Face to Face
Kathy Zinn
Valdez Marine Terminal Director

Kathy Zinn’s dedication to the Valdez Marine Terminal and her connection with the Valdez community is evidenced by the efforts of VMT employees. Under Kathy’s leadership, they have tackled terminal projects with passion and energy. These milestone efforts include recent progress with ongoing renovations at the Ballast Water Treatment Plant.

Describe your position at Alyeska.

I manage operations and maintenance of the marine terminal as well as the compliance and documentation team.

What is your typical daily routine?

Wow! A typical daily routine for me? My days have been pretty atypical lately. I work with our dedicated employees of the safety, operations, maintenance, and contractor teams to make sure work is going smoothly and safely. I talk with stakeholders periodically to check in. It’s a management position—my routine really depends on the day. I check in on the ops team, manage e-mails and phone calls, and travel to Anchorage to work with Alyeska Corporate Teams.

How did you end up working for Alyeska?

In October of 2000, a contractor moved me up here to run a particular area of business. Five months later, my position was in sourced, and I started working for Alyeska Pipeline. I moved to Valdez from Tampa, Fla., because I thought Alaska would be a beautiful place to live.

What is the best part of your job?

I love the crew here. Everybody who works on the VMT is just great. You know, everyone is out to do the right thing. The job is really exciting and changes day to day. There aren’t a whole lot of routine things in this position. We’re constantly looking at ways to make things better, safer and more reliable, environmentally friendly, effective and efficient.

For example we have really well engineered 30-year-old Ballast Water Treatment and Power Generation systems that we have an opportunity to update. The systems are dated, and although reliable, are no longer fit for purpose. Our Operations and Maintenance teams have to put in a great amount of effort to manage the systems under our decreased throughput and changing crude properties. We have an incredible opportunity to make some system changes. It’s so exciting!

What is Valdez like?

I love Valdez. The community is close-knit. People look after each other, and it’s absolutely beautiful. You can go out and play right out of your driveway. It’s all right here in front of you.