Face to Face
Emily Stark
Pipeline Advisor, 2005 Pipeline Shutdown Coordinator

Emily Stark is a lifelong Alaskan, born on the banks of the Yukon River in the Athabascan village of Beaver. She grew up in Fairbanks with her parents and five brothers and three sisters. Emily has a finance degree from the University of Oregon and an accounting degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She enjoys walking, swimming and traveling, and once spent an entire year traversing the Lower 48 by van. Emily joined Alyeska in 1995 after working as an accountant at BP.

What are your responsibilities as pipeline advisor?

I’m one of three pipeline advisors who help the pipeline manager and his team direct pipeline operations. I facilitate training, financial and regulatory problem solving for the operations team. We administer everything from purchasing equipment to work schedules so that the people in the field can focus their efforts on moving oil.

What are your duties as 2005 pipeline shutdown coordinator?

My role is to coordinate the 2005 pipeline shutdowns. I coordinate communications, planning and preparations for everyone involved in a pipeline shutdown, including operations and maintenance teams, project managers, oil movements, measuring and scheduling managers, Joint Pipeline Office officials, Valdez Marine Terminal managers and strategic reconfiguration managers. I develop, review and coordinate work procedures and communicate work plans between groups. This job involves constantly relaying information between different teams managers in the field adjust work plans. It is a lot of work, but gratifying when shutdowns are smooth and successful, as they were in June and July.

What upcoming challenges are you facing?

Pipeline reconfiguration, Alyeska’s pipeline modernization program, is gaining momentum and I’m now coordinating technical training for employees who must learn to use the new equipment. The challenge for work crews to learn new jobs and procedures while maintaining normal pipeline operations.

The logistics of training workers stationed along the 800-mile-long pipeline is very complicated. I work with the individual operations and maintenance supervisors to time training sessions to coincide with shift changes to minimize interruptions. Individual supervisors tell me the details of what needs to be done and I organize all of the various tasks so that they can be completed as efficiently as possible.