CHS Inc. officials notified local officials and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development that the company plans to permanently close the largest grain elevator in the Twin Ports.

The facility in Superior will cease operations effective Aug. 31, according to the notice provided to the Department of Workforce Development. CHS has not yet made a public announcement or responded to an inquiry from the Duluth Media Group.

The decision has been decades in the making with the decline in the volume of grain that transits through the Superior terminal, said John Griffith, senior vice president of global grain marketing for CHS.

“It’s not just a CHS decline,” Griffith said. “It’s an entire grain export from the Duluth-Superior port that has declined over the past couple of decades, and it finally reached the point where there wasn’t the critical mass of grain movements through the port anymore.”

He said with the progression of larger unit trains, and new facilities, grain can be moved to deep-water ports and moved on larger ships that have lower costs for transportation to reach the same customers.

“I think that has been kind of the evolution over time that has brought us to this point after nearly 90 years in the port,” Griffith said.

The difficult part of the decision was the employees, Griffith said.

The closure will impact 23 union employees, who will be permanently separated from the company Sept. 8. Two additional employees will continue to work until about Dec. 31.

“My heart goes out to them,” said Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, who was notified about the closure by company officials Thursday, July 10. “I understand it. I, myself, just got laid off last year. It’s extremely disruptive, and you know, frankly, depressing and scary. So, I understand what they’re going through and I really feel for them, and I’m here to help in any way I possibly can.”

Stroud encouraged anyone who has difficulty with the unemployment system to reach out to her office for assistance.

“It’s devastating anytime you lose a significant employer,” Stroud said.

Exports falling for decades

Superior Mayor Jim Paine, who was briefed on the closure Thursday morning, said he was told the reason is tied to the global economy and global shipping routes.

“It’s obviously bad news, especially for those employees, and we need to do what we can to take care of them, but this is one of the challenges of working with commodities-based industry,” Paine said.

Exports of grain by ship from the Port of Duluth-Superior have been falling for decades, down from a high of 9.2 million metric tons in 1978 to 645,000 tons in 2022, the lowest since 1890.

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The 2023 and 2024 shipping seasons were only slight improvements at 790,000 and 794,000 tons, respectively, according to port statistics. That is driven, in part, by a changing market.

For example, soybeans now go by rail to the West Coast, and the geographic area where grains were harvested before being sent to the port for transport has shrunk, among other factors.

And in late 2022, fewer ocean-going vessels, or salties, were reaching Duluth with wind turbine components, making it less likely — and more expensive — to send empty salties into the westernmost port on the Great Lakes.

Part of the problem was the war in Ukraine, which shifted European demand for corn and beans from the Black Sea to some Great Lakes ports like Chicago and Toledo. Salties discharging in lakes Michigan, Erie or Huron are less likely to sail empty to the Port of Duluth-Superior to fill up with grain, CHS officials said at the time. The war continues more than three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a major agricultural producer on the continent.

Despite lower shipping figures, grain has still moved through the Twin Ports by train, including at CHS. However, unlike shipping’s tonnage reports, the amount of grain moved by rail is not public.

Potential reuse of facility

“The CHS decision to cease operations at its Superior terminal is a disappointing blow to the Port of Duluth-Superior and the community as a whole,” the Duluth Seaway Port Authority wrote in a prepared statement. “Most immediately, our thoughts are with the employees who will be affected by this decision. We will work with the city of Superior to seek solutions that could lead to a more positive outcome, and hopefully, continued use of this grain terminal.”

“Those are really large and effective grain elevators so sitting empty and doing nothing is not its best future,” Paine said.

Stroud said she asked what would happen to the facility, and CHS representatives said they would be available to help transition the infrastructure CHS owns to any entities that might be interested.

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“It’s very possible that … another company would have interest in doing very similar activities at the facility,” Griffith said. “The facility is certainly still operational, so we will look to disposition the facility in the most effective and thoughtful way possible, up to and including a sale of the facility,” Griffith said.

“This is bad news for that pier and that terminal, but in terms of the port overall, the port is still growing, and the port is still performing very strongly,” Paine said. “We just had that $28 million investment in C. Reiss just a little ways over. There’s still growth and strength in global shipping, but it is a moving economy.”

Reporter Jimmy Lovrien contributed to this story.

Amy Lindgren

Second Sunday Series – Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh of 12 columns on AI and work, appearing the second Sunday of each month, from September through August. Last month’s column discussed AI as a core skill, while previous columns looked at AI issues for writers; AI tools for organizing or conducting the job search; interview prep; resumes and cover letters; best practices for companies using AI; tips for using ChatGPT; work opportunities with artificial intelligence; AI use in the hiring process; and an overview of artificial intelligence in general. Amy Lindgren

I’ve been sipping from the proverbial fire hose for a year now, while researching the use of AI in job search and the workplace. And, while I’ve shared a couple dozen websites and tools related to specific tasks (such as interviewing or résumé writing), I haven’t yet offered a more general set of resources.

There’s a reason for that: Fire hose again, coupled with intermittent kinks and leaks. Some of the sites I’ve used shifted into sales mode on me, while others have turned out to be one-trick ponies. I generally have better luck with books in both regards, although they can get outdated fast.

With all of those caveats, here we go — resources that you might find helpful as you launch or continue your own journey into the untamed world of AI.

Posts that include helpful lists or tips

I’ve focused here on job search, while trying to limit the sell-you-something sites. Not so easy, but these four mostly meet the criteria.

• “Job Search Tips: 10 AI tools to help you land your next job” by Kiera Abbamonte, July 2025: https://zapier.com/blog/ai-job-search/

• “A curated list of 20 AI tools, 60 creative strategies to harness the power of ChatGPT” (and more): https://offers.hubspot.com/ai-job-seeker

• LinkedIn posts from Adam Broda. An Atlanta career coach (www.brodacoaching.com), Broda posts practical tips for using AI. The links are cumbersome for a newspaper article, so try a general internet search using “Adam Broda AI advice” and “Adam Broda ChatGPT advice.”

• The nonprofit SkillUp.org offers this brief list of AI job search tools: https://skillup.org/resources/ai-job-search-tools — but do explore their other offerings, such as free and low-cost career counseling and training.

Training

Talk about abundance. Just for starters, there are too many YouTube videos on using AI to even consider listing. I’m going a different direction, limiting myself to just two recommendations.

• Coursera. This is the online training platform I use, mostly because I like their pricing model: Free for some offerings, and the option of a monthly or annual subscription to access almost anything else on an all-you-can-learn basis. A quick look at their catalog — https://www.coursera.org — shows courses ranging from simple (“AI for Everyone”) to full certificate programs. Bonus: They’re running a sale on annual subscriptions ($240 instead of $399) until July 21.

• Syntax and Script. In a heroic act of generosity, fashion-professional-turned-techie Chika H. Orji has curated and posted a list of 77 free online AI training programs, current as of June 2025. You can download the list as a pdf from her website: https://syntaxandscript.com/free-online-ai-courses/ Her blogs are also worth visiting, just for the perspective of a career-changer whose tagline is “Come on a tech journey with me.”

Books

Books are still my personal go-to resource for a broad perspective or in-depth analysis and steps on just about anything. Although this is my curated list, I’ve only had time to review one. And yikes — I’ve definitely tried to identify and avoid AI-written books about using AI. That’s just a bit too meta for me.

• The Author’s AI Tool Kit, by Hank Quense, self-published, 2025. This is the book I have actually read, and I can recommend it as a resource specific to novelists and writers who want to leverage AI in both writing and marketing their work. The primer on creating ChatGPT queries is especially useful.

• Generative AI for Dummies, by Pam Baker, 2024.

• The AI-Driven Job Search Roadmap, by K.L. Cardozo, self-published, 2025.

• The AI-Savvy Job Seeker, by Michelle Dumas, Distinctive Career Publishing, 2025.

• Career Coach GPT, by Jeremy Schifeling, self-published, 2023.

And that, as they say, is that. Not nearly everything available, but enough resources to get you started. If you have others you’ve enjoyed using, send them my way and I’ll put them in the column. In any case, do come back next month for my wrap-up on this year-long series of articles on the use of AI in job search and the workplace.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

SAN DIEGO — The USS Midway Museum is opening the doors to a previously unseen, top-secret area of the ship where naval intelligence history was once made.

Dozens of guests flocked to the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum on Friday morning, standing in front of a ribbon and balloon display, that marked the grand opening of the museum’s immersive new exhibit, “Top Secret: Inside the High-Stakes World of Naval Intelligence.” Men in bright red sport coats, dressed in a style reminiscent of characters from the movie “Men in Black,” assisted retired Rear Adm. and the USS Midway Museum’s current President and CEO Terry Kraft with unveiling the once restricted area of the ship known as the Carrier Intelligence Center, or CVIC.

Opening day of the a new exhibit at the USS Midway Museum called Top Secret: Inside the High-Stakes World of Naval Intelligence on Friday, June 27, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“I took over the Midway Museum in 2023 and I thought about spaces that were important to me when I served on Midway. I did two deployments on Midway. I flew forward to combat missions from Desert Storm,” Kraft said. “One of the places where it was kind of transformational for me was all the work we did here in the Carrier Intelligence Center during Operation Desert Storm. So, I wanted to open it up.”

The USS Midway’s CVIC once served as the backbone and nerve center for naval intelligence during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early ’90s. The exhibit takes guests through the day-to-day lives of the naval intelligence specialists behind Desert Storm’s strategic gathering and analysis, mission planning and decision-making that supported aviators’ efforts against the Saddam Hussein-led Iraqi army’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

People experience a new exhibit at the USS Midway Museum called Top Secret: Inside the High-Stakes World of Naval Intelligence on Friday, June 27, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The exhibit consists of six themed displays. Through a narrow hallway and the connecting rooms of the once high-stakes environment, bright photographs, naval artifacts and old newspaper clippings don the walls of the exhibit. Tables are scattered around each room, filled with artifacts that offer guests a more hands-on experience, as they’re able to get a close-up glimpse of detailed flip-books aviators created for a quick reference during flights, toolkits where intelligence specialists stored their grease pencils and measuring tools or one of the telephones that play a recording describing the stories of intelligence officers.

Guests are even allowed to step into the shoes of intelligence specialists, testing their skills in a group of tests based on visual memory, codebreaking, site assessment and close aerial looking skills, where guests learn what naval intelligence role best suits them, and participate in an immersive mission planning activity.

People experience a new exhibit at the USS Midway Museum called Top Secret: Inside the High-Stakes World of Naval Intelligence on Friday, June 27, 2025 in San Diego, Calif. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The exhibit’s opening comes after a nearly two-year planning and working period. Initial talks to restore the CVIC were fleshed out in 2009; however, the idea didn’t come into fruition until summer 2023, when discussions of restoring the space earned the formal backing of a partnership between Naval Intelligence Professionals and the USS Midway Museum, which funded the bulk of the project. Construction began in the winter of 2023 and concluded in May this year.

“We worked with a great company called Art Processors, who did our another new exhibit for us last year,” Kraft said. “We wanted to make this something that anybody can come down and understand the role of intel professionals, how they interface with aviators, that kind of fusion that took place and get an appreciation for really the high stakes planning that went on down here.”

Kraft and the museum enlisted the help of every intelligence officer he remembered serving with on the USS Midway, as well as intelligence officers and specialists from the Midway’s docents, to study and prepare for the exhibit — eventually totaling up to around 750 volunteers.

Retired Commander Diana Guglielmo, an imagery analyst, helped lead the planning efforts.

“I was one of their advisors, because I served on board five aircraft carriers as a senior intelligence officer,” Guglielmo said. “I was the first woman to serve as the senior intelligence for the air wing, and so I basically ingested all the artifacts, and then grouped them together, and then put them into the exhibit in the right place based on what would be on a carrier.”

People experience a new exhibit at the USS Midway Museum called Top Secret: Inside the High-Stakes World of Naval Intelligence on Friday, June 27, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Reflecting and honoring the real stories behind the CVIC and the intelligence specialists involved was essential to the team; a space of the exhibit is dedicated to retired Capt. William Marcus “Marc” Luoma, who died in 2021. Luoma’s jacket and the coffee cup he used frequently on board are even on display. As guests exit, the last section of the exhibit displays historic photos from the naval intelligence community and a message paying tribute to their “dedication and excellence” in CVIC

“We hope they feel honored,” Mark Berlin, the USS Midway Museum’s director of operations said. “We hope that they recognize our appreciation for the hard work and dedication that they have to everything that they do. We saw that in engineering, when we had a lot of our former engineers go through this space and feel like their story is being told. We hope the same thing happens here.”

The team behind the exhibit hopes that even the general public will find something meaningful to take from their experience.

“I hope one day, as young people come through here, men and women, they see kind of this quiet profession, and they’re motivated or enthusiastic about doing this job. It’s one of those parts of the Navy that we just don’t talk a lot about,” Guglielmo said. “In the intelligence community, we say open the green door, because all the classifieds are always hidden behind the green door, and so this will open the green door and let them see, kind of what their contributions can do.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed several of its Duluth laboratory employees on leave for signing a letter criticizing the Trump administration’s politicization of the agency, a move the union and Democratic politicians said violates federal workers’ right to free speech.

According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, approximately six people at the EPA’s Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division Laboratory, 6201 Congdon Blvd., are on leave after signing a letter published late last month urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to recommit the agency to protecting human and environmental health and “restore EPA’s credibility as a premier scientific institution.”

“EPA employees join in solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the letter, organized by Stand Up For Science, said.

While several signatures were originally public, they have since been removed from the website, which now lists 620 anonymous signers.

The EPA said it placed 139 employees on paid leave to investigate their use of official titles when signing the letter. The agency said the letter “contains information that misleads the public about agency business.”

However, the agency did not respond to the News Tribune’s request to explain why the letter was misleading.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” an EPA spokesperson said in an email.

In a letter to Zeldin on Tuesday, Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee said that statement was “effectively concluding and publicly announcing that these individuals had somehow violated the law before an investigation was even conducted.”

“Taking adverse actions against employees for making a protected disclosure — including investigating them and placing them on administrative leave — in a manner that deters others from coming forward is a textbook violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act,” wrote Reps. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey; Paul Tonko, D-New York; and Yvette Clarke, D-New York.

Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents some 1,000 EPA employees in the Midwest, said in a news release that the union expected to take legal action against the agency.

“This is an act of blatant political retaliation — pure and simple,” Cantello said. “My message to EPA Administrator Zeldin is this: EPA employees have the right to freedom of speech just like everyone else. We’ll see you in court.”

Further cuts feared

There are also renewed fears that mass firings could be coming to the EPA.

Uncertainty has swirled at the lab since March, when the Trump administration’s plans to cut the EPA’s Office of Research and Development were first reported by the New York Times. The Duluth freshwater lab is part of ORD.

A portion of the reduction plan, shared earlier this year with the News Tribune by Science Committee Democratic staff, said the EPA planned to “eliminate” the ORD and expected 50%-75% of its more than 1,540 positions “will not be retained.”

In May, EPA officials told ORD employees they could retire early, leave voluntarily or apply for approximately 500 job openings at other EPA offices, the News Tribune previously reported.

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Meanwhile, funding ended for 25 early-career researchers when the EPA did not renew a contract and canceled a grant.

The lab employed 176 people, according to an April 2025 fact sheet.

Any widescale reduction in force or reorganization seemed to be on hold after a federal judge barred such action without working with Congress.

However, in a decision Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump administration to carry out a reduction in force of the federal workforce, renewing fear that mass firings were coming to the EPA and other federal agencies.