At your service

For as long as Reid Brewer can remember, the ocean has captivated him. The professor and program director of the University of Alaska Southeast Fisheries Technology program in Sitka who will become UAA's Kachemak Bay Campus director come June, recalls that as a small child, he spent days under the California sun exploring tide pools, overturning rocks beneath the shimmering water's surface to get a closer look at all the sea creatures that dwell below. While other children went off to summer camps or spent their days at the zoo, he was content to walk along the coast, taking in the ocean in all its splendor.

Brewer's family relocated from the Sunshine State to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he completed his schooling. When he graduated high school, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. He earned his bachelor's degree in environmental engineering before serving as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for nine years of service where he was ultimately stationed overseas in Europe. During those years, his love for the sea never waned and he knew eventually, once he'd served his country, he would find his way back to the ocean.

As luck would have it, his brother, also a West Point graduate, was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) just happened to have a marine biology program. Brewer earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. in marine biology from UAF. To Brewer, Alaska immediately felt like home, more so than any place he had lived so far, and as a self-proclaimed "jeans and sweatshirts kind of guy," he felt like he fit right in. Plus, the mild northern summers were a welcome reprieve compared to the South's heat and humidity.

"I felt like I really identified with the people that live here," said Brewer of choosing to stay almost 19 years ago. "There's an ability to connect with people here, both individually and with entire communities. I also really love that you can see indigenous cultures being practiced. It was amazing to see the subsistence lifestyle being passed on from grandparents to grandchildren."

The North had pulled Brewer in and he was ready for the adventure the vast wilderness state had to offer.

Island communities

From 2003-2013 Brewer worked as a faculty member of UAF with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program. He spent the majority of his time in the Aleutian Islands working primarily in Unalaska, but also in Adak, Akutan, King Salmon and Cold Bay. Through his work with Alaska Sea Grant, Brewer worked with the Qawalangin Tribe as part of an annual Unangan culture camp where children and the community learned about their local Alaska Native heritage.

"They would harvest a seal or sea lion every year and butcher the animal, and while the elders talked about the subsistence use of each animal part, I would talk about each part from a biological perspective," Brewer said. "They would talk about the blubber and boiling it down for oil, but I would talk about how the animal uses it for buoyancy and how it protects them from the cold water."

Brewer enjoyed lending his expertise on the marine biology side while also learning about the important cultural aspects of the animal. There are times he misses being in the remote parts of Alaska and working with those communities, but the logistical challenges of living so far off the beaten path ultimately drew him closer to the mainland.

"Living in the island communities of Unalaska and now in Sitka, showed me the importance of both fisheries and cultural dependency on the ocean," said Brewer. Having a background in marine biology allowed me to engage and connect with different stakeholders in those communities."

Getting on the road system

For the majority of Brewer's Alaska career, he's spent his time off the road system working in small island communities where he developed key skills like service and outreach through his work with Sea Grant, education and administration in his current role at UAS, and now, stepping into his new leadership position as UAA's Kachemak Bay Campus (KBC) director is a culmination of all his skills.

"Having this background, hopefully will allow me to connect with the community as I did in Unalaska and be able to work with faculty on education, technology and pedagogy, as I have through my work with UAS Sitka," Brewer said. He's impressed with the incredible community connection former KBC director Carol Swartz created.

"It is apparent the Homer community members have a love for the campus, which is a testament to all of the staff, faculty and administrators who have been working there in the past," said Brewer. "Carol's just done an amazing job."

Brewer knows he has big shoes to fill and he's interested in hearing from faculty, staff, students and the community about how they feel KBC is best serving them. He knows there are concerns with budget issues looming on the horizon and that tough decisions will have to be made, but he is focused on plotting a path forward for the campus and the college and learning how KBC can best serve Homer and the Kenai Peninsula.

"I believe the community campuses do an amazing job and provide incredible opportunities for local students while also grounding the bigger universities with those connections to communities."

Giving back

An important theme in Brewer's life is giving back. Throughout his career, from his work in the U.S. Army to education, he's found ways to give back to the communities he's living in. When he was working at UAF with Sea Grant, Brewer was always looking for ways to connect the community to the projects he was doing.  

One of those community projects included working with local divers to coordinate an underwater dock cleanup during Sea Week, a kindergarten through sixth grade educational program focused on marine science.

"For Sea Week, we would scuba dive under the docks and hand the kids creatures," he said, explaining that the children and divers would place the sea creatures in rubber totes where they could observe them safely. "They got to actually handle big stuff, like huge sea stars and sea cucumbers, urchins and sand dollars."

Diving under the local docks, Brewer said he became concerned about the amount of marine debris that had collected over years of dumping. So he started a cleanup. He organized all the local divers to clean up one dock a year. That was about 10 years ago and the program is still going strong today in Unalaska. And now, a decade later, Brewer is at it again, this time in Sitka with the help of his scientific diving students. He and his students wanted to make Sitka a safer and cleaner place, so in April this year, he and his student divers slipped below the surface of the small town's docks, pulling up everything from dishes and bottles to a bike and even a 20-foot masthead from a fishing vessel. In all, their efforts netted 3,960 pounds of garbage from beneath Sitka Harbor.  

"We lifted up tires and crab pots, eight marine batteries, a ladder, a toilet and I think we had just under two tons of garbage that we brought up," Brewer said. "This is the idea of service and education coexisting together that has become really important to me. How can we teach students about the importance of the marine environment by having them do a service and community project."

Brewer said the first Sitka Clean Up Day was a huge success and he hopes that even though he is continuing on, that it will become an annual event. Perhaps he'll even bring it to Homer.

No place like Homer

Brewer is spending his last few days in Sitka getting last-minute items packed up before he and his family board the ferry and are Homer bound. He officially steps into his new role in June and is looking forward to getting to know his new home on the Kenai Peninsula and completing the "triple crown," having worked at UAF, UAS and now UAA. He's excited to join the UAA community and continue serving as an educator and looking for ways to teach students in a meaningful way.

For now, until he officially starts his new role at KBC, he plans to hit the rocky coastline of Homer's beaches with his wife Sarah and his two young sons, exploring the cool tidepools and all the creatures that live below their shallow surface. "My hope is to find a way to inspire the next generation of students, the way I was inspired by the oceans so many years ago."