Federal workers across Alaska have been fired as part of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting efforts, leaving many in a state of uncertainty, frustration and limbo.
Three of those former employees spoke with the Alaska Beacon about the work they did, the experience of losing their positions and their insights into how the job losses will affect Alaska.
Kitty Sopow was fired from her job with the National Weather Service, based in Nome.
She was given warning of her impending termination — a complete surprise after more than four years with the agency. The next day, a Bering Air plane carrying 10 people went missing.
“So they needed me,” she said. “They didn’t fire me.”
“Everybody was able to be in the incident command center and ask questions to the meteorologist,” she said, recalling that day. “Because there was a storm coming, and there was literally only a handful of hours in which the helicopters could be utilized safely before there was like a four-day weather storm.”
There were no survivors.
For the past four years, Sopow has worked in offices across the state including Metlakatla, Anchorage and Nome, coordinating between meteorologists with the forecast offices, and community groups, research scientists and other public offices to best communicate weather information.
She said in the days after the crash, her supervisor said they could correct her status as a probationary employee, which put her at risk for termination. She was mistakenly identified as still being an intern with the Pathways Program, an initiative to incentivize college graduates to pursue careers in federal service. But it was unclear if correcting that status would keep her from being fired.
By mid-February, Sopow had had enough. “I’m living in the Arctic by myself. All I know is my work is telling me I’m fired, not fired, fired, not fired. Meanwhile, the price of eggs is like 30 bucks, and there’s airplanes falling down around me,” she said. “I’m feeling like I just need to run. And so I did. I literally did.”
Within days she packed all her belongings and moved to Montana with her boyfriend and his family. She is planning to apply to a doctoral program at the University of Montana to continue her education in applied anthropology and climate risk communications.
While there are still employees within rural stations of the National Weather Service, Sopow said the mass firings are a major loss in local knowledge.
“What we’re now losing is the ability for a person who’s familiar with the region, who has been to Nome, has been to Kotzebue, and recognizes, ‘This is a drift,’ ‘This is what that piece of coast looks like,’ and ‘This is what infrastructure is missing there.’” she said.
The number of employees cut in Alaska’s National Weather Service offices is unknown, but dozens were terminated in mass cuts across the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency on Feb. 27.
Across all agencies, an estimated 1,378 federal employees with probationary status were expected to be fired in Alaska, among up to 200,000 nationwide.
Kayleigh McCarthy is a former federal employee and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, who worked summer seasons at the Anan Wildlife Observatory near Wrangell.
She had a degree and a passion for biology and conservation, and worked her way up starting in 2021 from a Student Conservation Association internship to a temporary job and then permanent seasonal employee, developing her knowledge around the Anan site.
Every summer season, she worked with a staff of three, for up to 10 hours per day, with eight days on and six days off, staffing the observation deck, answering questions, and preventing direct run-ins with bears.
“We would watch out for any bears that the guests couldn’t see, letting them know whether they had to wait, and wait for a bear to cross, or whether it was all clear for them to come on up to the deck,” she said.
The viewing deck could sometimes pack up to 60 visitors on busy days. “Occasionally, the job did include pulling people away from the railing when they were getting too close to bears, reminding them to not lean over,” she said. “Or try and pet the bears or anything like that.”
Beyond crowd control, McCarthy’s role included monitoring the bears and wildlife area, administrative tasks, and maintaining the facility, everything from trail maintenance to packing out the viewing deck’s toilet tank.
The experience inspired her to pursue a master’s degree in wildlife biology and conservation from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2024, with a particular focus on the Anan Observatory.
“My bosses at the site were, like, ‘Well, we really haven’t had a research project done since the 1990s,’” she said. “Especially because the site got quite a makeover within the last few years. They got a brand new deck. They got a brand new photo blind and staircase to go down to it. … And so they knew that there was going to be pressure to probably increase the visitor capacity at the site,” she said. “Because of all that money that was put into the site.”
McCarthy was in classes in Fairbanks when the firing news came down on Feb. 16. Like many other workers, the letter from the Office of Personnel Management cited performance issues, which she said was untrue.
“Heartbroken, angry, upset,” she said of processing the news. “It really hit pretty hard to actually receive that termination letter and to know that it was official.”
She said her master’s thesis research will continue, and she hopes to contribute that work to the future management of the site. On a personal level, she had also hoped to eventually put down roots in Wrangell, where she met her boyfriend, who was born and raised there, and continue her career there. But all that is uncertain now.
“It’s a job at a place that I really love, with people who I really care about, doing work that I think is important,” she said. “I can’t even count how many times I’ve had guests at the site say, ‘Thank you so much for what you’re doing. Your work is so important. We really appreciate you being here.’”
Aaron Lambert is a former federal employee with NOAA Fisheries, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, based in Juneau.
He has a master’s degree and specialized training for his role as a fisheries management specialist, with a focus on salmon forecasting and in-season management. He analyzed the salmon runs in the federal waters of Cook Inlet, a new federally managed fishery after more than a decade of litigation.
In that role, he looked at all five species of salmon running through the inlet, their abundance and their numbers returning to reproduce, to ensure future stocks.
And while Kenai River sockeye are bountiful, the chinook runs are declining as well as coho, and so there’s a careful balance for both state and federal fisheries managers in deciding catch limits for fishers. “And these are all things that are taken into consideration when you’re doing a stock assessment,” he said.
He was midway through the winter process of presenting models and recommendations to the federal regulatory agency, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, gathering public comment and feedback, when the news of the firings came down.
He received a termination email on Feb. 27, citing guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and his probationary status, which read in part, “the agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs.”
“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I was hired specifically because I have a unique skill set, in salmon forecasting and in-season management, and everybody through the top of my chain of command at the regional office recognized that my skills were very needed there, that my knowledge was very specialized and needed, and that my performance has been exceptional.”
Lambert said in the meantime, he found temporary work in a state fisheries management position in Juneau.
But without his role, he said it’ll leave more work for other staff in the federal agency. “So me not being there, essentially, next year, the stock assessment will be conducted by, well, if they do it, it’ll be conducted by someone else who will be pulled off a different project, essentially,” he said. “I was also about to start working on fisheries disaster declarations and other policy work.”
Lambert said that despite the stated goal of “efficiency” by the Trump administration, it’s making peoples’ lives harder.
“It feels like there is an active dismantling of federal processes. And instead of creating efficiencies and making things work better, this is adding a lot of work and stress to people there, and these are all people who work insanely hard, have very little downtime, and really love their jobs and really believe in the NOAA mission,” he said.
“You hear the administration talk about how people never check their emails and aren’t really working,” he said. “These are the hardest-working people I’ve ever met.”
The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com.
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