Taking advantage of the state’s education tax credit, the trade group Pollock Conservation Cooperative has made a $100,000 donation to vocational training in Western Alaska.

PCC is an arm of the At-sea Processors Association, which represents 16 vessels that fish for Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands pollock out of Unalaska.

Its donation went to the Northwestern Career and Technical Center in Nome.  The Center offers vocational training for high school students in the Bering Strait and Nome public school districts as well as more limited training opportunities for community members.  

Director Doug Walrath says the donation amounts to a little less than 10 percent of the organization’s operating budget for the year.  He plans to direct the funding towards the Center’s fisheries program. 

“In our metal fabrication and aluminum welding course we had started a 16-foot aluminum boat that we were manufacturing this past year.  So the funding will support not only completing the construction of this boat, but then we’re looking at moving on to make a trailer that will be custom made for this boat.  In the process students will gain some important design, fabrication and engineering skills.”

Walrath says the funds will also support a program to train students as boating safety instructors.  He says he’d like to see students take the experience they gain in that course back to their 18 respective communities. 

The Pollock Conservation Cooperatives’ executive director Stephanie Madsen says her organization has been donating to the marine science programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alaska Pacific University through the tax program for years.

“We’re excited to be able to now work with high school and junior high kids and expose them to the careers – the vast careers – that are in the seafood industry.”

The Center has also received funding through the tax program from the Siu Alaska Corporation and the Bering Straits Native Corporation.