I’ve been waiting to tell this story for a long time! Like others who were fortunate enough to work on the TAP (Trans-Alaska Pipeline), my beginning with Local 959 started on the Dobie List, patiently waiting for my start date and ledger number to accrue enough whiskers to move up a notch. My first union job was with local cartage, pulling orders at Anchorage Cold Storage, and I worked that job until I attained a “C” card. As the TAP built momentum, calls came into the union hall that sometimes trickled down to the “C” card list where I held an advantage over most others standing in the union hall. To ready myself for a potential driving job on the TAP, I got experience with trucks through a colleague of mine whose family owned a trucking business. It was just a matter of time before my ship came in.

Like a lot of members who came into the union about that time, we were green but ambitious, ready to learn. I was 22 years old my first year on the pipeline, learned a tremendous amount about trucking, and my crew moved all over the northern regions of the TAP. By the second year, I was a veteran driver and helped train new drivers coming out of the hall. After two years working on the TAP, I was seasoned, confident and excited about having a new career and a pension plan that would grow and grow over the years.

Over a period of about 30 years, I watched my pension continue to expand. I earned a degree at UAA, and between semesters of undergraduate school, I enriched my pension by working summers all over the state. Later, I enrolled in graduate school at UAA, but continued building my pension through union work. It just kept growing and growing, giving me so much confidence about my future. I took the cash option the last year it was available, put it all in the stock market, and then went back to work, quickly accruing enough vestment credits to once again vest myself and qualify for a second retirement! Today, that second retirement is paying me a nice monthly sum.

While I reap the benefits of other endeavors, my root earnings from the Alaska Teamster-Employer Pension Trust are at the base of my financial stability, just as my earnings were back when I was actively working through Local 959.

My wife and I and our golden doodle travel around the country, pulling our camper trailer, visiting family and friends, taking fishing and biking trips, and in general, doing about whatever we want to do.

I will be forever appreciative for all that Local 959 has done for me. My visit to AK in the summer of 2025 included visiting the Secretary-Treasurer, Gary Dixon, where we reminisced and chuckled about our time spent working in the cold, cold zone of Prudhoe Bay. My two takeaways from last year’s visit to AK after being gone for 12 years: I still love the state, and I still love the union that helped to make me the person I am today.

My 2025 summer vacation in Alaska reminded me of a quote by John Muir, the founder of the modern conservation movement: “Never go to Alaska as a young man because you’ll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live.” It may have been Alaska’s beauty that captured my heart, but it was the Alaska Teamster Pension Trust that freed my soul to become whatever I wanted to be, and that was a tremendous gift!

Thanks Alaska, thanks Local 959,

Lynn Buchheit