 cargo carriers operating out of Anchorage they have over 500 flights domestically over 300 internationally but the rest of the world often hasn't even heard of Anchorage. And I think having good marketing and promotion capability so that our target customers are aware of the opportunities here it is a very important part

of what we do and the community supports that by a shared collaboration. We work well with the mayor's office would work well with the airport and with the Alaskan Ada industrial development it's worth already for financing projects that may come here. I think it takes a whole team to get development to happen. And we feel very pleased to be part of a team that really works well in a great age. Thank you for being the stock of your market. Next we talked about distribution at the Anchorage International Airport. But there's still a lot to do. I like the program that uses to persuade businesses to do business in Anchorage and we'll look at some of the new developments on the horizon. Alaska Air in.

Eight and a half hours to Frankfurt Germany. Seven and a half hours to New York City. For the half hours to San Francisco. That cuts both time and distance. That is why some of the world's most forward looking air cargo carriers have chosen acreage as a strategic location in the northern hemisphere. And now based on time and distance advantages is an ideal location for international warehousing distribution and other logistics related operations. In recent years the leading U.S. curators FedEx and U.P.S. have been operating international translating hopes and customs clearance operations. But actually managing director in Anchorage Dennis. Riches your graphic location was extremely important to Federal Express its decision to

locate a major international hub here want to pass that we had to also consider some other major factors such as airport capability. The fact that international is a modern full service airport with very few restrictions good traffic weather patterns or hours of operation. What's also weighed in the decision. Port scores very high in all of these areas and in our experience has been an excellent choice. You combine all of these advantages and you have a winning combination. We're providing complete and reliable logistics and express services while Anchorage has good ocean cure service to North America and Asia. It's true strength is in its air cargo connections. Offers hundreds and hundreds of flights per week to and from cities throughout Asia Europe and North America. This enormous uplift capacity makes it a good ideal

for air cargo based global distribution. An excellent example of the role language can play in this regard is how FedEx currently uses Anchorage as a warehousing and distribution center for its aircraft parts warehousing the parts in Anchorage and shipping them on demand globally. FedEx is Dennis bird. That X can respond to its internal aircraft parts within 24 hours and usually faster. By placing in the Tory's and repeatedly located areas such as inventory or global distribution can be made. This pattern part placement offers the ability to have stock at a location that meet the requirements for the quickest possible response to the need. It also allows for small inventories to be maintained. It is much more efficient and totally centralized or dispersed systems. Aircraft parts are just one example of the high value to weight ratio products that can benefit from an anchorage based global distribution operation. Other examples

include. High tech medical equipment pharmaceuticals precision industrial equipment semiconductors critical spare parts. Other high value products. And the same strength that applied to international distribution also makes Anchorage ideal for value added logistics operations such as a central customer service repair operation final product assembly and order preparation hitting subassembly and in transit configuration of high value components and product sample management systems. Whatever your operations or product if they're mobile into open air freighted will in nature and which can offer several distinct advantages. First average order response time or order cycle time can be cut significantly because of anchored to strategic global location and existing air cargo infrastructure. Average flight time to major northern hemisphere economies is less from acreage than from any other single location in the world. And in addition to air time savings

ground time is also less an acreage warehouse space is available at the airport and because there is no local traffic congestion transportation from warehouse to plane is almost instantaneous. A second language advantage is that inventory current costs can be significantly reduced rather than numerous locations with duplicate inventories and which can offer a single location thereby reducing worldwide inventories anywhere from 20 to 60 percent. In other words you can achieve better service levels with less inventory. Third and perhaps most importantly Anchorage provides global flexibility corporate logistics professionals in this day and age are challenged by rapidly changing markets. If markets in one region are hot today they may be cool tomorrow and vice versa. The challenge is to design a distribution system that is as flexible and responsive to market changes as it can possibly be. No place in the world offers greater global flexibility than think Ridge.

Finally there is an advantage in acreage that may surprise you. The business climate. Utility rates in Anchorage are some of the lowest in the nation due to Alaska's abundant supply of natural resources. Local availability of natural gas helps keep gas costs the lowest possible anywhere in the U.S. electric rates are also comparatively low. Another surprise is Anchorage is labor force. It is very highly educated yet wage rates are competitive with national standards. Since U.P.S. and FedEx came to anchorage in the late 80s they've hired hundreds of employees from the. Local labor pool. U.P.S. Alaska manager Stan Colton. I was transferred here two years ago and to my surprise labor force of your very educated they kept up with our technical needs within our company because we have a changing world or that's a very diverse labor climate here and they have met our needs extremely well. We're very pleased

and hope the Archimedean continue to grow because around the country we have found that our labor workforce is diminishing and it's not so in Alaska and it is logistically one of the better spots in it. During the last few minutes you've learned about opportunities and for global logistics operations. If you're intrigued. You're not alone. Many of the world's most prestigious manufacturers of high value airfreight of all products are actively evaluating anchorages and laying plans to take advantage of this newly emerging strategic opportunity. Evaluating which is potential benefit to your company is simple. The University of Alaska in collaboration with The Anchorage Economic Development Corporation has developed a computer logistics model that will analyze your worldwide stocking levels warehousing costs and other factors and will show you the potential annual cost savings of consolidating in Anchorage. The model takes simple inputs runs random demand simulations and calculate stocking levels required to meet a company's service

goals. It then compares the cost of the company's existing system to the cost of a streamlined consolidated global warehouse in Anchorage. Companies can then evaluate quickly and clearly whether the Anchorage solution is the right solution for them. In some cases the model has shown potential cost savings of more than 50 percent. And reduce strategic geographic location and established air cargo infrastructure make it an excellent choice for global air logistics. The emergence of a global economy will increasingly demand reduced order cycle times more efficient use of inventories and global flexibility. As the competitive climate intensifies. The problem for international companies is to identify and implement modern efficient logistic systems that offer Lastings pretty good value. The solution. Is Anchorage Alaska.

The. Next week on Outlook the kids have told us for years they need a place to legally skate board the assembly says it's finally going to happen. But why did it take so long and can we take that promise to the bank and child psychologist Dr. Sylvia RIM has been advising families in the newspaper and on KSK aid for years. Now you can meet her on television. We're interested in your comments and your story ideas so please contact us. Send us an e-mail or give us a call and we look forward to sharing that feedback on our next program. Well that's our show tonight. Thanks so much for joining us Hope you liked it and hope you're with us next week for Outlook. I'm Beverly Michaels. Good night.