Face to Face
Laura Meadors
Engineering Supervisor

Laura Meadors describes her life prior to moving to Alaska as a geography lesson. Born outside of Cleveland, Ohio, she’s lived everywhere from Louisiana to California, to Colorado to Florida. Now, she calls Valdez home. As supervisor to the key group of engineers who support the daily operations and maintenance of the Valdez Marine Terminal, she and her team focus on keeping the plant running from a day-to-day standpoint.

Laura is currently working on Alyeska’s Unified Plan project with her self-described fabulous team—Lorena Hegdal, Julia Redington and Jackie Morrison. The project is designed to take a holistic look at safety, risk management and integrity management to ensure that Alyeska achieves set goals in these fields. However, Laura says the plan is not only internal—there’s a major external piece as well. Alyeska wants to look at communication with our regulatory and oversight agencies to increase their confidence in the way we manage our work.

Describe your life in Valdez.

My husband and I moved here in October 1998 from Anchorage for his work, then I got hired on at Alyeska. We absolutely adore Valdez. I can’t believe we are able to look out and have Prince William Sound in our backyard. We came to Alaska in search of adventure and life fulfillment. We found it at the end of the road in Alaska.

What is your educational and professional background?

I started out in aquaculture—fish farming. I received my associate’s degree in environmental technology at the Florida Institute of Technology. Then I went on to earn my Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Tulane University. Some of my previous work has been in water and wastewater treatment plants, also water resources in California and environmental engineering. But my position at Alyeska is my first operations and maintenance hands-on experience.

What is the best part about your job and working for Alyeska?

Oh by far the people. People are our precious resource—we don’t own facilities. And that’s even truer in the Valdez community. We’re a family and very close. There’s comfort in that.

What do you enjoy doing at the end of the workday?

Spending time at home. My husband and I have two golden retrievers. They fill our lives with fun and fur— they’re our babies. Also, we like to snowshoe in the winter and boat in the summer.