New manager named for Trident plant

Trident Seafoods will be welcoming a new manager for its Wrangell plant during the summer's production run.

Nick Ohmer was named as the company's selection in a media brief last week. A lifelong resident of Southeast Alaska, in an interview Ohmer said he would be bringing to the job his local knowledge and personal connections with Wrangell's fishermen.

Ohmer grew up in Petersburg, and even before fishing alongside those from the neighboring community he grew up with many of them through basketball and school activities. His family has an even longer history in the area, which now extends to 103 years.

"It's in his blood," said John Webby, Trident's Southeast Alaska manager.

"We've been doing it for generations," Ohmer explained.

Arriving from Dayton, Ohio, his great-grandfather, Earl Nicholas Ohmer, started up Petersburg's first shrimp processor in 1916. His descendants have been in the industry since, with the latest generation working first for NorQuest and then Trident after their merger in 2004.

For the past decade Ohmer has been a manager at the Petersburg plant, tasked with fleet management, quality assurance and regulatory compliance. Starting his latest duties before the Christmas break, he complimented the Wrangell team and expressed excitement at working with them.

The larger of the town's two processors, the Trident plant itself has adopted some efficiencies since Wrangell's water shortage last July and August. A problem with the city water filtration system coupled with peak demand triggered a state of crisis. Salmon production was interrupted at points during emergency cutbacks, but the processor did what it could to work around the freshwater shortage.

"We worked with the city, and got ourselves through that," said Webby.

The pink salmon season was ultimately lower than expected and the season wrapped up early, but this year's forecasts by state and federal agencies puts harvest estimates at between 43 million and 46 million. That should be good news for area fishermen, which have ridden out two years of disappointing seasons.

"There's reason to believe those can be even higher," Webby said of the estimates, citing positive outmigration figures and a diminishing warm mass in the Gulf of Alaska thought to have contributed to the poorer returns. The regional manager was hopeful the coming season will be a good one.

"For us it's full speed ahead," Webby said.