Childhood – Alaska Voices

Alaska Weather Voices – Episode 1: Origins

May 14, 2025

A young Rick Thoman in a red sweater and large afro hair style smiles into the camera in a high school photo style potrait.

This podcast miniseries focuses on the life and career of Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy (ACCAP)’s climate specialist, Rick Thoman. This podcast, hosted by Liz Carter, is made by ACCAP in partnership with Alaska Voices. In this episode Rick Thoman describes how he came to love weather, climate and Alaska. Starting in childhood, the episode follows Rick from elementary school projects on Alaska and tracking the weather in Pennsylvania to his first Alaska trip in 1986 that launched his weather and climate career.

“I’ve been interested in weather and climate from my earliest memories. As a child, probably late elementary school, junior high school age, every morning I would get up and I would look at the temperature on the thermometer that was outside my bedroom window. And I would write it down and I would plot it on a piece of graph paper.” – Rick Thoman

Revisiting your hometown’s history

March 29, 2021

Davin and Tina smile at the camera in front of a photoshopped background of a forested landscape.

“I’d spent all of my time learning about cultures around the world and I didn’t know anything about the cultures of my own state or the area that I lived in.” – Davin Holen

Learning as a scientist when to say “I don’t know”

October 1, 2020

Shawn, a man with dark hair, and Emily, a woman with short hair and bright smile, in front of a patterned kelp background.

“I was always the kid getting outside and getting lost and grimy and playing with frogs and cutting trees.”

Grad school files

August 31, 2020

Rachel and Jill smile in front of an aerial view of a forest.

“I thought environmental science was a really good way to connect people’s problems and Earth’s problems and learn about the physical world yet the social science world, too.”

Bringing global experiences back home

June 22, 2020

Krista, a woman with pulled-back dark hair, and Arlo, a man with two lip piercings wearing a beanie, smile in front of a blueberry bush background.

“We were in Georgia, the Republic of Georgia, when they were being bombed. And all we had to eat for like six weeks straight was kasha, buckwheat.”

Growing up in a research lab

June 18, 2020

An older man and younger woman look at the camera. Behind them a wall of snow rises.

“I started working with my high school teacher who was very, very dedicated to helping me reach this goal. She used to drive me to the university where I did the research after school everyday.”

Father-daughter fieldwork

April 30, 2020

Jeremy and his daughter Merridy smile in front of a bright snowy sunset.

“Dad had been doing fieldwork for 17 years and never seen a wolverine. On my first trip out there, bam, not one but two wolverines in the wild.”

Remembering Randy, restoring the bison

April 30, 2020

Luke and Teal put their arms around eachother in front of a mountain valley.

“My mom always says this too, if you take a side profile of Randy, he looks just like a bison.”