CO NS T RU C T I O N
Supply Chain Squeeze Builders scrounge for materials By Isaac Stone Simonelli
74 | March 2022
Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com
Fritz Jorgensen | iStock
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laska’s contractors, architects, and hardware suppliers are scrambling and adapting to keep projects moving forward as a choked supply chain forces them to do what they do best: make it work in the Last Frontier. Alaska contractors are used to dealing with the delays that come with being at the end of a very long supply chain for construction materials. “Alaska always had a challenge of getting stuff here,” says Jonathan Hornak, a senior project manager for Cornerstone General Contractors. “Between the pandemic and the staffing shortages and everything else, it's just made it worse.” Choke points have resulted in price spikes for everything from groceries to household goods and construction materials—or, in some cases, have resulted in no availability at all. “The supply chain issues are real, they're happening, and they are highly unpredictable,” says Terry Shurtleff, the president of Alaska Industrial Hardware. “For example, everything can be going perfectly, but then you have an Omicron outbreak, say in a port in Taiwan. So that's going to change the landscape for all freight coming out of there,” Shurtleff says. “And then all of a sudden, what wasn't a problem fifteen minutes ago is now mission critical.”
