Published Apr 30, 2024

Kaman Corporation proudly announces the significant achievement of the first flight of the full-scale KARGO UAV, a purpose-built, autonomous, expeditionary resupply vehicle. This milestone, which took place in December of 2023, signifies a major accomplishment in the ongoing flight test progression. The development of this medium-lift UAS, initiated in 2021 to address logistics needs for U. S. Marine Corps operations, is now well underway.

“It is difficult to describe the sense of satisfaction one feels when watching an aircraft take flight for the first time, and very few people get the opportunity to participate in something like this,” said Romin Dasmalchi, General Manager of KARGO UAV. “This team worked hard to get here, and the intensity continues as we look to move from prototyping to production,” he added. KARGO UAV is intended to support the U. S. Military, partners, allies, and commercial customers by providing affordable, reliable, and maintainable logistics support in austere and maritime environments. The design leverages existing high-TRL components so that a suitable system could be deployed as soon as 2026.

Contributions from partners significantly aided the success of the KARGO UAV flight test. Near Earth Autonomy, Kaman’s partner for the autonomy system based in Pittsburgh, PA, provided autonomy features on the KARGO UAV. The two companies had previously collaborated on the K-MAX unmanned system and had showcased an earlier version of the autonomy technology to the Marines in April 2021. The Alaska Center for UAS Integration, part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, was key in facilitating KARGO UAV flight test operations.

Published Apr 30, 2024 by Carter Dejong

More than 100 graduate student workers marched across the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus Monday to advocate for the passage of a labor contract before the legislative session ends next month.

The Alaskan Graduate Workers Association (AGWA) — a newly formed union made up of master’s and Ph.D. students from across the UA system — announced last week that it planned on striking starting Monday if a satisfactory contract was not reached.

But on April 25, a superior court judge issued a preliminary injunction which barred AGWA from striking. According to Alaska law, a labor union can only strike once both bargaining units — UA and AGWA — have reached an impasse in negotiations and third-party mediation has failed.

Contract negotiations are ongoing, UA Spokesperson Jonathon Taylor said. Multiple meetings were held last week and over the weekend and are expected to continue later this week.

During Monday’s demonstration, a handful of graduate workers delivered a letter to UAF Chancellor Dan White’s office. The letter, which was addressed to White, UA President Pat Pitney and the UA Board of Regents, outlined four items the students say are essential to a contract.

• A $25 minimum wage for graduate workers in master’s programs;

• Yearly minimum wage increases;

• Changing graduate worker employment status from “at will” to “just cause”;

• And an agreement to bargain over health care.

“As current graduate students, we are frequently asked by prospective students what life is like as a graduate student at UA,” the graduate workers wrote. “Without a fair CBA [collective bargaining agreement], we will tell prospective students not to come here.”

Published Apr 30, 2024 by Josh Reed

On the college scene, UAA track and field freshman phenom Joshua Caleb continued the historic start to his collegiate career by taking down another program and Great Northwest Athletic Conference record this past week at the Ralph Vernacchia Invite on Saturday. The native Nigerian won the 400-meter race in a time of 46.73, which surpassed the previous record holder and former Seawolf Ethan Hewitt’s mark of 47.51 set in 2011. Caleb also came in first in the 200 with a time of 21.60. His record-breaking time is the seventh-fastest mark in Division II this spring and his overall performance combined netted him his third career GNAC Player of the Week honors on Monday.

Other Seawolves who had notable performances include another freshman, Liv Heite, who finished first in the women’s 100 hurdles with a mark of 14.65 and placed second in the 400 hurdles with a time of 1:04.17. Senior distance runner Michael Zapherson had the best time of the Seawolves who finished in the top 10 of the 5,000 with a second-place time of 14:27.70.

On the recruiting trail, the UAA women’s volleyball team announced one of the two final additions to its 2024-25 roster will be Kenai Central’s Emma Beck. After leading the Kardinals to back-to-back 3A state championships and being named the 2023-24 Alaska Gatorade Player of the Year for volleyball, Beck will be one of five Alaskans on next year’s squad, joining Reilly McCue of Ketchikan and Anchorage’s Avery Northcutt, Larssen Anderson and Kadyn Osborne.

Published Apr 30, 2024 by Claire Stremple

Hundreds of University of Alaska graduate students protested in marches on Monday at the Fairbanks and Anchorage campuses to increase pressure on the university system as it negotiates a contract with their union.

The marches are a step down from a strike the Alaska Graduate Workers Association planned, after a Fairbanks Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on Friday at the request of the University system.

Student employees say the marches come as their window to negotiate closes. The state’s Legislature must approve any agreement made between the students and the state-run university and only two weeks remain until the session adjourns, union member Isabel Olazar said.

“The deadline is rapidly approaching, which is why the union feels the need to ramp up action,” she said.

University of Alaska Public Affairs Director Jonathon Taylor said the university system also wants to reach an agreement soon. “It certainly would be the university’s preference that we’re able to reach an agreement in time for the monetary terms to be included for this budget cycle for this fiscal year,” he said.

But Taylor disagreed with the union that this week is a deadline for negotiations. “There are still other ways for funding and monetary terms to be considered,” he said.

“A couple of years ago, we were unfortunately not able to reach a contract with one of our bargaining units in time for inclusion in the legislative session and there was retroactivity language included in that contract so that that could be funded.”

Published Apr 29, 2024 by Mark Lindberg

“They’re settling right in. It’s really great to see how quickly the older bison accepted the new arrivals,” exclaimed Tom Seaton, the lead biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s bison restoration program.



Tom was describing the long-anticipated arrival of 40 short-yearlings (11-month-old) wood bison, who completed their roughly 1,850-mile journey from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada, to the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Large Animal Research Station (LARS) on April 19, where they joined ten, 3-year-old bison who lived there since 2022. They completed the journey safely and relatively quickly (34½ hours) thanks to trucking contractors (Kuester Trucking of Alberta) who stopped only to switch drivers and many committed biologists, veterinarians and technicians at both ends of the journey.

Wood bison restoration in Alaska has been a 30-plus year effort by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game with a long list of individuals and groups providing grass roots support. Tom has spent the last 13 years dedicated to the success of the program. As someone who spent nearly 40 years in the wildlife profession, I recognize and respect that you need champions like Tom and his team to execute this type of conservation project.

On April 21, I joined Tom and his assistant, Luke Rogers, at LARS to discuss the bison project. Tom explained that there are currently “about 3,000 bison in Alaska and the Yukon, including both wood and plains bison.” These subspecies are similar in appearance with the slightly larger wood bison weighing in at just over 2,000 pounds for large males. The conservation strategy for re-establishing bison, which fossil records and oral history indicate previously occurred here, follows the Single Large or Several Small, or SLOSS, principle. Following SLOSS, you at least initially try to spread risk over several small populations when re-introducing a species. With that in mind, these 50 bison at LARS along with some other bison currently housed at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage will be introduced to a new area in the state, the Minto Flats State Refuge along the Tanana River near the confluence with the Kantishna. Here they will complement other notable populations near Delta Junction, the Farewell burn region and the Innoko region.