Taylee Escalante, a National Weather Service Juneau administrative assistant, knows the exact minute she was fired: 11:56 a.m. on Feb. 27, 2025.
She doesn’t have to check her termination email to remember. She recalled it perfectly while eating soup at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church on Saturday.
Thirty-five volunteers offered resources and support to approximately 50 federal employees and family members during a gathering at the church. Some still employed were there to support recently fired colleagues and prepare for the possibility of their own job loss.
It’s been hard to pinpoint the exact number of fired federal employees. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) requested information on Facebook. State Rep. Alyse Galvin (I-Anchorage) set up a Google form for fired Alaskan federal employees.
Outplacement services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. tracked 62,242 federal government jobs cut last month from 17 different agencies in a report released Thursday.
Escalante said she will never forget the loss of her work family. She posted a Facebook video telling her story the day after she was fired.
“We want to speak out,” she told the Juneau Empire on Saturday. “We want people to know. But everyone is scared right now.”
Escalante started her position in July, just before the record glacial outburst flood on Aug. 6, 2024. The administrative assistant’s job had been vacant for two years, leaving managers to do the work. The National Weather Service Juneau and Fairbanks offices are understaffed, with Juneau serving as a backup for Fairbanks.
She said she sought the job for health benefits since she has an autoimmune disorder. Working in the field of science was new to her, but she said everyone at NWSJ made her feel welcome.
“I got to dive in deep with them and see how they pulled together, worked overtime, came in willingly,” she said. “I have never seen a work environment or people who have cared so much about everyone and everything. These people want to be here and want to protect people and give the best information that they can. Seeing them do that raised my morale to make sure they had the tools that they need.”
Escalante hopes to get her job back, although there’s a risk she could lose it again.
President Donald Trump outlined reductions in force (RIF) and reorganization plans in an executive order issued Feb. 11. Roughly 10% of the National Weather Service’s Alaska-based staff is gone, according to Alaska Public Media.
The attorneys general of Washington D.C., Maryland, and 18 other states are suing the Trump administration over the mass firing of federal employees, according to NPR.
Agencies are expected to prepare for large-scale layoffs and develop reorganization plans by March 13. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Weather Service’s parent agency, was told to submit a plan to reduce staff by about 20%, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Juneau Assembly member Maureen Hall was at the church listening to the impacts fired employees are experiencing. Escalante, who was born and raised in Juneau and owns her home, said she needs help with mortgage payments.
“That’s what was so hard about filling the admin position — it’s not a high-paying position for someone to relocate here for it,” Escalante said. “My boss cried when I was let go.”
While she said losing her job and health care is hard, she knows that others fired are scrambling to find housing.
A comment wall gives federal employees a space to share their thoughts on Saturday, March 8, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Sabrina Donnellan was working as a branch chief in the Restricted Access Management (RAM) program at NOAA. The primary function of RAM is issuing Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) permits. Staff also oversee records and respond to lawsuits and requests for information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Before taking the job at NOAA this fall, Donnellan worked for 10 years with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, giving her the experience to work in fisheries at the federal level.
“They were below 50% capacity with staffing before I started,” she said. “I supervised three individuals. They didn’t have a direct supervisor before I got there, and they also struggled with just getting the workload done. So within four months, I was doing a significant amount of the hands-on work and ensuring that we were following the laws with FOIA, and getting all the records put together and out the door on time.”
After receiving a free back massage at the church, Donnellan played with her daughter, who will turn two in a few weeks. Her family returned to Juneau from Anchorage for her job in October. They are preparing to move into a live-aboard boat or an RV.
“We were aware of the housing issues and the only reason we came back was because this job had a high enough salary that we could afford to live here,” she said.
Donnellan said her family has to move out of a seasonal rental in a month. They had been planning to buy a home, but with the loss of her job that’s no longer a possibility. Still, they want to stay because they were able to find full-time childcare in Juneau.
Her termination letter did not cite poor performance as the cause of termination, but instead claimed the work she was doing no longer aligned with the agency’s interests.
Donnellan said it’s disappointing, but she still wants to serve the public and work in fisheries, and “at this point, it will just be a matter of whether there’s a job available and if the stars align.”
She encouraged fishermen experiencing delays to reach out to Alaska’s congressional delegation and said the program losing even one employee is dire.
“People think that the impact is less here, but there are just less people to start with,” Donnellan said.
An anonymous NOAA employee at Saturday’s event said the impacts of Donnellan leaving were immediately felt. She said the week had been a mess and in the office, they would look at each other and say, “Sabrina could have been working on this.”
A memorandum released Feb. 26 by the Office of Personnel Management states the agency reorganization plans are to increase productivity and eliminate non-essential roles to lower overall government expenditures.
Tim Hicks is the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) Local 251, which covers the Tongass National Forest and Chugach National Forest. He met with fired U.S. Forest Service employees on Saturday.
Hicks said many employees had successful job performance. Additionally, the Master Agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and NFFE states employees will be given the chance to correct their performance. NFFE is working at the local level to minimize the impact of unlawful terminations, according to Hicks.
Mason Hearn worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a park ranger at the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Center. There are only two employees left after 80% of staff were fired.
An independent federal board on March 5 ordered the temporary reinstatement of nearly 6,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture employees, with the agency given five days to comply. Hearn said he hasn’t been asked to return to work yet, and while he would consider it, he would be wary because he could be fired again.
He moved to Juneau from Oklahoma for the job. Like Donnellan, his housing situation is now unstable. He may have to leave Juneau. On Saturday, he talked with Hicks and the Alaska Job Center.
“Right now I’m mainly looking for jobs, something to do while I’m unemployed, something to move forward with,” Hearn said. “I’m also looking for housing. I am living in the bunkhouse that the Forest Service provides right now. I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”
He said he hopes visitors to the Mendenhall Glacier this summer will be safe, and he is uncertain what the future holds.
Volunteers lead painting for stress relief at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church on Saturday, March 8, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Wildlife biologist Gregory Larsen worked in a team of five with the U.S. National Park Service based in Juneau at Indian Point. He lost his job as a drone pilot surveying sea otters, harbor seals, and seabirds at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve, and Sitka National Historical Park.
Larsen said he is concerned about long-term impacts that people won’t immediately notice since his team monitors data over the span of decades.
“We’re going to stop collecting data on time series that are 30 to 50 years old, and next year you’ll go to the park, and it looks the same, and the year after that you go to the park, and it looks the same,” he said. “Then 10 years later, all the harbor seals are gone or moved somewhere else, and we’re not going to know why or even when that happened. The glaciers are melting and the seals are redistributing, and some of the populations are declining. But if we’re not measuring that, we don’t see it, and we can’t manage around that for the parks.”
Larsen said sea otters were reintroduced to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve 30 years ago and are now at their carrying capacity. The park service doesn’t know if they will crash, disperse, or stabilize.
He said a lack of safety and support will be among the short-term impacts of losing staff. Scientists also maintain weather stations around the parks. Larsen said the stations will go down without proper care due to constant assault from bears, snow and wind.
If the parks don’t receive federal funding, he added, they won’t be able to invest in new technologies that allow for more efficient ways of measuring data.
While visitors may not feel all the impacts on the parks immediately, Larsen emphasized that park service is about more than tourism—it’s about maintaining a healthy ecosystem. He said it’s important to recognize the intrinsic value ecosystems have, such as providing subsistence foods for Alaska Native communities and nurseries for salmon, which commercial fisheries need.
He said he has a promising lead with a job at a non-government organization where he can continue his passion for protecting and preserving wildlife.
“I’m sad to leave the federal service because I really believed in the mission, but they’ve made it a hostile work environment now with their weekly check-ins and just the constant threat of being fired — all of the security is gone,” Larsen said. “How do I continue with this purpose-driven career that I’m trying to hold onto?”
An anonymous current federal employee said the blanket statement that federal workers are nonessential is harmful.
“They are sort of Alaska’s behind-the-scenes jobs that keep things running at night, or when it’s cold out, or when people are asleep in their beds,” he said. “These are the night staff, janitors of the country. It’s much harder for them to do their jobs if they have this sort of looming uncertainty just hanging over them the whole time. Federal positions used to have greater job security, so they have given up on wealth in exchange for a career of service.”
The Rev. Tari Stage-Harvey, pastor of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, said it was important for her to hold the event and provide support to the community.
Along with listening booths and art tables, resources were available including the Alaska Department of Labor, Division of Public Assistance, Juneau Suicide Prevention, JAMHI Health & Wellness, Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, and job and veteran services.
When asked if the church will do a similar event in the future, Stage-Harvey said she hopes they won’t have to.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356.
