New Borough Employee Looks at Setting Plan for Kodiak Resources

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

Last month a newcomer to Kodiak’s government, but not to Kodiak, filled the position of borough resource management officer

20-something Maggie Slife is Kodiak-raised and just took over from long-time borough employee Duane Dvorak.

Slife’s background is in geological engineering, which she explains is the step right before civil engineering. She says it’s all about looking at the land itself.

“We get into formation processes and where things go after they formed so we get into geomorphology and sediment transport and the idea that the world is a dynamic system, and so your sand is always gonna become finer sand and then it’s going to become rock again and it’s a turning over process.”

Slife says she went to school for geological engineering because she didn’t want to be a civil engineer.

“I was more into learning to build for your surroundings more than manipulating your surroundings to get this picture of what you want. I think that there’s way too much going on in the world for people to discount the gifts that their environment gives them.”

For her future in the borough, Slife talks about designing a comprehensive plan to plot out how to use Kodiak’s resources.

“Kodiak has such a lot going on in terms of the fishing industry, and people are hugely into recreation, and trail development has gotten huge here in the last 10 or 15 years. So, Kodiak has a lot of different interests that all need to be addressed.”

She’s working towards the “ideal Kodiak for the future,” and emphasizes community input in figuring out what that will look like.