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INTRODUCTION 



My name is Berniece Brown and I represent the Sitka branch of 

 Alaska Women in Timber (AWIT). My husband, Don Brown, and I 

 arrived in the Sitka area in 1966, where we owned and operated 

 Mud Bay Logging Company until his retirement in 1983. Previous 

 to coming to Alaska, we had lived in Oregon where we logged for 

 Evans Products and U.S. Plywood. I am a graduate of the 

 University of Oregon and my husband of Oregon State University 

 School of Forestry. 



My husband has operated logging operations for over 40 years 

 and during this period has not had one on-the-job fatality among 

 our employees. I would credit this good record to our strong 

 respect for the power of Mother Nature and our emphasis on 

 safety. In our remote Alaska camps the men and women were given 

 First Aid and CPR training and we offered the added incentive 

 that the employees received extra pay for no time lost due to 

 injuries. 



Alaska Women in Timber came into being in 1978 because we 

 realized someone needed to tell the story of those in the woods 

 whose lives would be most directly affected by the loss of 

 available commercial timber. It was a grassroots movement 

 organized by wives of the men working in the woods and the mills 

 who were too busy to take time off for political purposes. So, 

 rather than just agonizing over whether or not there would be 

 work the following year, the women pitched in. We consider AWIT 

 to be an educational effort — a means of getting our side of the 

 story told. 



