新加坡六合彩开奖

The real headline for this story should be:

Brown Bear Saloon owner earns college degree, launches new career at age 50.

Why? Because that's what just happened.

Alaskans know the Brown Bear Saloon at Mile 103 along the Seward Highway. In classic roadhouse tradition, this friendly watering hole and burger stop overlooks beautiful Turnagain Arm. The ceiling is papered in dollar bills and Euros (a bicycle helmet and a few frilly undergarments as well). On a long summer day, or even a dark winter's eve, it's a place to find food and drink, music and camaraderie.

Its owner, Matt Williams, has taken care of the place for two decades. Today, he's on the verge of his third big career change.

His is a particularly Alaskan tale, complete with stints as a teenage fish processor and deckhand, and eventually a highly qualified boat captain at the young age of 25. The saloon and roadside hotel came much later, only after a successful commercial fishing career that carried him happily into his 30s.

Much to his parents' chagrin

You see, Matt comes from college-going folk. His mom was a school teacher, his dad was a lawyer, and his grandfather was dean of men at UC Berkeley during the free speech movement in the 1960s. College was what you did after high school.

Not so for Matt. He remembers graduating from high school in Eugene, Ore. and trying for a summer job at a fast food restaurant. The state was in such economic turmoil that workers swarmed to any job opportunity. "You couldn't get work flippin' burgers!" is how Matt tells it.

But fortuitous for him, his best friend's brother landed him a job on a fish processor. The next thing he knew, it was May and he was anchored off Chignik Lagoon processing fish. That first job set the hook.

"Things clicked," Matt said. "I knew I wanted to do that as a career. The work was hard and monotonous, but I loved the marine environment."

Over time, he progressed to respected deckhand, and in a stroke of luck, got a huge opportunity when the captain of the boat he worked on needed to take an abrupt departure. Matt stepped in. Before long, he had his 1600 ton master's license and was busy running 200-plus-foot fishing boats. His skill set was in high demand, and life was good.

His parents always considered Alaska a phase he'd grow out of, but they stopped worrying when he earned that master's license. "It's like a diploma," Matt said. "It takes four years at sea, and you have to pass a test." It was a professional path his parents could finally understand.

Life of high adventure

"You know that Robert Frost poem, 'The Road Less Traveled'?" Matt asks. "Well I don't even like the less-traveled road. I'd rather get out a machete and hack my way through the woods. I've had a colorful life because of it."

Yes, and that attitude offers a few clues as to how Matt makes decisions.

Listen to how he came to own the Brown Bear Saloon. He'd just delivered a boat to Dutch Harbor and was passing through Anchorage. He decided to visit a friend who lived in Girdwood. On the way to visit her, Matt saw the "$200 a week" rooms-for-rent sign at the Brown Bear Saloon. "I'd just spent about that much for one night in Anchorage," he said, so he checked it out, rented a room and then went on down to Girdwood to visit his friend.

Long story short, she turned into his girlfriend, and whenever they were in town, they'd visit Girdwood and frequent the Brown Bear. As Matt puts it, he deeply enjoys "the cast of characters in rural bars and rural settings." Just ask him about his first step inside the bar, and the lively discussion that ensued over Budweiser in a bottle versus Budweiser in a can; now that's a yarn.

Time passed happily. But now on the cusp of his 30s, Matt was beginning to have second thoughts about his life at sea. "I was at a crossroads. On the one hand, I was thinking of getting my own boat. I had some canneries in Bristol Bay that were willing to cosign with me, I could have locked myself in."

Something else was nagging him, though. Despite the adventure, he was tired of living on the ocean all the time. "It's kind of hard on your social life,"  he said.

That's when, on one of his visits back to Girdwood, he heard the Brown Bear Saloon was for sale. And just like that, Matt bought it. "I decided to do it. I pulled the trigger!"

Another road less traveled

The next two decades were hard but rewarding. His girlfriend and casual business partner opted out after just four months. Not only was he torn up about her departure, he was left to do the work of two.

Then disaster struck. During his first year as owner, the septic system failed. OK, he thought, $18,000 ... we can fix this. Except when the workers came to install a new tank in the drain field, they couldn't. Water was squirting everywhere and filling up the hole.

Here's Matt, recalling that nightmare: "The guy putting it in said, 'Matt, we gotta talk, and you need to sit down.'" Turns out, fixing the septic system would take $40,000.

Matt's not a quitter. Besides, he'd sunk all his earnings into the bar. So he maxed out every line of credit he could, and spent the next eight years paying off the debt.

But wait! We said the "next two decades were rewarding." What was rewarding about that?

Well, through Matt's own hard work, the business thrived. He built additional cabins, added decks and made many other improvements. But the biggest reward came in a new relationship that blossomed into a family. Now he and his wife of 17 years, Carri McLain, are proud parents of two girls: Talia, age 12, and Meira, age 9.

Matt's finally a family man. His kids go to school in Girdwood, his wife works at the post office, and they contribute to their community, both serving stints on the board for the local Four Valleys Community School.

So no regrets, a life well-lived, etc.

But wait. By the time we met Matt, he wasn't in the wheelhouse any longer, and he also wasn't standing behind the bar at the Brown Bear. He was at 新加坡六合彩开奖 earning his bachelor's in business administration in global logistics and supply chain management.

Here's how that happened. Roughly four years ago, push came to shove over several businesses in the Indian/Bird area still advertising along the Seward Highway. Brown Bear Saloon was one of them, along with a handful of others-Dimond Jim's Liquor Store, Turnagain House, Bird Ridge Motel and Birdhouse Garage, according to local newspaper the .

But back in 2004, that made it illegal to have outdoor advertising visible from the road. It wasn't until February of 2012 that the ax fell. The state Department of Transportation sent that handful of businesses a letter giving them until July 1 to remove their signs in the roadway. Matt winced, and complied.

The effects were immediate. "We took a huge hit," Matt said. "A 30 percent drop in a month. I  knew it would be bad, I just didn't know how bad."

But also, he'd begun to realize that with a family of four, the saloon income just wasn't enough. He saw the handwriting on the wall. "I have to do something. I am not going to sit here and be a victim of my circumstances."

That's why he was thinking about school the day he bumped into a neighbor.

"I asked him a random question," Matt said. "'If you were going to go back to school, what major would you take that would put you in a good position to get a decent paying job? Without thinking, the guy says, 'global logistics.'  I said, 'Great.'"

And then Matt promptly enrolled in that program at 新加坡六合彩开奖. The rest is, well, history.

Support and next steps

Dorn Van Dommelen, a professor of geography at 新加坡六合彩开奖,  is a neighbor of Matt's in Indian, but not the neighbor who advised logistics. Both say they got to know each other much better in Dorn's GEOG A101 class, where Matt was a student and Dorn was teaching.

Dorn reports that Matt earned a "strong A," in the class, but beyond that, he continued, "he's a business major and, to me, personifies what makes 新加坡六合彩开奖 different. He decided to get his degree to expand his horizons and, I think, to set a good example for his two little girls. So over the past few years he has been going to school full-time, managing his bar, and working incredibly hard to support his family...the guy is great."

For his part, Matt says he really appreciates Dorn now that he's taken a class from him. "My family has been teachers and educators...Dorn knows what he is doing. His workload was not overbearing, but it was solid. I learned tons."

On the horizon are resume-polishing and job interview-prep. This is new territory. Matt got all his boat captain jobs based on his reputation; people called him.

And then, there's the dream job out there somewhere. For Matt, it must include challenge. "I want something stimulating...I like a little bit of chaos. I like having to react and problem solve. So I am looking for a job that is not too narrow. And logistics is pretty broad."

He's already discovered one job he'd like, as a community relations administrator for a transportation company. For one thing, there's the ongoing adventure of weather: "Things are moving and not on time because stuff happens." Perfect: "I like having to solve problems on the fly."

Best moment

No doubt he will land a great job. He plans to work the next 15 years, he hopes for a single employer. But even in retirement, he won't be sitting still.

"If I retire, I will kayak from Juneau to Seattle," he said with a big smile. "Then I am going to plan and do all the logistics for my trip down the Pacific Coast Trail, at which point I am going to buy a sailboat in Mexico and sail around the world twice-because you can't see enough on just one trip around!"

Matt laughs now about his mom's reaction when, in his late 40s, he told her he was finally going to college. "ARE YOU CRAZY?" she asked.

Maybe, just a little.

Written by Kathleen McCoy, 新加坡六合彩开奖 Office of University Advancement 

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