In late December 2022, Marjie Hamburger joined AHHA's team in our Juneau office. As AHHA's Workforce Initiatives Manager, she will be implementing projects that support AHHA’s strategic priorities, with an emphasis on our workforce initiatives, including working with the AHHA Workforce Development Committee and providing programmatic and fiscal management of external funding. She will also be supporting AHHA's LTC Committee.
We're excited to welcome Marjie - here's an introduction in her own words:
I thought I was going to be an artist and maybe I am in some inherent way, but professionally just after graduating from college (fine art major) my path immediately veered away from solitary hours spent creating objects and hoping for sizable tips during my waitressing shifts. Instead, I learned to type and gained a few other office skills (like dressing for success – which I kind of failed due to my outlandish color choices) and became the office manager of a struggling non-profit serving victims/survivors of domestic violence in Providence, RI.
From there, my non-linear journey took me to New York City for a time – a variety of office work through a temp agency, assistant teacher at a pre-school, coordinator of internship placements at a college - where I picked up a husband and then sight unseen moved to Juneau, Alaska.
Thirty plus years of employment here have included children’s programming at the city library, teaching drawing at UAS, running a home childcare business, managing a charter school, producing public programs at the city museum, staffing the city’s planning department, and finally working for the State of Alaska at the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault before moving to an office literally across the street to take on this new role.
But there is a theme to my “career”. All my employment has been about serving people and being a player in work that is meaningful and contributes to the health and well-being of the community. Through that lens, joining the team at AHHA and getting involved with addressing the challenge of developing, retaining, and supporting the healthcare workforce in our state makes sense.
Outside of paid work, my passion and priority is my family closely followed by friends, spending time outdoors, and creating.