Alaska State Troopers say they’re on track to fill a wildlife trooper position in the Chilkat Valley that has been vacant since late 2024 when previous Colin Nemec moved to Juneau.
Trooper spokesperson Austin McDaniel said the agency does not direct-hire people for one-person trooper posts — meaning someone had to voluntarily transfer into the Chilkat Valley’s wildlife trooper position. The region has been a one-person trooper post since 2016 when highway trooper Andrew Neason left. The state decided the following year not to fill the position as a cost-cutting move.
McDaniel said the hiring process can take time as it involves troopers “bidding” for posts once they’ve had a few years of experience working in Fairbanks, Soldotna or the Matanuska Valley.
“About every three or four months, we put out bids — or moves — for the state troopers or the wildlife troopers all over the state: Bethel, Haines, Juneau, Anchor Point, Dutch Harbor,” McDaniel said.
Nemec, the last Haines-area trooper, worked in Soldotna for about two years before transferring to Haines in 2020.
“Troopers bid for those posts. The trooper with the most seniority who bids for it is awarded that post,” McDaniel said.
Someone did apply for the open position in Haines, but McDaniel would did not share details about who may be in line to take the position, where that person is moving from or how long it might take them to get to town.
McDaniel said generally his agency would not share any of that information until a person is hired and moves to Haines to start work.
“That person isn’t technically hired for the position until they have reported for duty on their first day,” he said. “Our goal is to have that person in place, physically living in and working out of the Haines trooper post in the next few months.”
He said that is in line with the organization’s goal to have someone in place in the Chilkat Valley in the late spring or early summer before the busiest parts of the fishing and hunting seasons.