Staff Archives: Kathy Kurtenbach

Former Sales and Marketing Coordinator

(left in 2013)

Alaska Sea Grant role

Conceive and implement marketing plans, strategies, and promotional tactics for ASG educational products. Evaluate effectiveness of marketing efforts. Represent ASG and market educational products at events such as fishing industry trade shows, home school fairs, and library, museum/aquarium, and bookseller conferences. Develop direct mail campaigns, build and maintain product promotions via the Internet, and make sales calls. Oversee distribution center that processes more than 25,000 ASG items annually—including mailing, invoicing, and customer service—and supervise distribution assistant. Joined Alaska Sea Grant in January 2001.

Education

• B.A. Communication, University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point
• B.A. History, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Expertise

Market ASG publications and videos to a wide audience and provide good customer service. Skills in marketing marine educational materials through direct and electronic mail, social media, phone calls, and trade shows. Responsible for creation of promotional materials and direct mail pieces, including publication layout and production.

Most rewarding contributions

• Coordinator for the marketing campaign and author signing events for Field Guide to Seaweeds of Alaska. I used a combination of direct mail pieces, electronic announcements, radio, and other media to promote five author signing events. I worked with local businesses and agencies in southcentral and southeastern Alaska. In three months more than 1,000 books were sold.
• Advocate for, and hiring of, a distribution assistant. This action streamlined the ordering process, brought backorders into Filemaker instead of manually tracking, and increased product distribution efficiency. This position became the backbone of the distribution operation.
• Coordinator for ASG’s first holiday book sale. Initially a two-hour sale at the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, this event for several years was a four-hour open house and holiday book sale, cohosted by three UAF departments (Alaska Sea Grant, University of Alaska Press, and UAF Marketing). December 2012 marked our 7th annual open house.

Selected awards and accomplishments

• Alaska Sea Grant Education Services staff received the 2012 Ocean Literacy Award, cosponsored by the Alaska Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence (COSEE Alaska) and the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS).
• The 2009 Alaska Coastal Calendar received First Place in calendars from the National Association of Government Communicators and the Silver Award for four-color popular publications from the Association for Communication Excellence.
• The 2007 Alaska Coastal Calendar received the 2007 Award of Excellence, Blue Pencil Award competition, National Association of Government Communicators.
• Coordinated joint booth for National Sea Grant and Alaska Sea Grant at AFS Annual Meeting in Anchorage, September 2006.
• Kurt Byers, Sue Keller, Doug Schneider, Tatiana Piatanova, Terry Johnson, and I received the Outstanding Professional Skill award for Publishing by the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE) for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands: Region of Wonders.
• Kurt Byers, Sue Keller, Terry Johnson, Tatiana Piatanova, Doug Schneider, and I won a Gold award at the 2005 ACE International Critique and Awards competition for overall publication excellence, color book more than 50 pages, for the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands: Region of Wonders.
• Doug Schneider, Sue Keller, Marilyn Sigman, Nancy Sefton, Kurt Byers, and I won a Silver award at the 2005 ACE International Critique and Awards competition for informational video/teacher guide production, for Life on the Beach: Among Friends and Anemones.
• Sue Keller and I won an award at the 2004 National Association of Government Communicators (NAGC) competition for hardcover book, for Advances in Seafood Byproducts.
• Sue Keller, Tatiana Piatanova, and I won an Honorable Mention award in the 2002 NAGC Blue Pencil Competition for the Crabs in Cold Water Regions proceedings.
• Carol Kaynor, Sherri Pristash, Sue Keller, and I won a Gold award in the ACE electronic publication category for Alaska Sea Grant's Boatkeeper series.