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CONTENTS APRIL 2019 | VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 4 | AKBIZMAG.COM

FE AT UR E S 12 MANUFACTURING

8 HEALTHCARE

How glycol recycling and 3D printing contribute to Alaska’s value-added picture

Addressing service gaps in rural Alaska

Made Local, Made Right

Hub-and-Spoke Healthcare

By Tasha Anderson

By Vanessa Orr

18 TRANSPORTATION Charter, Lease, Buy

Either way businesses got to fly

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

70 OIL & GAS

Operating Behind the Scenes Oil and gas services suppliers keep the industry running smoothly

By Julie Stricker

76 EDUCATION Educational Hurdles

Alaska falls behind national trends NRC Alaska

By Vanessa Orr

84 TOURISM

90 TOURISM

Alaska’s Shipshape(d) Economy

Chasing the Aurora Tourism from a tourist’s perspective

By Vanessa Orr

The financial impact of the cruise industry

© Vanessa Orr

Phillips Cruises and Tours

By Tracy Barbour

DEPARTMENTS 7 FROM THE EDITOR 94 EAT, SHOP, PLAY, STAY 4 | April 2019

96 EVENTS CALENDAR

98 INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS

97 BUSINESS EVENTS

100 RIGHT MOVES

102 OFF THE CUFF 104 ALASKA TRENDS

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WHEN HINDSIGHT IS 360,

THE FUTURE

IS CLEAR

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CONTENTS APRIL 2019 | VOLUME 35 | NUMBER 4 | AKBIZMAG.COM

C O R P O R AT E 10 0 S P E C I A L S E C T I O N 54 MTA

Leading the Tech Revolution

MTA

MTA builds infrastructure and networks for the long-term

26 JOBS FORECAST Bright(ish) Horizons

Experts predict better times for some Alaskan job seekers

By Kathryn Mackenzie

66 EMPLOYEE PROFILE

62 BP ALASKA

The Wonderful History of Bev Crum

‘Heat, Light, and Mobility for a Changing World’

Forty years of compassion at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

BP Alaska sets sights on another 40 years in Prudhoe Bay

30 DIRECTORY

The 2019 Alaska Business Corporate 100 Directory

By Tasha Anderson

68 ALPHABETICAL LISTING 2019 Corporate 100 Alphabetical Listings

58 BEACON

Healthy, Safe, and High Functioning

ABOUT THE COVER The last few years have been hard for every sector in Alaska, and the challenges aren’t over (certainly the state’s budget issues aren’t resolved). But Alaska Business is optimistic, especially with estimates that there will be job growth this year in the oil and gas, construction, mining, healthcare, and tourism industries. Which makes now the ideal time to highlight the Corporate 100, those companies that are keeping Alaskans on their feet and in the workplace.

Cover Design by David Geiger

6 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

Beacon’s quest to serve every Alaskan

VOLUME 35, #4 Published by Alaska Business Publishing Co. Anchorage, Alaska

EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor

Kathryn Mackenzie 257-2907 editor@akbizmag.com Associate Editor

Tasha Anderson 257-2902 tanderson@akbizmag.com Digital and Social Media Specialist

Arie Henry 257-2906 ahenry@akbizmag.com Art Director

David Geiger 257-2916 design@akbizmag.com Art Production

Linda Shogren 257-2912 production@akbizmag.com Photo Contributor

Judy Patrick

BUSINESS STAFF President

Billie Martin VP & General Manager

Jason Martin 257-2905 jason@akbizmag.com VP Sales & Marketing

Charles Bell 257-2909 cbell@akbizmag.com Senior Account Manager

Janis J. Plume 257-2917 janis@akbizmag.com Advertising Account Manager

Christine Merki 257-2911 cmerki@akbizmag.com Accounting Manager

Ana Lavagnino 257-2901 accounts@akbizmag.com Customer Service Representative

Emily Olsen 257-2914 emily@akbizmag.com 501 W. Northern Lights Boulevard,Suite 100 Anchorage, Alaska 99503-2577 Toll Free: 1-800-770-4373 (907) 276-4373 www.akbizmag.com Press releases: press@akbizmag.com

ALASKA BUSINESS PUBLISHING CO., INC. Alaska Business (ISSN 8756-4092) is published monthly by Alaska Business Publishing Co., Inc., 501 W. Northern Lights Boulevard, Suite 100, Anchorage, Alaska 99503-2577; Telephone: (907) 276-4373; © 2019 Alaska Business Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

Alaska Business accepts no responsibility for unsolicited materials; they will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelope.

One-year subscription is $39.95 and includes twelve issues (print + digital) and the annual Power List. Single issues of the Power List are $15 each. Single issues of Alaska Business are $4.99 each; $5.99 for the July & October issues. Send subscription orders and address changes to circulation@akbizmag.com. To order back issues ($9.99 each including postage) visit simplecirc.com/back_issues/ alaska-business.

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FROM THE EDITOR

The Corporate 100— Keeping Alaska Employed

T

he Corporate 100 is our chance to recognize and celebrate the companies that keep Alaskans working in good times and bad. The companies themselves are important to the health of our economy, but it’s the employees that really keep us all going. This marks the second year of many to come that we feature one of an organization’s longest-running employees—this year the amazing Bev Crum, ER Nurse Manager for the Emergency Department at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center—while giving some insight into how a company manages to retain quality employees like Crum for decades and decades (in this case, four of them).

Along with a directory of the state’s largest employers, we profile three organizations that qualified for the Corporate 100 list to learn about what they look for in an employee, the ways they show their staff appreciation, and how they give back to the community. It’s not enough just to employ people—to be truly successful at running a company of any size, employees have to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled. The companies we profile in the Corporate 100 Special Section starting on page 26 have found a formula that works for them, their employees, and their communities.

At a time when many of the industries that form the backbone of Alaska’s job market are rebounding from several rough years and beginning to fill positions again, knowing who to hire, how to teach new-hires about the company’s culture, and retaining those employees long-term becomes increasingly important.

This year the Alaska Business Corporate 100 reported they employ more than 73,740 people in Alaska. The same companies employ roughly 2.3 million people worldwide.

Trident Seafoods has the most Alaskan employees, reporting 4,941 in 2018. It’s companies like Trident Seafoods and all of the Corporate 100 that have helped reduce Alaska’s unemployment rate from 7.3 percent last year at this time to 6.5 percent as of January, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. While that’s higher than the national unemployment rate, it still helps bolster the largely-held notion that Alaska is finally leaving the bad times behind and looking forward to a better, brighter future.

Of course, April at Alaska Business is largely about the Corporate 100, but we couldn’t stop there. In this issue we talk about new methods of manufacturing, including the exciting world of 3D printing; take a look at how our tourism industry is performing from a tourist’s perspective; and offer you the opportunity to get to know Littler Mendelson Shareholder Renea Saade a little better in Off the Cuff.

Congratulations to every company on the Corporate 100 list that has worked so hard to keep Alaska employed. We’re thrilled to honor you in this issue of Alaska Business.

Alaska Business

Kathryn Mackenzie Managing Editor, Alaska Business

The companies themselves are important to the health of our economy, but it’s the employees that really keep us all going.

April 2019 | 7

H E A LT H C A R E

Hub-and-Spoke Healthcare Addressing service gaps in rural Alaska

B

By Vanessa Orr

reak your leg in Anchorage and chances are you’ll spend a few hours in one of the city’s three main hospitals—Alaska Regional Hospital, Providence Medical Center, or the Alaska Native Medical Center. Break it out in the Bush, and you may find yourself having to fly to a larger city to get specialized care, 8 | April 2019

especially if there are complications.

While there are many advantages to living in Alaska’s remote areas, one of the biggest drawbacks to rural living is the lack of access to specialized healthcare.

“Urban areas by definition are defined as a large population that can support a more robust healthcare infrastructure; rural areas do not have the same advantages,” explains Heidi Hedberg, chief of Rural and Community Health Systems, Alaska State Office of Rural Health.

While a number of villages have community health aides, behavioral health aides, and dental health aides, as well as visits from public health nurses, those

who require acute or advanced care often find themselves having to leave the community to get the help they need.

“Access to healthcare is an ongoing concern in rural communities, as are workforce shortages and high healthcare costs,” says Hedberg. “In general, individuals living in rural communities may receive some healthcare services, but if they need additional services, they would need to travel to a hub community.”

Alaska has a hub-and-spoke healthcare system, according to Hedberg, with hub communities typically containing a critical access hospital to serve the surrounding villages. There are fourteen critical access

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Approximately 150,000 Alaska Natives use the Alaska Tribal Health System, which operates 180 small community primary care centers, more than two dozen mid-level care centers, six regional hospitals, and the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

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Alaska’s larger cities. Some people living in Southeast communities also choose to travel to Washington State for healthcare services because it is closer than many Alaska facilities.

In Case of Emergency So what happens when a person suffers a traumatic injury or needs immediate medical care for an acute issue, such as the onset of stroke?

In many cases, patients need to be transported to larger general acute care hospitals, such as those located in Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks, or Sitka.

“When a patient comes into a smaller clinic or facility, they are first assessed by [our] staff to determine whether it is appropriate for them to stay in the community or if the patient needs to be transferred to a larger hospital,” explains Rob Stantus, assistant administrator at Alaska Regional Hospital. “In most cases, the person would be transported by air due to the state’s infrastructure. We probably fly more patients than we would otherwise do if we were located in the Lower 48, simply because in some places it’s the only mode of transportation.”

anytime you move a patient, whether by air ambulance or by a ground ambulance, between hospitals. It may be determined that a person with a less serious medical condition or a planned surgery can take a commercial flight; on the other hand, someone suffering a heart attack, stroke, or trauma may need to be transported by air ambulance because it’s quicker and has medical attendants on the flight.

“A lot depends on whether or not the patient’s condition is time-sensitive, and while we always err on the side of caution, we do consider a number of factors because of the expense involved in moving people by air ambulance,” he adds.

Telehealth Gaining in Popularity In order to provide people living in remote areas with the type of care they receive in Alaska’s urban centers, a number of providers are exploring telehealth options. Telehealth programs may include live video conferencing, store and forward, remote patient monitoring, and/or mobile health.

“Telehealth is one of those areas that we are actively working on to address access to healthcare and workforce shortages, but we have a long way to

“A lot depends on whether or not the patient’s condition is time-sensitive, and while we always err on the side of caution, we do consider a number of factors because of the expense involved in moving people by air ambulance.”

—Rob Stantus, Assistant Administrator, Alaska Regional Hospital

Though the hospital partners with Guardian Flight, it has relationships with all of the air ambulance operations in Alaska and receives patients from all over the state. This also includes accepting patients brought in by the National Guard and the Coast Guard. The hospital’s Patient Transport Center coordinates the flights, as well as connects Alaska Regional physicians with the physicians onsite. The air ambulance provides clinical and aviation staff.

“Whether a person comes in on an air ambulance or may take a commercial flight depends on what’s going on with the patient,” says Stantus. “There’s a risk 10 | April 2019

go,” says Hedberg. “Connectivity can be spotty in rural communities, and better policies need to be developed to help rural communities understand how to engage in telehealth and [obtain] reimbursement from insurances companies.

“In addition, providers from the Lower 48 using telehealth to provide services in Alaska must be licensed in Alaska, which can take time,” she continues. “Telehealth contracts also need to be set up so they are not cost prohibitive.”

According to Hedberg, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium has a robust telehealth program, and the Alaska State

Office of Rural Health is currently working with nontribal rural communities to develop similar capabilities. It is supporting several telehealth pilot programs in Petersburg that can be replicated in other rural communities, with plans for Petersburg Medical Center to launch tele-psychiatry services at the end of February.

Alaska Regional has also been growing its telehealth program and currently provides telestroke and behavioral medicine programs to Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, with plans to add similar programs in the Mat-Su Valley in the near future.

“Telehealth has been around awhile and it’s been gaining in popularity in the last couple of years, in part because of technology improvements and also a willingness by providers to participate in the program,” says Stantus. “The reimbursement model is also becoming more palatable for providers and patients.”

Through its telestroke program, Alaska Regional is able to triage patients when time is of the essence. “We partner with a neurology group affiliated with one of our sister hospitals in Colorado that provides dedicated, board-certified neurologists 24/7 to respond to patients in the ER who have stroke-like symptoms,” explains Stantus. “Within ten minutes, a neurologist is on camera with a Central Peninsula physician to help determine whether that patient can receive a clot-busting drug or may need to be transferred to Anchorage or another destination.

“Stroke is so time sensitive that this type of early intervention is extremely beneficial; the sooner symptoms resolve, the less chance of massive, debilitating longterm effects,” Stantus adds.

The benefit of telemedicine programs is that they allow smaller hospitals, which could never afford to keep a specialist on staff, to provide patients with the same level of expertise that they would receive in Alaska’s larger cities.

“There’s just not enough business for smaller hospitals to be able to keep a neurologist on staff; they may only see ten patients who need these services a month,” says Stantus. “But through telehealth, these specialists can treat those ten patients, plus another twenty patients at a different hospital, plus another twenty somewhere else; when you reach critical mass, it becomes worth it to employ a specialist.”

Alaska Regional also partners with social workers in Salt Lake City to provide

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behavioral health telehealth services. “In the past, social workers assessed patients in crisis in the ER, but not all communities have these professionals available, or their ERs may not be staffed on nights or weekends,” says Stantus, adding that via telehealth social workers are available 24/7.

“While this does solve some issues, it doesn’t solve them all,” he adds. “Oftentimes resources are so strapped in Alaska— such as inpatient psychiatric beds—that even if a patient receives an assessment in a timely manner, there may not be a bed available. We can at least provide guidance to ER physicians on how to manage the patient and recommend resources available in the community.”

All of the telehealth professionals who work for Alaska Regional, including the social workers and neurologists, are vetted through their credentialing process and are licensed to practice in the state of Alaska.

In the future, Stantus sees larger hospitals providing telehealth services beyond acute care, possibly offering speech pathology or diabetes education services to the communities that need them.

“We have the resources in Anchorage to do this, and if we can connect via technology, patients will no longer have

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to travel for these services,” he says. “Anytime you can keep people local, it benefits the patient, their family, and the local community hospital as well.”

One of the biggest advantages to telehealth is that as technology advances and becomes more user-friendly and less expensive it also becomes easier for medical facilities to invest in such technology.

“Before, having a security-compliant, bi-directional video connection required an investment in expensive telemedicine devices,” says Stantus. “Now, you can call someone on your iPhone or computer and have an online session. You no longer need as much bandwidth, and internet in most communities has gotten better, which makes it much easier to create a cost-effective platform that is HIPAA compliant and secure.”

There are still some drawbacks to using this technology in rural areas, however. While the telehealth system is robust, certain health conditions still require that clinics or remote hospitals have other diagnostic tools.

“It sounds great to have telestroke services at every clinic in Alaska, but if a facility doesn’t have a CT scanner to help diagnose a patient, it doesn’t make

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sense,” says Stantus. “This is why we have a community outreach liaison that goes out and visits the communities and assesses their needs. It’s great to have all of these offerings that you think everyone could use, but you have to make sure that it’s what they want.”

Because this is an emerging field, Stantus adds that hospitals need to be able to show insurance companies as well as administrators that this technology provides value-added services. In its telestroke program, for example, metrics include reduced door-to-needle times.

The hospital is also working with rural facilities to find “pain points”—service areas such as diabetes education or wound management where they may have trouble with recruiting or staffing and where telehealth may be a viable option.

“Healthcare is always going to be a challenge in rural areas—not just in Alaska, but anywhere in the country,” says Stantus. “There are a lot of advantages to not living in a crowded area, but one thing you give up is access.

Through the use of air ambulance and telemedicine, we’re trying to bridge that gap.”

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M A N U FAC T U R I N G

ImagineItAlaska founder Levi Basler explains some of the technicalities of 3D printing. © Tasha Anderson

Made Local, Made Right How glycol recycling and 3D printing contribute to Alaska’s value-added picture

By Tasha Anderson

N

atural resource extraction has acted as a foundation for Alaska’s economic activity since before ground even broke for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System and remains a vital part of Alaska’s economic makeup. But tying state funding primarily to commodity-driven industries has (and will again) put Alaska in a tight spot. It’s widely acknowledged that Alaska lacks a robust field of value-added businesses, which create local jobs, provide valuable materials at high quality and often lower cost, and keep Alaska money in Alaska.

Two businesses—in wildly different ways—have set their sights on making 12 | April 2019

cost-effective, high-quality, local products: NRC Alaska and ImagineItAlaska.

Glycol Recycling In 2014 NRC, an international provider of environmental, industrial, and emergency response solutions, purchased Emerald Alaska, which specialized in environmental and emergency response services for the oil and gas industry in Alaska. Today NRC Alaska is still a leader in its field, offering spill response, waste management, oil tank cleaning, and other environmental services.

But NRC Alaska also offers products that complement their cleaning, waste management, and cleanup service lines, and they’re pioneering a path for responsible

manufacturing in Alaska: in July 2017 the company finished constructing a glycol distillation plant at their Anchorage location. “We can take used glycol generated from the automotive, aviation, mechanical, and HVAC industries, and we can run it through a series of treatment processes, distilling the glycol back to its virgin equivalent state for re-blending,” says Michael Rose, account manager of product sales for NRC Alaska.

“It’s the only [glycol recycling plant] of its kind located in Alaska,” he says.

The process to distill the glycol takes about four days and happens in 4,000gallon batches. NRC Alaska collects used glycol such as antifreeze, which contains ethylene glycol, and stores it in storage

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tanks at their Anchorage facility.

The first step of the distillation process is to remove as much of the solid contaminants as possible. The glycol is placed in treatment tanks and, through a series of chemical treatment and filtration, those solids are removed and packaged for disposal. Once this process is complete, the glycol is transferred to the distillation plant, where it is circulated through a closed loop system under heat and vacuum pressure. The glycol is continually circulated through various stages of heat until all contaminants are removed.

“Because that product is still mixed with water, the first step is to strip off the water using heat. The removed water is collected in a storage tank. After you get all the water stripped off, we increase the heat, which begins the distillation process: that heat, under a vacuum, starts to remove all the impurities,” Rose explains. Once extracted the impurities are stored in another tank, and what’s left is high-quality, cleanas-can-be glycol, which is stored until it’s ready for blending. “It’s a big process, for sure—but it works fantastically,” Rose says.

NRC Alaska blends the clean glycol to produce various antifreeze and heat transfer fluid products. “Ethylene glycol is the base product for antifreeze, but another big part of antifreeze are the corrosion inhibitors… that protect the metals and the seals in your engine.”

Corrosion inhibitors are a part of additive packs, which NRC Alaska sources from a national manufacturer in the Lower 48.

Different additive packs produce different types of antifreeze, which is necessary since car manufacturers build engines in different ways, resulting in varied antifreeze requirements. In fact, putting the wrong kind of antifreeze in an engine can void warranties; however, “a huge misconception is that, if you don’t use whatever brand name [of antifreeze], it will void the warranty. It’s actually illegal for a manufacturer to specify a certain branded product as the only one that will work when there are other equivalent options available [according to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, 1975].”

This is one misconception about NRC Alaska’s antifreeze products that Rose encounters; a second and closely related one is that products made with recycled glycol are low quality. “There’s hesitancy by companies and individuals to trust locally-made antifreeze because it doesn’t carry a brand name, but we www.akbizmag.com

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we wouldn’t like to see another gallon [of glycol] shipped up here. There’s enough glycol in the state right now to sustain us, if it was all recycled.”

Made in Alaska

NRC Alaska’s distillation plant.

NRC Alaska

make sure that our products meet industry standards and carry the necessary certifications. For antifreeze, it’s an ASTM standard, and our manufacturer for our additive packs actually sits on the board at the national level that determines what is and is not code.”

Rose relates how a local transportation company was interested in NRC Alaska’s antifreeze products but was hesitant because of their uncertainty about the quality. NRC Alaska gave them a bottle of their product and invited the transportation company to have it independently tested and compared to any brand-name antifreeze. “Without telling us, they did it, and they actually came up and told us our product is better. It’s cleaner and higher quality.”

Locally-Made Benefits Rose attributes the high quality of NRC Alaska products in part to the scale of the company’s recycling operation. “For huge manufacturing plants in the Lower 48, their job is just to get the product to the lowest level that meets standards. But we have a much more concentrated effort and smaller quantities, so our quality control is far better.”

Another aspect that contributes to the high quality is that it’s more concentrated. Typically antifreeze is blended 50/50 glycol to water. NRC Alaska’s blends are 60/40 glycol to water. “It’s a little bit colder up here, and we need a little bit stronger protection,” Rose says.

14 | April 2019

As a final assurance for those with remaining doubts, many of the dealerships operating in Alaska, which directly represent automobile manufacturers and are very familiar with their standards and requirements, carry the NRC Alaska products made in Anchorage. “If those dealers trust the product is right, everyone else can, too.” And the cherry on top: NRC Alaska’s prices are on par with other brands.

The product isn’t just right in terms of quality, it’s right for the environment in multiple ways. The water extracted during the distillation process is actually clean enough that NRC Alaska has a discharge permit from AWWU to release it directly into the sewer system. The solid contaminants need to be shipped down south, where they are dried out, made inert, and can then be safely placed in a landfill.

But previous to NRC Alaska building this recycling plant, the only option for antifreeze in Alaska was to buy new or to buy a recycled product that was manufactured in the Lower 48—meaning the dirty antifreeze had to be shipped south, processed, and then shipped back to be blended. Water is heavy, and all of the weight and bulk of shipping antifreeze is both costly and carries a much larger carbon footprint.

“So companies are being more green, more environmentally conscious, and saving money because they’re not paying freight everywhere, and they’re supporting local economy and local people that live here,” says Rose. “Our goal is that

In 2018, NRC Alaska sold approximately 500,000 gallons of Alaska-made products, including antifreeze, windshield wiper fluid, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), and propylene glycol heat transfer fluid, which is nontoxic and commonly used in building mechanical systems.

NRC Alaska is also the only local manufacturer of DEF, which reduces the negative impact of diesel engine exhaust. Its use is mandatory for many new diesel trucks and engines to meet emission standards. NRC Alaska manufactures DEF to meet American Petroleum Institute certification.

The company started selling DEF in 2014, and today still uses a steel tank that used to be in operation at Matanuska Maid, a dairy in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley that closed in 2007. NRC Alaska produces standard and marine-grade DEF, and in fact is providing DEF (through a distributer) to Edison Chouest Offshore, which won the Alyeska/SERVS marine services contract in 2018.

Also in the company’s Alaskan Made product line: windshield wiper fluid. Recently NRC Alaska partnered with Costco in Fairbanks to sell 2.5 gallon jugs of Subzero windshield wiper fluid, rated to -60 degree temperatures. “They’ve been a hit,” Rose says. “We did it at first as kind of a ‘Costco size’ because everything is bigger at Costco, and we thought people would love the -60 rating because usually you see just up to -40… But we found actually the size was what was really popular, not just the blend.”

This ability to really cater not just a product but it’s packaging to local needs is the result of NRC Alaska’s focus on Alaska. Overall, to Rose’s view everyone wins as NRC Alaska increases it’s Made in Alaska line of products. “We are helping companies achieve their green initiatives, save money on freight, support recycling, and—most importantly—support our local economy.” Hard to argue.

3D Printing It’s in an entirely different manufacturing space; nonetheless, ImagineItAlaska is also forging a path to new products and added value in the Alaska manu-

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

facturing landscape. In a broad glance, the company’s service offering is simple— 3D printing. But the scale of how 3D printing can be utilized by businesses large and small in the Last Frontier is staggering.

Owner and COO Levi Basler founded ImagineItAlaska in December 2017, but his initial interest in 3D printing was as a hobby. “I bought a 3D printer from a local vendor, just a desktop one. Once I had the printer and I learned a little bit of the design program that came with it, I said, ‘Ok, now I have to design something for myself,’ which I then produced on my machine. Within a couple of hours, to be holding something in your hand that literally came from nothing— that got to me.”

He recognized the significant potential value that such a service could provide to the Alaska business community, specifically small/start-up businesses with limited budgets or established/larger businesses with specific, one-off needs.

“We focus on low-run manufacturing for businesses or projects that may not be able to afford [or don’t need] a largescale, 10,000-piece injection molding process,” Basler explains.

But even for those who would benefit from a project of that scale, local 3D printing can still be an asset. “Oftentimes, for a business looking at developing a new product or making changes to a current design that’s already being produced, what they’ll have to do is figure out the changes, submit a mold, which is really expensive, and then be sent a test piece, just to realize they have to change the mold again. With value added 3D printing, it’s rapid prototyping and design integration.”

3D printing locally has the added benefit of shortened timelines. There’s no need to travel outside of Alaska or wait for products to be mailed back and forth, especially for a business in Anchorage, where ImagineItAlaska is located. While the company generally schedules four days to print an item, for a client in dire need Basler says the company can potentially provide a turnaround of twenty-four hours, depending on the job.

Basler grew up in Willow “without power or running water for fourteen years” and is intimately aware of the challenges Alaska can present when it comes to access.

While a location in Anchorage doesn’t solve all of those access challenges, it’s certainly more convenient than leavwww.akbizmag.com

ing the state to travel down south or even to international locations like China.

After recognizing the potential of 3D printing for business, Basler reached out to local Angel Investors, and after a three-year process, was able to open his doors.

A Year of Operations While the business started slow, he says it’s picked up and the year has gone well—well enough that he now has two employees: Mal Obeso, additive manufacturing design specialist (or CAD specialist, when he’s not feeling formal), and Connie King, who

manages business development.

Obeso is also from Alaska and graduated in December 2018 from UAA with a degree in mechanical engineering. He shares Basler’s passion for 3D printing and has his own printer at home. He interacts with and advises clients to ensure that their 3D printed item is manufactured to fit their requirements—a process that can be more complicated than many may think.

One important decision is what material to use for the job. “Most people don’t really know the best material to use unless they have previous experience working with another 3D printer,” Obeso says.

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One option is PLA, a corn-based plastic “generally regarded as food-safe,” Basler says, that can be used for something like a cookie cutter or a cup or a purely decorative item. He describes another option, ABS, as “your standard, non-potablewater type material that you probably already have in your house.” Legos, for example, are made of ABS, as are the keys on a keyboard. The material is in no way dangerous for people to interact with, it’s just not appropriate for any activity related to consumption. PLA and ABS are generally printed in a single color, and while it’s possible to switch between colors while printing, Basler says people generally opt to have the items painted after they’re printed if the project calls for intricate or extensive colors.

Full-color sandstone, on the other hand, is made of specialized gypsum, which most people may recognize as the material used for drywall. For 3D printing, full-color sandstone is colored by Inkjet color just like a printer, so the printing and coloring take place simultaneously. This process can produce an authentic-looking stone lamp, for example, or a statue with real-looking texture; however it’s one of the less sturdy materials and wouldn’t be appropriate for a mechanical application.

For those kinds of needs, ImagineItAlaska keeps photopolymer resins in stock, such as “when a client says they need something that’s really tough and durable, like two gears working together,” says Basler. Unlike ABS, PLA, and sandstone, which print from the bottom up, for photopolymer resin printing a laser is actually shone through liquid plastic and the product is printed from the top down.

This is followed by a curing phase “that brings out the mechanical properties,” Basler explains.

Endless Applications ImagineItAlaska dove into 2019 with two exciting projects for Alaska Native organizations: a model of the proposed layout for Mertarvik and a model of a PASS, or Portable Alternative Sanitation System, for ANTHC. Both models, painted by a third party after they were printed, were displayed at AFN. “That was a great start to the year, really a cool project,” Basler says.

King is particularly bullish about applications for 3D printing in Alaska’s growing healthcare industry. For example, there are open source designs available online for 16 | April 2019

A photopolymer printer, which produces an item by shining a laser through liquid plastic. © Tasha Anderson

items such as adaptive aids, which may help people with grip or other mobility issues to open jars, turn a key, or other daily actions.

Open source designs are “print-ready files that are available for people if they need them for personal use or for institutional use, but not for resale,” says King.

“So someone couldn’t put their name on it and sell it in a clamshell as their product.”

But, if a healthcare provider wanted to give a device to all of their patients to help with say, turning on a light switch, ImagineItAlaska can legally produce those products. “It’s very doable for someone like Mal to resize them and make them fit, because the beauty of one-off or lowvolume production is that it’s not cost prohibitive at all to customize.”

Other applications in healthcare include models of bones or organs as visual aids, a custom brace for an animal, or modeling crowns for a dental office.

ImagineItAlaska has an online interface where open source designs, or original designs, can be submitted. While the submission process is automated, the team takes the time to confer with every client to make sure the product is designed, and the best material is selected, to meet the client’s needs.

For ImagineItAlaska, at the forefront of this kind of manufacturing in Alaska, education has been essential. “We have focused a lot of our efforts on building a base of knowledge,” Basler says. “We want people to understand what 3D printing is and how it can be used. Then they can figure out their own ways to make it work for them, while knowing there’s someone local that can provide this service. 3D printing is here; it’s not something that’s five or ten years down the road, and it’s not something you have to travel out of the country to find.

It’s here. It’s now.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

T R A N S P O R TAT I O N

Charter, Lease, Buy Either way businesses got to fly

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

18 | April 2019

W

ith only about 5,000 miles of paved roads to provide transportation throughout the 663,300 square miles of the Last Frontier, businesses know how essential air travel is to accessing clients, resources, and opportunities.

“We have a visible member company footprint in Alaska precisely because, for a lot of companies up there, they can’t do what they want to do unless they have an airplane,” explains Dan Hubbard, senior vice president of communications for the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA). “It’s a state with a lot of rural

areas. It’s a state where a lot of places are not accessible by road or other means of transport that are more efficient.”

When air travel is necessary, there are five primary ways for businesses to access air transportation in Alaska: scheduled services, charter services, leasing a plane, fractional ownership, and full ownership of a plane. Which of these options will best meet a business’ needs depends on a number of factors. For most situations in Alaska, businesses will likely use aircraft regulated under Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 licensing, which covers the majority

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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of small commercial airplanes, those with nine seats or fewer. Large commercial carriers, such as Alaska Airlines, operate their aircraft under a Part 121 license.

Though Part 135 covers many aircraft in the state, there are a few exceptions for those using general operating and flight rules, or Part 91, for commercial reasons, explains Alaska Air Carriers Association (AACA) Executive Director Jane Dale. One such exception would be carriers serving lodges as incidentals to the lodge business.

“You might just choose to buy an airplane and own it outright for your company and then use it whenever you need it,” says Hubbard, noting the type of plane a company purchases depends on its needs. “You might choose to charter a plane, which means you’d call a company that has a plane to get you where you need to go and bring you back.”

Chartered vs. Scheduled Flights Matt Atkinson of Northern Alaska Tour Company and Wright Air Service points out that though his company specializes in charter flights in the Interior, scheduled flights will always be the cheapest alternative.

A company needs to look beyond chartering or leasing a plane to owning one when the opportunity costs of being grounded become higher than the costs of owning and operating an aircraft.

“Certainly, if you can jump on a scheduled seat to pick-your-village and come back on a scheduled seat the next day or later in the day, depending on the amount of servicing needed in that community, that’s by far the cheapest way to go—by far. A charter can’t compete with that,” Atkinson says, noting that there are some drawbacks. “Scheduled service is tough.

You have to have full planes that have mail and freight sticking to a schedule.

You don’t have that flexibility [that comes with a charter flight].”

As a charter operation, the businesses that Wright Air Service works with are mostly contractors, service organizations,

Alaska Native corporations, and government agencies. In addition to the service sector, there are businesses that typically provide goods to more remote parts of Alaska via air.

“Where a charter starts to make sense is if you have a generator repair person who is costing $200 an hour; you don’t want to have that guy staying overnight— plus they’re going to have lots of material,” Atkinson says. Depending on the job, that material could include hundreds of pounds of equipment, which may require a business to reserve multiple seats on a scheduled flight to guarantee everything makes it onboard.

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“If you need to have someone up there for two or three hours, and they’re bringing a bunch of stuff and some of it’s hazardous stuff, then chartering starts to make sense,” he says. “We have people who help determine [the cost benefit of chartering a plane] because sometimes, especially if you’re a contractor from the Lower 48, you’re not familiar with how it works up here.”

The equation to determine the cost of a charter is pretty straightforward, says Atkinson: in general cost is based on the type of aircraft being chartered, flight time, ground time, and any additional fuel requirements.

“There’s a certain opportunity cost as well; that’s why ground time is associated with that,” Atkinson says. “If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars of aircraft and the pilot away from base, they can’t do anything else. So, you have to have a revenue equation that makes sense.”

Though every company is different, Wright Air Service’s approach is to make sure it is able to factor in the opportunity costs as well as an incentive for a pilot to take the job.

“When it’s forty below, you got to talk someone into going and hanging out for

www.akbizmag.com

several hours with no services and having to start the plane every hour,” Atkinson says. “And it’s a competitive market for pilots.”

In most cases, ground time is cheaper than flight time, as there is no fuel consumption to account for and the client isn’t generally charged for wear and tear on the engine and airframe when the plane is grounded.

Because most prices among charter companies are comparable, the real competitive edge for charter flight operators—at least in the Interior—is the ability to quickly confirm a booking, explains Atkinson.

“A portion of the time a charter will get people who are calling everyone they can think of,” he says. “The competitive nature for us is our ability to have the resources— both the planes and the pilots—available to quickly convert that to a confirmed booking.”

Though from the consumer side safety is almost always the number one factor, it’s mostly a given, notes Atkinson, because if a business is not comfortable with an operator they won’t even call them.

When considering who to contact for chartered air service, many businesses

Alaska Business

“A portion of the time a charter will get people who are calling everyone they can think of…

The competitive nature for us is our ability to have the resources— both the planes and the pilots—available to quickly convert that to a confirmed booking.”

—Matt Atkinson Northern Alaska Tour Company

April 2019 | 21

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take into account the fact that typically charter companies specialize in specific industries, such as mining, or are based in a single region.

“Everything exists in Alaska in all shapes and sizes; they are capable of going on field or off field, large and small—I think the real question here is, if somebody has a specific question and knows what their load is, they’re welcome to call us,” Dale says.

Dale notes that the AACA will “never recommend” just one carrier but can assist in pointing business owners toward a group of carriers that might best meet their needs. However, chartering is not always the best fit for a business.

“Companies may decide, ‘Let’s just charter,’ because though it may cost more on a per-flight basis they’re going to spend far less than if they own an airplane,” Hubbard says. “That said, if you own a newspaper company and you have ten community newspapers, each with its own printing press—we have a company like this in the Lower 48 down in Kentucky—any time one of those printing presses goes down, you’re losing money.

You’ve got to get a maintenance specialist from your headquarters to the printing press with the tools and get it back up and running as quickly as possible. In such a case, you’re going to want to own your own plane because you routinely have the demand week to week.”

Buy or Lease Before a business takes the plunge to just purchase an airplane, there are a few more options, including fractional ownership and leasing.

“A lot of people find real value in what they call fractional ownership of a plane.

What that means is that you go in with other parties, let’s say three or four, in the ownership of a plane,” Hubbard says, noting that it’s a similar concept to a timeshare. In such situations, the scheduling is managed by a central person or agency, while the partial owners divide the costs of buying and maintaining the aircraft.

Another alternative is an offer known as a “jet card,” which is a similar concept to a prepaid phone card for a business.

Typically, a number of flight hours are paid upfront on the card and are drawn down through use.

“So those are a few of the utilization models that you find that are prevalent 22 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

and used by people who need to use an airplane for business,” Hubbard says.

Another option for businesses is leasing a plane. This can be a solution for companies that expect to see their territory grow significantly as they scale up.

“Depending on the kind of airplane you’re going to have that is, in part, going to dictate what kind of range you’re going to have,” Hubbard says.

“So you may—I see this all the time with companies in NBAA’s membership—start out with a 100-mile territory around your headquarters, which you could probably handle with a piston airplane.

“Well, maybe five years on, your territory expands maybe an additional 100 miles a year outward. You can still do all of that, but you’re probably going to more easily do it with something like a turbo prop or a small jet.”

In such cases, leasing an aircraft can be a very attractive option, as it minimizes the cost of expanding a company’s footprint.

“The leasing versus ownership is a financing question,” Hubbard says. “In this case, what you’re asking is about the cost-for-utilization question. The underlying questions are the same: How often do

www.akbizmag.com

“A lot of people find real value in what they call fractional ownership of a plane.

What that means is that you go in with other parties, let’s say three or four, in the ownership of a plane.”

—Dan Hubbard Senior Vice President of Communications National Business Aviation Association

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 23

we think we’re going to need an aircraft for business? What is the mission profile?

How far are we going to have to go? How many people are going? Do we need more than one plane for the mission?”

A company needs to look beyond chartering or leasing a plane to owning one when the opportunity costs of being grounded become higher than the costs of owning and operating an aircraft, explains Atkinson.

“Where we see it is with contractors: for example, somebody who focuses on rural airports that has tens of millions of dollars of gear and crew stationed somewhere and there is only a short window of time to get the work done—they can spend a lot of money on a pilot and a plane because being down could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Atkinson says. “Looking at the opportunity costs is a great generalization that can be applied to industrial sectors.”

Vanessa Thompson of 40-Mile Air, which primarily provides backcountry hunting and fishing charters in addition 24 | April 2019

“The range among airplane types is very profound, even within a single type, depending on what features you have: what avionics are on it, what cabin connectivity systems are in there, and other features in the cabin.”

—Dan Hubbard Senior Vice President of Communications National Business Aviation Association

to survey work for miners and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, breaks down the choice another way.

“They would need to be flying 300-plus hours a year for it to be cost effective to own their own plane,” she says. “And if they had to hire a pilot to fly their plane, that would increase their costs tremendously.”

Northern Alaska Tour Company took

the plunge and vertically integrated the business when they hit the point at which they were unable to continue to grow the tourism side of their business because they couldn’t procure enough charter seats.

“So in order to maintain our ability to grow, we kind of had to vertically get into aviation. And that’s not easy. We had

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

a couple Chieftains, then we got three, and then a couple more,” Atkinson says.

The company now owns seventeen Chieftain aircraft.

Business owners that decided to move forward with purchasing planes can either shop for new planes or pre-owned ones, depending on the company’s needs and budget.

“If you want to buy a new airplane of some kind, usually you’re working with the manufacturer,” Hubbard says. “They have locations through which they are selling their airplanes. That’s true in the case of jets and turboprops and also just piston airplanes.”

For those who opt for a pre-owned airplane, they need to research and settle on a broker who specializes in the kind of airplanes the business owner is looking for.

“Sort of like if you’re going to buy a preowned car—you might want to go to a dealer who specializes in that car because they know all the particulars. And, in the case of brokers, they also often know of people who own that type of airplane at the moment and might be looking to sell or maybe are in the process of selling it,” Hubbard says.

The cost range for airplanes is enormous, with the divide between single engine piston aircraft to long-range jets in the millions of dollars.

“The range among airplane types is very profound, even within a single type, depending on what features you have: what avionics are on it, what cabin connectivity systems are in there, and other features in the cabin,” Hubbard says.

However, no matter what type of plane or how a company pursues air transport in Alaska, the rural and rugged nature of the state makes airplanes an essential part of many businesses growth plans.

“There are so many places that people need to go and want to go—to see and experience and live and extract resources—and there’s no ground infrastructure,” Atkinson says.

That said, Atkinson notes that owning a plane is not an easy task, which is why so many companies and agencies rely on charter.

“You’ve got to have margins and wherewithal to deal with owning a plane,” Atkinson says. “Owning a plane is tough; it’s lower margin.” www.akbizmag.com

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April 2019 | 25

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | 2019 JOBS FORECAST

Bright(ish) Horizons Experts predict better times for some Alaskan job seekers

By Kathryn Mackenzie

B

y most accounts Alaska’s economy is finally set to emerge from several years of recession. The state’s residents can expect more employment opportunities with about 1,400 new jobs coming online in industries that have been stripping costs and reducing headcounts over the past four years. The primary drivers behind this (albeit slow) recessionary emergence are military spending, new and legacy projects in the oil and gas industry, and tourism, according to Alaska Economic Trends Job Forecast for 2019

by Karinne Wiebold, economist for the Alaska Department of Labor.

With that said, there are some unknowns keeping analysts and industry watchers cautiously optimistic about the state’s economic recovery.

“The state has a number of challenges and opportunities in the coming years.

There is increased oilfield activity, tourism numbers are strong, and the F-35 installation at Eielson Air Force base is bringing in a lot of federal money as the base gets ready for the active military

26 | April 2019

and family arrivals as well as federal civilian employment,” says Wiebold. “At the same time, the state government has real structural issues relating to revenue and expenditures that must be addressed.

The economy will be affected by those policy decisions, although what will be done and the effects are unknown.”

Earlier this year Governor Mike Dunleavy proposed wide ranging budget cuts, calling for significant reductions to education, healthcare, and transportation, among other sectors. He also unveiled a plan to repeal municipalities’ current ability to levy taxes on oil and gas property, including exploration, production, and pipeline transportation properties.

Dunleavy’s proposal would redirect those funds—an estimated $440 million—to the state in a move that primarily affects the North Slope Borough, which generates the majority of oil and gas tax revenue in the state.

Economic Drivers Even as Alaska’s elected officials attempt to address the state’s $1.5 billion deficit problem, economists are predicting brighter days ahead for many of Alaska’s vital industries, including the natural resources sector, which in Alaska Economic Trends Job Forecast for 2019 includes mining and oil and gas.

“Sectors devastated early in the recession are beginning to add jobs again. Oil industry employment stabilized in mid- to

late-2018, and increased activity on the North Slope signals resumed growth,” writes Wiebold in Alaska Economic Trends Job Forecast for 2019.

New projects slated to come online in the oil and gas sector include Conoco­ Phillips’ Greater Mooses Tooth 2 (GMT2) and CD5 expansion, as well as Hilcorp’s Milne Point Moose Pad. First oil is planned at GMT2 in late 2021. The development plan is for up to forty-eight wells, requiring an estimated 700 jobs during peak construction. Along with projects in North Slope legacy fields, the industry is anticipating eventual output from new discoveries such as Oil Search’s Pikka unit.

Earlier this year, Oil Search reported its total proved and probable reserves plus contingent resources for oil and condensate more than doubled from 2018 estimates to 253.5 million barrels due to an additional 127.5 million barrels of oil expected to be extracted from the Pikka unit.

In March the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) told members of the state House Finance Committee that currently producing fields “remain the backbone of state oil production in [the] near to medium term” and future fields— those currently being evaluated by operators—will start to play a larger role in production in the next five to six years. DNR analysts predict new fields will increase production to more than 533,000 barrels per day on the North Slope by next year.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | 2019 JOBS FORECAST

The oil and gas industry is expected to gain about 300 jobs in 2019 compared to the previous year, an increase of 3.2 percent, according to Alaska Economic Trends Job Forecast for 2019. Even modest growth comes as good news for oil and gas workers; since late 2015 it’s estimated the oil and gas industry lost 4,900 jobs.

Mining should see an uptick in spending in 2019 as Teck’s Red Dog Mine, Northern Star’s Pogo Mine, and the Fort Knox gold mine owned by Kinross Gold all have expansion plans in the works. Trilogy Metals and partner South32 have each agreed to add $1 million to expand exploration efforts at their Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects to identify and test for new drill targets in the Ambler Mining District. The additional $2 million brings the total budget for 2019 to roughly $18.2 million.

driver in 2019 is tourism. Alaska’s beauty and deep cultural roots draw hundreds of thousands of people to the state every year, adding seasonal jobs to both the tourism and hospitality industries.

John Binkley, president of Cruise Lines International Association Alaska (CLIA Alaska), said Alaska’s cruise industry will see unprecedented growth over the next two years, according to the association’s website.

Alaska is expected to see an estimated 1.31 million cruise visitors in 2019, an increase of 12 percent compared to 2019, CLIA Alaska reports.

Binkley attributes the growth to high demand for Alaska cruises combined with “an extremely high level of guest experience.”

A healthy tourism season—both on and off land—will naturally lead to an increase in hospitality jobs as visitors book more

“The recession has reduced demand in the retail sector, and until the economy recovers we expect those losses to continue.

Retail losses in 2019 are forecasted to be a fraction of what they were in 2018, but it is not expected to add jobs at this point.

Additionally, the popularity of online sales reduces local demand,” says Wiebold, explaining that online shopping is causing the “Amazon effect,” or the ongoing evolution and disruption of the retail market, which is putting a damper on traditional retail sales nationwide.

Other sectors that aren’t expected to rebound much in 2019 include professional and business services: legal services, accounting, architecture and engineering, management and administrative support, waste management, and manufacturing (primarily seafood processing, according to the report).

Mining should see an uptick in spending in 2019 as Teck’s Red Dog Mine, Northern Star’s Pogo Mine, and the Fort Knox gold mine owned by Kinross Gold all have expansion plans in the works.

Meanwhile, Alaska’s construction industry should see job growth of about 6 percent or 900 additional jobs in 2019, according to Wiebold, making it one of the biggest growth sectors in the coming year.

Preparing for the bed-down of two F-35 squadrons (forty-eight aircraft) will require constructing the necessary facilities to support them—and that will require crews to build them. The first squadron of fighter jets is arriving at Eielson Airforce Base in 2020. Both will touchdown by 2022.

Wiebold reports that preparations include a half-billion dollars in new construction just to accommodate the jets plus additional structures for active duty and civilian support staff. “This is big for the Interior, but it will also boost construction and professional and business services around the state, mainly in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough,” Wiebold writes.

It’s also expected that the November 2018 earthquake will result in construction job growth as the ice and snow melt and the full impact of the temblor on businesses, homes, and infrastructure is revealed.

The third primary statewide economic 28 | April 2019

hotel rooms, visit more restaurants, and schedule outings with local tourism companies. Overall, tourism is (including the cruise industry and the hospitality industry) expected to add 1,000 jobs statewide.

Healthcare is generally a stable-togrowing industry in terms of jobs and for good reason—just about everybody needs to see a medical professional at one point or another. Healthcare job stability isn’t expected to change much in 2019. The industry is set to grow, but moderately, adding some 500 jobs this year compared to 700 in 2018, according to Alaska Economic Trends Job Forecast for 2019.

On the Other Hand…

While many of Alaska’s industries are set to grow—even if modestly—in the coming year, it’s not all sunshine and roses on the horizon just yet.

Retail will continue to remain strapped.

The industry shed 900 positions in 2018 and 700 in 2017. Wiebold expects the losses to slow in 2019, but the industry will still lose 300 jobs, in part due to the closure of several major retailers 2018, including Sam’s Club and Sears in Anchorage and Fairbanks.

The economic report forecasts professional services will lose 200 jobs in 2019 compared to 600 last year as increased construction and oil and gas activity generate demand.

Seafood processing will drop about 100 jobs in 2019, primarily due to “changes to seafood processing techniques and the growing popularity of overseas processing.” Erratic salmon runs will also be a factor in the industry’s performance.

The Big Picture Every major industry in Alaska is tied to the others in one way or another. The oil and gas industry creates thousands of jobs, which creates demand in the construction industry to house workers, who then spend money in the retail sector. Tourists fill cruise ships and seaside towns, spend money on trinkets and gifts, and fill hotels and restaurants. All of these industries intertwine to create jobs for Alaskans. Even if what’s happening in Alaska in 2019 is considered a slow crawl out of recession, a slow crawl out is far better than dipping further in—as we’ve done time and time again, Alaska is moving forward.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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Natural resource development, land management, oil and gas sector, AES, engineering and construction, environmental, project management, geotechnical, facilities management and logistics, commercial sector, federal sector.

alaska.providence.org | Info.PHSA@providence.org ProvidenceHealthAlaska | provak Healthcare, serving Alaskans in six communities: Anchorage, Eagle River, Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Kodiak Island, Seward and Valdez. PH&SA includes Providence Alaska Medical Center.

asrc.com | ASRCExternalAffairs@asrc.com arcticsloperegionalcorporation ASRC is the largest Alaskan-owned and operated company and has six major business segments: government services, petroleum refining and marketing, energy support services, industrial services, construction, and resource development.

Estab. in Alaska: 1973 Alaska Employees:

4,941

Worldwide Employees:

9,027

Year Founded:

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

4,329

Worldwide Employees:

12,671

Year Founded:

1902

Estab. in Alaska: 1902 Alaska Employees:

4,200

Worldwide Employees: 119,000

Year Founded:

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

3,628

Worldwide Employees:

12,736

Year Founded:

Carrs Safeway

#

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

The 2019 Alaska Business Corporate 100 Directory

1901

Estab. in Alaska: 1950 Retail food, drug, and fuel.

Safeway/Albertsons | Boise, Idaho

Alaska Employees:

2,700

Worldwide Employees: 283,000 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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2550 Denali St., Suite 1000 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-265-5600 Ron Duncan, CEO Telecommunications

SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium 3100 Channel Dr., Suite 300 Juneau, AK 99801 907-463-4000 Charles Clement, President/CEO Health & Wellness

Foundation Health Partners 1650 Cowles St. Fairbanks, AK 99701 907-452-8181 Shelley Ebenal, CEO Health & Wellness

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Alaska Airlines 3600 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-266-7200 Brad Tilden, Chairman/CEO Alaska Air Group Transportation

www.akbizmag.com

gci.com |

GCIAK |

GCIAK

GCI delivers communication and technology services in the consumer and business markets. Headquartered in Alaska with locations in the US, GCI has delivered services for more than 35 years to some of the most remote communities and in some of the most challenging conditions in North America.

searhc.org |

marketing@searhc.org

SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium provides the highest quality health services in partnership with Native people to improve their health, prevention, and awareness to the highest possible level. We serve communities throughout the Southeast Alaska archipelago.

foundationhealth.org | fmhcommunityfeedback@foundationhealth.org FairbanksMemorialHospital General medical and surgical facilities that offer comprehensive care for every stage of life, including specialized services in behavioral health, endocrinology, hospice care, cancer treatment, medical imaging, dermatology, rehabilitation, cardiology, sleep medicine, diabetes care, and much more.

alaskaair.com Alaska Airlines and regional carrier Horizon Air provide passenger and cargo service to 115 destinations in Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and the Lower 48.

Alaska Air Group | Seattle

Alaska Business

Year Founded:

1979

Estab. in Alaska: 1979 Alaska Employees:

2,000

Worldwide Employees:

2,200

Year Founded:

1975

Estab. in Alaska: 1975 Alaska Employees:

2,000

Worldwide Employees:

2,000

Year Founded:

2017

Estab. in Alaska: 2017 Alaska Employees:

1,851

Worldwide Employees:

1,851

Year Founded:

1932

Estab. in Alaska: 1932 Alaska Employees:

1,825

Worldwide Employees:

23,000

April 2019 | 31

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

GCI

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

BP Exploration (Alaska) PO Box 196612 Anchorage, AK 99515-6612 907-561-5111 Janet Weiss, BP Alaska President Oil & Gas

Bristol Bay Native Corporation 111 W. 16th Ave., Suite 400 Anchorage, AK 99501 907-278-3602 Jason Metrokin, President/CEO Native Organization

alaska.bp.com

Year Founded:

BP operates the Greater Prudhoe Bay area, which consists of the Prudhoe Bay field and a number of smaller fields.

This area produces more than half of Alaska’s oil and gas production. BP also owns interests in seven other North Slope oil fields and pipelines, including TAPS. BP PLC | London, England

Estab. in Alaska: 1959 Alaska Employees:

1,560

Worldwide Employees:

74,000

Year Founded: bbnc.net | info@bbnc.net BristolBayNativeCorporation |

bristol-bay-native-corporation

Construction, government services, industrial services, and tourism.

1959

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

1,553

Worldwide Employees:

4,090

1972

North Pacific Seafoods

Year Founded:

627 Shelikof St. Kodiak, AK 99615 907-486-3234 Kazuo Taguchi, Chairman Seafood

Estab. in Alaska: 1972

Peter Pan Seafoods PO Box 16 King Cove, AK 99612 907-497-2234 Barry Collier, President/CEO Seafood

northpacificseafoods.com Seafood processing and marketing.

Marubeni Corporation | Tokyo, Japan

ppsf.com

Alaska USA Federal Credit Union

Maruha Nichiro | Tokyo, Japan

flyravn.com |

sales@flyravn.com |

RavnAlaska |

ravn-alaska

Scheduled passenger, cargo, mail and charter service to more than 115 communities throughout Alaska.

AlaskaUSA.org | AlaskaUSAFCU |

700 G St., PO Box 100360 Anchorage, AK 99510 907-276-1215 Joe Marushack, President Oil & Gas

Jacobs 949 E. 36th Ave., Suite 500 Anchorage, AK 99508 907-762-1500 Nate Aulds, VP/General Manager Industrial Services

32 | April 2019

1,530

conocophillipsalaska.com | n.m.lowman@conocophillips.com conocophillips | COP_Alaska An independent exploration and production company. We are Alaska’s largest oil producer and have been a leader in oil and gas exploration and development in the state for more than fifty years.

ConocoPhillips Company | Houston, Texas

jacobs.com |

JacobsConnects |

JacobsConnects |

jacobs

Global professional services leader serving the Alaska oil and gas, transportation, port and maritime, environmental, and water and wastewater markets with camp, equipment, infrastructure, scientific, engineering, fabrication, construction, operations, maintenance, and turnaround services.

Jacobs | Dallas, Texas

1907

Estab. in Alaska: 1907 Alaska Employees:

1,470

Worldwide Employees:

1,516

Year Founded:

1948

Estab. in Alaska: 1948 Alaska Employees:

1,300

Worldwide Employees:

1,300

Year Founded:

memberservice@alaskausa.org alaska-usa-federal-credit-union

PO Box 196613 Anchorage, AK 99519-6613 Alaska USA is a member-owned cooperative committed 907-563-4567 to delivering products and services that support financial Geofferey S. Lundfelt, President/CEO wellbeing.

Financial Services

ConocoPhillips Alaska

1,500

Worldwide Employees:

Year Founded:

Peter Pan Seafoods, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro. Peter Pan Seafoods operates four shore based processing facilities in Alaska processing salmon, crab, and groundfish. Peter Pan’s sale’s team markets seafood in the United States and around the world.

Ravn Air Group 4700 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-266-8394 David Pflieger, President/CEO Transportation

Alaska Employees:

1948

Estab. in Alaska: 1948 Alaska Employees:

1,279

Worldwide Employees:

1,830

Year Founded:

1952

Estab. in Alaska: 1952 Alaska Employees:

1,095

Worldwide Employees:

11,100

Year Founded:

1946

Estab. in Alaska: 1962 Alaska Employees:

1,000

Worldwide Employees:

77,000

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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3800 Centerpoint Dr., Suite 1200 Anchorage, AK 99503-4396 907-563-8866 Gabriel Kompkoff, President/CEO Native Organization

Alaska Commercial Co. 3830 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-273-4600 Walter Pickett, General Manager Retail/Wholesale Trade

The Alaska Club 5201 E. Tudor Rd. Anchorage, AK 99507 907-337-9550 Robert Brewster, CEO Health & Wellness

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972

The Chugach family of companies provides government services, facilities services, and energy services. Chugach also manages a diverse portfolio of investments and land/ resource development opportunities.

Alaska Employees:

1,000

Worldwide Employees:

5,700

Year Founded: alaskacommercial.com

1867

Estab. in Alaska: 1867

Rural Alaska’s largest retailer of food, apparel, and general merchandise with continuous service since 1867.

Alaska Employees:

1,000

The North West Co. | Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Worldwide Employees:

1,500

thealaskaclub.com |

marketingmail@thealaskaclub.com |

TheAlaskaClub

The Alaska Club has a network of statewide locations offering a variety of group fitness classes, state-of-the-art equipment, personal training, swimming, youth activities, amenities, and more. Providing a variety of fitness options for adults and children. The Alaska Club, the way fitness should be.

Partnership Capital Growth | San Francisco

Year Founded:

westwardseafoods.com Seafood processing and sales.

1986

Estab. in Alaska: 1986 Alaska Employees:

1,000

Worldwide Employees:

1,000

Year Founded:

Westward Seafoods PO Box 920608 Dutch Harbor, AK 99692-0608 907-581-1660 Mark JoHahnson, President Seafood

Year Founded:

chugach.com | communications@chugach.com chugachalaskacorporation | chugach

1989

Estab. in Alaska: 1989 Alaska Employees:

987

Worldwide Employees:

1,020

WHEN IT COMES TO

COMMERCIAL

LENDING NOBODY KNOWS ALASKA BUSINESSES

BETTER Find the tools to succeed at go.alaskausa.org/business

www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 33

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Chugach Alaska Corporation

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Unisea PO Box 920008 Dutch Harbor, AK 99692 425-881-8181 Tom Enlow, President/CEO Seafood

Lynden 6441 S. Airpark Pl. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-245-1544 Jim Jansen, Chairman Transportation

Alaska General Seafoods PO Box 149 Naknek, AK 99633 907-246-4285 Brad Wilkins, General Manager Seafood

Central Peninsula Hospital 250 Hospital Pl. Soldotna, AK 99669 907-714-4404 Rick Davis, CEO Health & Wellness

Alaska Regional Hospital 2801 DeBarr Rd. Anchorage, AK 99508 907-276-1131 Julie Taylor, CEO Health & Wellness

Colaska 4000 Old Seward Hwy., Suite 101 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-273-1000 Jon Fuglestad, President Industrial Services

Calista Corporation 5015 Business Park Blvd., Suite 3000 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-275-2800 Andrew Guy, President/CEO Native Organization

Mat-Su Regional Medical Center PO Box 1687 Palmer, AK 99645 907-861-6000 Dave Wallace, CEO Health & Wellness

34 | April 2019

Year Founded:

Unisea.com Unisea’s largest Alaska operations are the state of the art processing facilities in Dutch Harbor. Unisea processes surimi and fillets from pollock and processes crab, cod, and halibut.

Nippon Suisan Kaisha | Tokyo, Japan

lynden.com | information@lynden.com LyndenInc | lynden-incorporated Lynden is a family of transportation companies with capabilities including truckload and less-than-truckload service, scheduled and charter barges, rail barges, intermodal bulk chemical hauls, scheduled and chartered air freighters, domestic and international air/ocean forwarding, and multi-modal logistics.

Estab. in Alaska: 1975 Alaska Employees:

978

Worldwide Employees:

1,037

Year Founded:

1906

Estab. in Alaska: 1954 Alaska Employees:

972

Worldwide Employees:

2,658

Year Founded: akgen.com |

Alaska-General-Seafoods

Alaska General Seafoods is a shore-based seafood processor that acquires, cans, freezes, or provides fresh seafood products to wholesale buyers from around the world.

cpgh.org |

CPH is a Planetree designated hospital offering emergency medical care, surgery, birth center, imaging, laboratory, physical therapy, and behavioral health. Specialties include joint replacement, oncology, neurology, orthopedics, pediatrics, family medicine, general surgery, and internal medicine.

alaskaregional.com |

alaskaregional

24-hour ER department, Family Birth Center, Alaska Regional Imaging Alliance, Center For Surgical Robotics, cancer center, cath lab, diagnostic imaging, heart center and cardiac rehabilitation, orthopedic and spine, rehab unit, nurse residency program, surgical services, therapy dogs.

HCA | Nashville, Tennessee

colaska.com |

info@colaska.com

Colaska is part of the Colas Group, a worldwide leader in transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance.

Colaska’s operating companies cover the entire state of Alaska and include QAP, Secon, Southeast Roadbuilders, Exclusive Paving, AGGPRO, University RediMix, and Emulsion Products Co. Colas USA | Morristown, New Jersey,

calistacorp.com | calista@calistacorp.com calistacorporation | calistacorp Calista Corporation is the parent company of more than 30 subsidiaries in the following industries: military defense contracting, construction, marketing and advertising services, communications, real estate, environmental and natural resource development, and information technology services. matsuregional.com Mat-Su Regional Medical Center is the Valley’s healthcare hub, providing advanced surgical service, including robotics, the area’s only birthing center, emergency services, diagnostic imaging, sleep studies, and three convenient Urgent Care Centers.

Community Health Systems | Nashville, Tennessee

1986

Estab. in Alaska: 1994 Alaska Employees:

925

Worldwide Employees:

950

Year Founded:

voiceofcph

1974

1971

Estab. in Alaska: 1971 Alaska Employees:

920

Worldwide Employees:

920

Year Founded:

1963

Estab. in Alaska: 1963 Alaska Employees:

900

Worldwide Employees: 249,000 (parent company)

Year Founded:

1999

Estab. in Alaska: 1999 Alaska Employees:

815

Worldwide Employees:

815

Year Founded:

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

800

Worldwide Employees:

3,000

Year Founded:

1935

Estab. in Alaska: 1935 Alaska Employees:

800

Worldwide Employees:

800

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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PO Box 249 Girdwood, AK 99587 907-754-2111 Mark Weakland, VP/Hotel General Manager Travel & Tourism

Hope Community Resources 540 W. International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 907-561-5335 Roy Scheller, Executive Director Health & Wellness

Alaska Railroad Corporation PO Box 107500 Anchorage, AK 99510-7500 907-265-2300 Bill O’Leary, President/CEO Transportation

Alyeska Pipeline Service Company PO Box 196660, MS 542 Anchorage, AK 99519-6660 907-787-8700 Thomas Barrett, President Oil & Gas

www.akbizmag.com

alyeskaresort.com |

info@alyeskaresort.com |

alyeskaresort

Alyeska Resort is Alaska’s premier year-round destination.

Just forty miles from Anchorage, it’s a great base camp for summer and winter activities. Featuring the 300 room Hotel Alyeska, ski resort served by seven lifts, seven restaurants, a full service spa, and banquet and meeting facilities.

hopealaska.org | info@hopealaska.org HopeCommunityResources Providing services and supports to Alaskans who experience an intellectual, developmental, or other physical disability; a traumatic brain injury; or a mental health challenge.

alaskarailroad.com |

AlaskaRailroad

Freight rail transportation, passenger rail transportation, and real estate land leasing and permitting. Year-round employees 575-585; Seasonal (summer) employees 125-135; Total employees 700-720.

Alaska Dept. of Commerce, Community & Economic Development | Juneau

alyeska-pipe.com | alyeskamail@alyeska-pipeline.com alyeskapipeline | AlyeskaPipeline Alyeska Pipeline Service Company has operated the Trans Alaska Pipeline System since 1977 and has delivered more than 17 billion barrels of oil. Focused on safe and flawless operations, employees are committed to keeping TAPS sustainable for all of Alaska.

Alaska Business

Year Founded:

1959

Estab. in Alaska: 1959 Alaska Employees:

800

Worldwide Employees:

800

Year Founded:

1968

Estab. in Alaska: 1968 Alaska Employees:

800

Worldwide Employees:

800

Year Founded:

1914

Estab. in Alaska: 1914 Alaska Employees:

748

Worldwide Employees:

750

Year Founded:

1970

Estab. in Alaska: 1970 Alaska Employees:

741

Worldwide Employees:

747

April 2019 | 35

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Alyeska Resort/Hotel Alyeska

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Wells Fargo Bank N.A. 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99503 907-313-7266 Greg Deal, Alaska Region Bank President Financial Services

First National Bank Alaska PO Box 100720 Anchorage, AK 99510-0720 907-777-4362 Betsy Lawer, Chair/CEO Financial Services

Bartlett Regional Hospital 3260 Hospital Dr. Juneau, AK 99801 907-796-8900 Chuck Bill, CEO Health & Wellness

wellsfargoworks.com

Year Founded:

Diversified financial services company, providing businesses of all sizes with checking and savings products, retirement planning, payroll services, merchant services, loans, credit cards, and online tips and tools for building a successful business at wellsfargoworks.com.

Wells Fargo & Company | San Francisco

FNBAlaska.com |

customer.service@FNBAlaska.com

Friendly, knowledgeable Alaskans offering the convenience, service, and value of a full range of deposit, lending, wealth management services, and online and mobile banking. With 28 branches in 18 communities and assets of more than $3.7 billion, we believe in Alaska and have since 1922.

bartletthospital.org | BartlettRegionalHospital | bartlett-regional-hospital

BartlettHosp

Emergency services; diagnostic imaging; critical care; cardiac and pulmonary rehab; speech, infusion, respiratory, occupational, and physical therapy; behavioral health; birthing center; lab services; inpatient and same day surgery; critical care; comprehensive medical and surgical care; and oncology center.

Estab. in Alaska: 1916 Alaska Employees:

6050 Rockwell Ave. Anchorage, AK 99502 800-463-3339 Dale Shaw, Managing Director Transportation

650

Worldwide Employees: 259,000

Year Founded:

1922

Estab. in Alaska: 1922 Alaska Employees:

648

Worldwide Employees:

648

Year Founded:

1885

Estab. in Alaska: 1885 Alaska Employees:

635

Worldwide Employees:

635

Year Founded:

FedEx Express

1852

1973

Estab. in Alaska: 1988

fedex.com Air cargo and express-package services.

FedEx Corp. | Memphis, Tennessee

Alaska Employees:

633

Worldwide Employees: 400,000

When experience meets ingenuity, you get The Solutions Company • Safe, cost effective solutions to the most challenging projects • From the Arctic to the Gulf Coast • Full facility removal, asbestos, remediation, waste management, demolition and site work

Central Environmental Inc.

CEI I The Solutions Company

Locations: Anchorage I Fairbanks I Las Vegas I Los Angeles 888-876-0125 I www.cei-alaska.com I #centralenvironmentalinc 36 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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1717 Tidewater Rd. Anchorage, AK 99501-1036 907-274-2671 Bal Dreyfus, VP Alaska Transportation

Year Founded:

Matson.com Containership cargo transportation service between Tacoma, WA, and Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Delivery services to the Alaska Railbelt. Connecting carrier service to other water, air, and land carriers. Less-than-container-load freight consolidation and forwarding services.

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Denali Universal Services 11500 C St., Suite 100 Anchorage, AK 99515 907-522-1300 Thomas (Bob) Kean President/CEO Industrial Services

Doyon, Limited 1 Doyon Pl., Suite 300 Fairbanks, AK 99701-2941 888-478-4755 Aaron Schutt, President/CEO Native Organization

Three Bears Alaska 445 N. Pittman Rd., Suite B Wasilla, AK 99623 907-357-4311 David A Weisz, President/CEO Retail/Wholesale Trade

www.akbizmag.com

Estab. in Alaska: 1964 Alaska Employees:

600

Worldwide Employees:

2,000

Year Founded: denaliuniversal.com

1882

1946

Estab. in Alaska: 1946

Operational support including catering, housekeeping, facility maintenance, and security.

Alaska Employees:

595

Sodexo

Worldwide Employees:

700

doyon.com |

communications@doyon.com |

doyonlimited

Oilfield contracting: drilling, camp, engineering, and pipeline construction. Government services: construction services and utility services on military installations in Alaska.

Information technology: government solutions, tribal, and not-for-profit space. Natural resource development.

Year Founded: Alaska Employees:

589

Worldwide Employees:

866

Year Founded: threebearsalaska.com Retail grocery, general merchandise, sporting goods (hunting, fishing and camping), pharmacy, package stores (beer, wine, and spirits), and fuel.

Alaska Business

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972

1980

Estab. in Alaska: 1980 Alaska Employees:

556

Worldwide Employees:

611

April 2019 | 37

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Matson

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Alaska Communications 600 Telephone Ave. Anchorage, AK 99503 907-297-3000 Anand Vadapalli, President/CEO Telecommunications

Schlumberger Oilfield Services 6411 A St. Anchorage, AK 99518 907-273-1700 Nathan Rose, Managing Director Industrial Services

PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center 3100 Tongass Ave., Ketchikan, AK 99901 907-225-5171 Ed Freysinger Chief Administrative Officer Health & Wellness

Princess Cruises, Holland America Line & Seabourn 720 W. 5th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-276-7676 Stein Kruse, Group CEO Travel & Tourism

38 | April 2019

Year Founded: alaskacommunications.com | AlaskaComm AlaskaComm | alaska-communications-systems Alaska’s leading provider of managed IT services, high-speed internet, data networking, and voice communications.

Estab. in Alaska: 1999 Alaska Employees:

554

Worldwide Employees:

598

Year Founded: slb.com

1999

1927

Estab. in Alaska: 1956

Schlumberger is the world’s leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry.

peacehealth.org/ketchikan | PHKetchikan | ph_kmc

ketchikanmarketing@peacehealth.org

In 1923 the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace opened the Little Flower Hospital in Ketchikan. Today, it is a 25-bed critical access hospital, in partnership with the City, providing medical services including general and orthopedic surgery, medical clinics, diagnostic imaging, rehab therapies, and more.

PeaceHealth | Vancouver, Washington

worldsleadingcruiselines.com Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, and Seabourn own and operate 9 hotels, 20 railcars and more than 200 buses and motor coaches in Alaska in addition to supporting port operations to the cruise business. 475 employees work yearround in the state with an additional 2,975 seasonal employees.

Carnival Corporation | Miami

Alaska Employees:

550

Worldwide Employees: 100,000

Year Founded:

1890

Estab. in Alaska: 1923 Alaska Employees:

500

Worldwide Employees:

16,000

Year Founded:

1873

Estab. in Alaska: 1947 Alaska Employees:

475

Worldwide Employees:

-

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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AT&T helps people connect in meaningful ways every day.

We’re building FirstNet for first responders, creating nextgeneration mobile 5G, and delivering entertainment people love to talk about with DIRECTV and DIRECTV NOW. Our smart, highly secure solutions serve over 3 million global businesses.

505 E. Bluff Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 800-478-9000 Bob Bass, President Alaska Telecommunications

AT&T | Dallas

South Peninsula Hospital 4300 Bartlett St. Homer, AK 99603 907-235-8101 Joseph Woodin, CEO Health & Wellness

Medical and surgical inpatient hospitalization; general and orthopedic surgery, including joint replacement; diagnostic imaging, including CT and MRI; diagnostic lab services; rehabilitation; SART/SANE, home-health, primary care, visiting specialists, infusion clinic, behavioral health, and long term care.

Bering Straits Native Corporation

beringstraits.com |

3301 C St., Suite 400 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-563-3788 Gail R. Schubert, President/CEO Native Organization

info@beringstraits.com |

GoBSNC

Bering Straits was established by ANCSA in 1972. It is owned by nearly 8,000 Alaska Native shareholders and actively pursues responsible development of resources and other business opportunities. The company serves the federal government and commercial customers.

The Odom Corporation 240 W. First Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-272-8511 William Odom Vice Chairman/Executive VP Retail/Wholesale Trade

Estab. in Alaska: 1971 Alaska Employees:

1956

Estab. in Alaska: 1956 Alaska Employees:

456

Worldwide Employees:

456

Year Founded:

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

440

Worldwide Employees:

1,490

Year Founded: odomcorp.com

460

Worldwide Employees: 265,000

Year Founded:

sphosp.org

1876

1934

Estab. in Alaska: 1934

Licensed wholesale alcoholic beverage distributor.

Franchised soft drink distributor.

Alaska Employees:

437

The Odom Corporation | Bellevue, Washington

Worldwide Employees:

1,658

Be part of getting wild, healthy, and sustainable seafood from Alaska harvesters to consumers worldwide.

Find jobs in Alaska’s seafood industry at jobs.alaska.gov/seafood/

PSPA Member Locations

EST. 1914

ALASKA GENERAL SEAFOODS ALYESKA SEAFOODS, INC. GOLDEN ALASKA SEAFOODS NORTH PACIFIC SEAFOODS PETER PAN SEAFOODS PHOENIX PROCESSOR LIMITED PARTNERSHIP TRIDENT SEAFOODS CORP. UNISEA INC. WESTWARD SEAFOODS, INC. www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 39

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

att.com

AT&T

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Hecla Greens Creek Mining Co.

PO Box 32199 Hecla’s 100%-owned and operated Greens Creek mine in Juneau, AK 99803 southeast Alaska is one of the largest and lowest-cost primary 907-789-8100 silver mines in the world.

Keith Malone, VP/General Manager Mining

North Star Behavioral Health 2530 Debarr Rd. Anchorage, AK 99508 907-258-7575 Andrew Mayo, CEO Health & Wellness

Coeur Alaska 3031 Clinton Dr., Suite 202 Juneau, AK 99801 907-523-3300 Mark Kiessling, General Manager Mining

northstarbehavioral.com

Universal Health Services | King of Prussia, Pennsylvania

coeur.com/operations/mines/kensington-alaska/

430

Worldwide Employees:

430

1984

Estab. in Alaska: 1984 Alaska Employees:

401

Worldwide Employees:

401

1987

Year Founded:

The Kensington underground gold mine and associated milling facilities are located in the Berners Bay Mining District on the east side of Lynn Canal about forty-five miles northwest of Juneau, Alaska. The project is owned and operated by Coeur Alaska, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Coeur Mining.

Coeur Mining | Chicago

cu1.org | membermail@cu1.org CreditUnion1 | oneforallalaska |

Estab. in Alaska: 1988 Alaska Employees:

Year Founded:

North Star, a premier behavioral health provider specializes in helping youth via acute and residential treatment. We also treat first responders, service members, and veterans at the Chris Kyle Patriots Hospital and those in need of detox/substance abuse and/or psychiatric treatment at Arctic Recovery.

Credit Union 1 1941 Abbott Rd. Anchorage, AK 99507 907-339-9485 James Wileman, President/CEO Financial Services

1988

Year Founded: hecla-mining.com/greens-creek

Estab. in Alaska: 1987 Alaska Employees:

390

Worldwide Employees:

2,000

Year Founded:

creditunion1

Credit Union 1 values responsible, accessible lending as one of our most vital community services. We’re proud to offer versatile accounts and quality loans to match our members’ unique needs and lifestyle, and our many electronic services represent the cutting edge of personal money management.

1952

Estab. in Alaska: 1952 Alaska Employees:

382

Worldwide Employees:

392

Emil Usibelli, the founder of Usibelli Coal Mine, arrived in Alaska penniless during the throes of the Depression. Yet in less than a decade he started a mine that was destined to become one of Alaska’s oldest and most successful businesses.

Much has changed over the decades, but the pioneering spirit of Emil Usibelli still guides the company today. We look forward to producing affordable energy, while protecting the quality of environment, for many decades to come.

WWW.USIBE LLI.COM

40 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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3900 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-243-3331 Gideon Garcia, General Manager Transportation

The Hotel Captain Cook 939 W. Fifth Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-276-6000 Walter Hickel Jr., Chairman/CEO Travel & Tourism

Crowley Alaska 201 Arctic Slope Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 907-777-5505 Rick Meidel, VP/General Manager Transportation

Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport PO Box 196960 Anchorage, AK 99519-6960 907-266-2119 Jim Szczesniak, Airport Manager Transportation

nac.aero

Year Founded:

Anchorage-based Northern Air Cargo is Alaska’s largest all-cargo airline. From groceries and generators to medical supplies and lumber, customers across Alaska, including a wide array of industries such as oil and gas, mining, construction, and commercial fishing, rely on NAC’s services.

Northern Aviation Services | Anchorage

captaincook.com |

info@captaincook.com |

hotelcaptcook

Hickel Investment Company | Anchorage

crowleyalaska.com |

Crowley |

CrowleyMaritime |

crowley-maritime

Crowley knows Alaska. Crowley Fuels is the largest wholesaler of fuel products, selling/transporting heating oils, aviation fuels, propane, vehicle fuels and lubricants to 280+ communities.

Crowley Shipping provides tanker services, and Crowley Solutions provides engineering and project management.

Crowley Maritime Corporation | Jacksonville, Florida

375

Worldwide Employees:

449

1964

Estab. in Alaska: 1965 Alaska Employees:

370

Worldwide Employees:

370

Year Founded:

1892

Estab. in Alaska: 1953 Alaska Employees:

362

Worldwide Employees:

6,300

Year Founded:

dot.state.ak.us/anc | dot.aia.ancinfo@alaska.gov AnchorageInternationalAirport | TSAIAirport ted-stevens-anchorage-international-airport

1951

Estab. in Alaska: 1951

World class cargo airport, largest passenger airport in Alaska, and the world’s busiest float-plane base.

FROM HERE TO THERE? NO PROBLEM.

Estab. in Alaska: 1956 Alaska Employees:

Year Founded:

The Hotel Captain Cook is a 546 room luxury hotel with four unique restaurants and an athletic club. Centrally located in downtown Anchorage, we are the last large family-owned hotel in Anchorage, and with our sister hotel-the Voyager Inn, are the only two members of Preferred Hotels in Alaska.

1956

Alaska Employees:

358

Worldwide Employees:

358

Most businesses overpay for workers’ compensation insurance.

Does yours?

Contact us to find out.

We’re ready to tackle your most complex marine transportation, logistical and modular transportation challenges worldwide. With point-to-point turnkey logistics, and project and asset management, we’ll get you from here to there — safely and efficiently.

907-276-7667 www.chialaska.com

always safe. always ready.

www.foss.com

www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Owned & Operated Since 1979 Alaska Business

April 2019 | 41

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Northern Air Cargo

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Northern Star Resources Limited (Pogo Mine)

nsrltd.com |

PO Box 145, Delta Junction, AK 99737 907-895-2841 Shaun McLoughney General Manager Mining

northern-star-resources-limited

Northern Star Resources Limited is a top 25 global gold producer with mines in Western Australia and North America. The company recently acquired Pogo Mine, 30 miles Northwest of Delta Junction.

Granite Construction Company

graniteconstruction.com |

11471 Lang St. Anchorage, AK 99515 907-344-2593 Derek Betts, VP/Region Manager Construction

Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC)

Public and private heavy civil construction, design-build/ alternative delivery, construction aggregates, recycled base, warm and hot mix asphalt, road construction, bridges, piling, mine infrastructure and reclamation and sitework.

Granite Construction | Watsonville, California

uicalaska.com |

PO Box 890 Utqiaġvik, AK 99723 907-852-4460 Delbert Rexford, President/CEO Native Organization

Everts Air Cargo

uic.corporatemarketing@uicalaska.com

UIC provides services to clients in a variety of industries, including operations in Barrow, construction, architecture and engineering, regulatory consulting, information technology, marine operations, logistics, and maintenance and manufacturing, and government contracting nation-wide.

EvertsAir.com |

PO Box 61680 Fairbanks, AK 99706 907-450-2300 Robert Everts, President/CEO Transportation

granite-construction

shoshaw@EvertsAir.com

Everts Air Cargo provides scheduled cargo service within Alaska and air charter services to domestic and international destinations. Passenger, freight, and charter service using smaller aircraft (Pilatus and Caravan) is provided out of Fairbanks.

Year Founded:

2000

Estab. in Alaska: 2018 Alaska Employees:

350

Worldwide Employees:

1,200

Year Founded:

1922

Estab. in Alaska: 1974 Alaska Employees:

335

Worldwide Employees:

6,900

Year Founded:

1973

Estab. in Alaska: 1973 Alaska Employees:

330

Worldwide Employees:

3,134

Year Founded:

1995

Estab. in Alaska: 1995 Alaska Employees:

321

Worldwide Employees:

353

Fairbanks Heart Walk Saturday, May 11 Veteran’s Memorial Park Form a company team and engage employees with this fun and healthy community event.

FairbanksHeartWalk.org or call 907-388-5133 2019 Fairbanks Heart Walk Chair: Daniel M. White Chancellor, University of Alaska – Fairbanks Healthy For Good spo sponsors:

42 | April 2019

Presented by:

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

When it comes to Donlin Gold, we agree with our neighbors in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. That the project should be developed not only safely and responsibly, but also in a way that provides tangible benefits to everyone – both now and well into the future. And we’re working together to do just that.

1.866.669.6227 | novagold.com

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Halliburton Energy Services 6900 Arctic Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99518 907-275-2600 Scott Odell, Alaska District Manager Oil & Gas

Ahtna, Inc. PO Box 649 Glennallen, AK 99588 907-822-3476 Michelle Anderson, President Native Organization

Northrim Bank PO Box 241489 Anchorage, AK 99524 907-562-0062 Joseph Schierhorn Chairman/President/CEO Financial Services

Denali. A division of Nuvision Credit Union 440 E. 36th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99503 907-257-7200 Roger Ballard, CEO Financial Services

Year Founded:

1919

Estab. in Alaska: 1958 Halliburton offers a broad array of oilfield technologies and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide.

ahtna-inc.com | news@ahtna.net Ahtna.Inc | ahtnainc | ahtna-inc.

Ahtna’s principle activities include construction and environmental, facilities management and support, engineering, government contracting, land management and resource development, and oil and gas pipeline services.

Northrim.com Northrim Bank is an Alaskan-based community bank, headquartered in Anchorage with 15 branches statewide, serving 90% of Alaska’s population. Northrim is committed to providing customer-first service to businesses, professionals, and individual Alaskans.

denalifcu.org | info@denalifcu.com | Denalifcu | denali-federal-credit-union Complete financial services for our members throughout Alaska and the world. The partnership between Denali and Nuvision means we have more than 30 branches, as well as 5000 shared branches and 30,000 shared ATMs to serve members. We also have internet and other secure, 24/7 services for members.

Nuvision Federal Credit Union | Huntington Beach, California

Alaska Employees:

320

Worldwide Employees:

60,000

Year Founded:

1972

Estab. in Alaska: 1972 Alaska Employees:

320

Worldwide Employees:

1,159

Year Founded:

1990

Estab. in Alaska: 1990 Alaska Employees:

310

Worldwide Employees:

326

Year Founded:

1935

Estab. in Alaska: 1948 Alaska Employees:

301

Worldwide Employees:

640

Foraker Award Best Hotel for the Corporate Traveler

Time to sell your company?

MEETINGS WITH A VIEW An unforgettable meeting experience overlooking the busiest seaplane base in the world. Over 6,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

Contact our Executive Meeting Planner today at +1 907.266.2206

30+ Years Experience • Value Assessment • Consultation • Marketing • Results Call Today!

907-261-7620 or 907-244-4194 fink@alaska.net Alaska Mergers & Acquisitions is affiliated with Remax Dynamic Properties, Inc.

44 | April 2019

THE LAKEFRONT ANCHORAGE 4800 Spenard Road, Anchorage, AK 99517 USA T +1 907.243.2300 F +1 907.243.8815 E anchorage.us@millenniumhotels.com W www.millenniumhotels.com

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

OUR STRENGTH Netiye’ means ‘our strength’ in Ahtna Athabaskan

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Udelhoven Oilfield System Services 184 E. 53rd Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518-1222 907-344-1577 Jim Udelhoven, CEO Industrial Services

Chugach Electric Association 5601 Electron Dr. Anchorage, AK 99518 907-563-7494 Lee Thibert, CEO Utility

CONAM Construction 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 300 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-278-6600 Dale Kissee, President Construction

Subway of Alaska 1118 E. 70th Ave., Suite 200 Anchorage, AK 99518 907-563-4228 Steve Adams President/Co-Founder Food & Beverage

Year Founded: udelhoven.com |

Estab. in Alaska: 1970

cduxbury@udelhoven.com

Oilfield services, construction management, electrical, and mechanical construction.

Alaska Employees:

300

Worldwide Employees:

350

Year Founded: chugachelectric.com

General construction contractor specializing in design and construction of oil and gas facilities and pipelines, mining facilities, water and sewer facilities, and other remote infrastructure projects.

Quanta Services | Houston, Texas

subwaycatering@subwayak.com |

subway

Subway is the undisputed leader in fast, healthy food. Our easy-to-prepare sandwiches are made to order right in front of the customer, precisely the way they want—using freshly baked breads, select sauces, and a variety of delicious toppings.

We celebrated our 30th anniversary in Alaska in 2018.

Are You Ready to Grow Your Business?

INTRODUCING

Alaska Employees:

300

Worldwide Employees:

300

Year Founded:

conamco.com

Subway World Headquarters | Milford, Connecticut

1948

Estab. in Alaska: 1948

We provide safe, reliable, and affordable electricity through superior service and sustainable practices, powering the lives of our members.

subwayak.com |

1970

1984

Estab. in Alaska: 1984 Alaska Employees:

300

Worldwide Employees:

300

Year Founded:

1988

Estab. in Alaska: 1988 Alaska Employees:

290

Worldwide Employees:

290

PIPMail907 • Targ

ets your ideal prospects with custom designed mail pieces • Tracks your mail pieces and tells you when they hit mailboxes • Tracks your responses and tells you what’s working • Integrated with Google advertising to electronically advertise to those who visit your website but don’t contact you

With Lead Follow-Up from 907.274.3584 | pipalaska.com

46 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Lee Fisher POSITION: Manager, Gatehouse & Equipment Control LOCATION: Anchorage, Alaska DATE HIRED: May 21, 2003 NOTES: Deep experience, familiar with all Alaska ports. Goes the extra mile to get the job done. A hard core road and fat bike racer that can be found on two wheels more often than two feet. Rides for fun and local charities, logging more than 3,500 miles last year.

Matson’s people are more than Alaska shipping experts. They are part of what makes our community unique. Visit Matson.com

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1740 S. Chugach St. Palmer, AK 99645 907-745-3211 Michael Burke, CEO Telecommunications

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Chenega Corporation 3000 C St., Suite 301 Anchorage, AK 99503-3975 907-277-5706 Charles W. Totemoff President/CEO Native Organization

Beacon Occupational Health & Safety Services 800 Cordova St. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-222-7612 Holly Hylen, President/CEO Health & Wellness

Dave & Buster’s 800 E. Dimond Blvd., #240 Anchorage, AK 99515 907-313-1430 Brian Jenkins, CEO Food & Beverage

Goldbelt, Incorporated 3025 Clinton Dr. Juneau, AK 99801 907-790-4990 Elliott Wimberly, President/CEO Native Organization

77

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Municipal Light & Power

#

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

MTA

1200 E. First Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-279-7671 Mark Johnston General Manager Utility

N C Machinery 6450 Arctic Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99518 907-786-7500 John Harnish, CEO Industrial Services

Hilton Anchorage 500 W. Third Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-272-7411 Steve Rader, General Manager Travel & Tourism

48 | April 2019

mtasolutions.com |

MatanuskaTelephone

MTA is leading Alaska’s technology revolution, empowering its member-owners to live a connected life. MTA, an Alaskanowned communications company, delivers broadband, business solutions, data center, IT services, TV, landline, online directory, and TV advertising.

chenega.com |

info@chenega.com

Professional services contracting for the federal government, including technical and installation services, military, intelligence and operations support, environmental, healthcare and facilities management, and information technology and telecommunications.

beaconohss.com |

mhylen@beaconohss.com

Beacon provides single-source remote medical, occupational medicine, safety, and training solutions to keep your employees safe and healthy, regardless of their location. Our client-specific approach is proactive, preventative, and leverages our highly skilled team of professionals and technicians.

Year Founded:

Estab. in Alaska: 1953 Alaska Employees:

285

Worldwide Employees:

285

Year Founded: Alaska Employees:

284

Worldwide Employees:

5,724

Year Founded:

info@goldbelt.com

Tourism, hospitality, transportation, security services, 8(a) government contracting.

mlandp.com | mlandp

askmlp@mlandp.com

ML&P provides safe, affordable, and reliable electric service to more than 30,000 residential and commercial customers in Anchorage, including Downtown, UMED, and JBER.

ncmachinery.com Cat machine sales, parts, service, and rental. Cat engines for marine, power generation, truck, petroleum, and industrial applications. Sales and rental of Cat and other preferred brands of rental equipment and construction supplies.

Harnish Group | Tukwilla, Washington

Alaska Employees:

260

Worldwide Employees:

268

Newly renovated guest rooms. More than 23,000 square feet of flexible function space. 24-hour fitness center, indoor pool, business center. Centrally located in Downtown Anchorage.

1982

Estab. in Alaska: 2018 Alaska Employees:

250

Worldwide Employees:

16,000

1974

Estab. in Alaska: 1974 Alaska Employees:

250

Worldwide Employees:

1,500

Year Founded:

1932

Estab. in Alaska: 1932 Alaska Employees:

230

Worldwide Employees:

230

Year Founded:

1926

Estab. in Alaska: 1926 Alaska Employees:

219

Worldwide Employees:

1,023

Year Founded: hiltonanchorage.com

1999

Estab. in Alaska: 1999

Year Founded: Goldbelt.com | Goldbelt

1974

Estab. in Alaska: 1974

Year Founded: We have private rooms that come complete with everything you need to host the perfect meeting. We’ll work with you from start to finish, making sure every detail is right. When work is done and it’s time for fun, our Million Dollar Midway is ready for action with hundreds of state-of-the-art games.

1953

1927

Estab. in Alaska: 1927 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees: 163,000

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Price Gregory International 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 300 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-278-4400 Robert Stinson Senior VP Alaska Division Construction

Vigor Alaska 3801 Tongass Ave. Ketchikan, AK 99901 907-228-5302 Yohl Howe, General Manager Industrial Services

American Fast Freight 5025 Van Buren St. Anchorage, AK 99517 907-248-5548 Craig Forbes VP Operations Alaska Transportation

Matanuska Electric Association PO Box 2929 Palmer, AK 99645 907-761-9300 Tony Izzo, General Manager/CEO Utility

ENSTAR Natural Gas PO Box 190288 Anchorage, AK 99519 907-277-5551 John Sims, President Utility

Grant Aviation 6520 Kulis Dr. Anchorage, AK 99502 888-359-4726 Robert Kelley, President/CEO Transportation

Year Founded:

pricegregory.com Pipeline, power, heavy industrial construction, EPC, and consulting services. Infrastructure construction services provider.

Quanta Services | Houston

vigor.net |

VigorIndustrial |

Vigor is a values-driven, diversified industrial business.

We repair ships and build projects in support of energy generation, our nation’s infrastructure, national defense and the maritime industry.

Vigor | Portland, Oregon

americanfast.com |

info@americanfast.com |

AmericanFastFreight

Ocean freight forwarding, freight consolidation of all kinds, LTL/LCL, full loads and single shipments, temperature protected, dry vans, specialized equipment, heavy haul, project logistics, barge, steamship, intrastate trucking, warehousing, distribution, and expanded service to Prudhoe Bay. AFF Global Logistics | Fife, Washington

mea.coop |

meacontact@mea.coop |

matanuska.electric |

meacoop

A member-owned electric cooperative that serves more than 51,000 members across nearly 4,500 miles of power lines in the Mat-Su and Eagle River areas. MEA’s mission is to provide safe reliable energy at reasonable rates with exceptional member service and commitment to the community they serve.

enstarnaturalgas.com | info@enstarnaturalgas.com | ENSTARNatGas | enstar-natural-gas

ENSTARNatGas

Alaskans have relied on ENSTAR to serve their homes and businesses with clean burning and efficient natural gas for more than fifty-five years. ENSTAR is a regulated public utility that delivers natural gas to over 146,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in and around Southcentral.

AltaGas | Calgary, AB, Canada

flygrant.com |

Estab. in Alaska: 1974 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

3,000

Year Founded:

vigor-industrial

wecare@flygrant.com

An Alaska-owned airline known for a strong track record of safety, community involvement, and for being one of the friendliest airlines in Alaska. Provides scheduled and charter passenger, mail, freight and air ambulance services in the YK Delta, Bristol Bay, and the Aleutians.

1974

1994

Estab. in Alaska: 1994 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

2,300

Year Founded:

1984

Estab. in Alaska: 1984 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

600

Year Founded:

1941

Estab. in Alaska: 1941 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

200

Year Founded:

1961

Estab. in Alaska: 1961 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

200

Year Founded:

1971

Estab. in Alaska: 1971 Alaska Employees:

200

Worldwide Employees:

200

1938

REI

Year Founded:

500 E. Northern Lights Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99503 907-272-4565 Jerry Stritzke, CEO Retail/Wholesale Trade

Estab. in Alaska: 1979

rei.com/stores/anchorage.html REI National specialty outdoor retailer.

50 | April 2019

190

Worldwide Employees:

12,000

Year Founded:

Great Northwest PO Box 74646 Fairbanks, AK 99707 907-452-5617 John Minder, CEO/President Construction

Alaska Employees:

grtnw.com |

info@grtnw.com

Heavy highway civil construction, utilities, paving, landscaping.

1976

Estab. in Alaska: 1976 Alaska Employees:

190

Worldwide Employees:

190

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

S C I T S I G O L & G A N K I S K A C L U RA TR FO S N O I S O LU T

carlile.biz | 800.478.1853 | customerservice@carlile.biz

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Year Founded:

Colville Pouch 340012 Prudhoe Bay, AK 99734 907-659-3198 Dave Pfeifer, President/CEO Industrial Services

Guardian Flight 3474 Old International Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-245-6230 Fred Buttrell, CEO Transportation

Sourdough Express 600 Driveways St. Fairbanks, AK 99701 907-452-1181 Jeff Gregory, President/CEO Transportation

Afognak Native Corporation 300 Alimaq Dr. Kodiak, AK 99615 907-486-6014 Greg Hambright, President/CEO Native Organization

Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union 1020 S. Bailey St. Palmer, AK 99645-6924 907-745-4891 Ed Gravley, CEO Financial Services

Baker Hughes, a GE Company 795 E. 94th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99515 907-267-3431 Jon Rhodes, Area Manager Alaska Oil & Gas

Homer Electric Association 3977 Lake St. Homer, AK 99603 907-235-8551 Bradley Janorschke General Manager Utility

Colville’s group of oilfield companies provide a full complement of Arctic logistics capabilities. Our services include fuel, aviation, waste management, transport, industrial supply, and camp services.

airmedcarenetwork.com/join/alaska shannon.gilligan-hines@airmedcarenetwork.com

Air Medical Group Holdings | Lewisville, Texas

52 | April 2019

Alaska Employees:

190

Worldwide Employees:

190

Freight-transportation services, logistics, moving, and storage services. Steel Connex container sales/lease.

afognak.com |

Alaska Employees:

170

Worldwide Employees:

250

Afognak Native Corporation, Alutiiq, and their subsidiaries provide an exceptional track record of services in the government and commercial sectors worldwide, including: leasing; construction; timber; engineering; security; logistics, operations and maintenance; oilfield; and youth services.

mvfcu.coop |

mvfcu.coop |

Building better financial futures for people who live, learn, work, or worship in the state of Alaska and the Waipahu, Hawaii, Neighborhood Board #22. MVFCU offers a full range of financial services to all eligible members.

bhge.com |

BHGEOG |

bhgeco |

160

Worldwide Employees:

160

homerelectricassociation |

HomerElectric

Homer Electric Association is a member-owned electric cooperative serving more than 23,600 members on the western Kenai Peninsula from Soldotna, Kenai, Homer, and remote communities across Kachemak Bay.

1977

Estab. in Alaska: 1977 Alaska Employees:

157

Worldwide Employees:

4,546

1948

Estab. in Alaska: 1948 Alaska Employees:

153

Worldwide Employees:

160

Year Founded:

4334

BHGE covers every segment of the oil and gas industry as a full-stream company, including upstream, midstream, and downstream solutions. Delivering integrated oilfield products, services, and digital solutions to the oil and gas industry.

homerelectric.com |

Alaska Employees:

Year Founded:

mvfcuak

1898

Estab. in Alaska: 1902

Year Founded:

alutiiq.com

2000

Estab. in Alaska: 2000

Year Founded: Sourdoughexpress.com | jgregory@sourdoughexpress.com Sourdough-Express-242774914530

1969

Estab. in Alaska: 1980 Alaska Employees:

150

Worldwide Employees:

64,000

Year Founded:

1945

Estab. in Alaska: 1945 Alaska Employees:

144

Worldwide Employees:

144

Year Founded:

Pruhs Construction 2193 Viking Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 907-279-1020 Dana Pruhs, CEO Construction

Estab. in Alaska: 1981

Year Founded:

Guardian Flight is the state’s largest air medical provider with more aircraft in more places than all other organizations in the state combined.

Guardian Flight is part of the AirMedCare Network, a national alliance of air ambulance providers–the largest of its kind in the United States.

1981

1958

Estab. in Alaska: 1958 Heavy civil contractor, roads, airports, site work, underground utilities, industrial.

Alaska Employees:

140

Worldwide Employees:

140

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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100 Cushman St., Suite 210 Fairbanks, AK 99701 907-452-2625 Joseph E. Usibelli Jr. President/CEO Mining

Year Founded: usibelli.com | info@usibelli.com UsibelliCoalMine | Usibelli

1943

Estab. in Alaska: 1943

Alaska’s only operational coal mine and its affiliate companies.

Alaska Employees:

137

Worldwide Employees:

172

1981

Cruz Companies Alaska

Year Founded:

7000 E. Palmer Wasilla Hwy. Palmer, AK 99645 907-746-3144 Dave Cruz, President Industrial Services

Estab. in Alaska: 1981

Ryan Air 6400 Carl Brady Dr. Anchorage, AK 99502 907-562-2227 Wilfred “Boyuck” Ryan, President Transportation

Cape Fox Corporation PO Box 8558 Ketchikan, AK 99901 907-225-5163 Chris Luchtefeld, CEO Native Organization

Alsco PO Box 240048 Anchorage, AK 99524 907-279-2500 Don Wirth, General Manager Retail/Wholesale Trade

Tanadgusix Corp. (TDX) 3601 C St., Suite 1000 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-278-2312 Ron Philemonoff, CEO Native Organization

Experts in resource development and heavy civil construction.

ryanalaska.com |

info@capefoxcorp.com |

Cape-Fox-Corporation

It is the mission of Cape Fox Corporation to grow and maintain a strong financial foundation by profitably managing financial and land resources to provide immediate and long term economic, education, and cultural benefits for shareholders.

alsco.com |

Table linen, napkins, towels, aprons, entry mats, dust mops, wet mops, medical linens, scrubs, chef and kitchen apparel, industrial uniforms, coveralls, FR garments, restroom services, janitorial supplies, sales-service-rental.

info@tanadgusix.com |

TanadgusixCorporation

Airport parking facilities, hotels in Alaska and Washington, tourism, wind and alternative power, electric utilities, power plant construction and O&M, fuel sales, worldwide remote site O&M, switch gears, nation-wide construction, environmental services and remediation, IT support services.

Franz Bakery 2248 Spenard Rd. Anchorage, AK 99503 907-375-8800 Larry Brandt, General Manager Alaska Division Food & Beverage

243

Alaska Employees:

135

Worldwide Employees:

135

Year Founded:

1973

Estab. in Alaska: 1973 Alaska Employees:

134

Worldwide Employees:

669

1889

Estab. in Alaska: 1988 Alaska Employees:

116

Worldwide Employees:

18,000

Year Founded:

1973

Estab. in Alaska: 1973 Alaska Employees:

115

Worldwide Employees:

623

Year Founded: Franz Bakery is a fourth generation family owned baking company based out of Portland, Oregon. Since 1906 Franz has been providing communities with fresh bread, buns, bagels and cookies, using the highest quality ingredients.

Today, we deliver fresh baked goods daily to our customers.

1953

Estab. in Alaska: 1953

Year Founded:

dwirth@alsco.com

tanadgusix.com |

135

Worldwide Employees:

Year Founded:

ben@ryanalaska.com

From Platinum to Kobuk, from Gambell to Mt. Village, we know the challenges of transportation in Alaska. For more than fifty years, we’ve developed the skill, perfected the processes, and implemented the technology required to efficiently move freight across the Bush.

capefoxcorp.com |

Alaska Employees:

1906

Estab. in Alaska: 2013 Alaska Employees:

110

Worldwide Employees:

4,000

About the Data Data for all Alaska Business directories are submitted by the companies listed therein. The annual Corporate 100 ranks qualified organizations (government branches, departments, and entities are ineligible) by their number of Alaska employees.

When two organizations have the same number www.akbizmag.com

of Alaska employees, we break the tie by number of worldwide employees and then by the year the organization was established in Alaska. To qualify for the Corporate 100, a company must have employees that are residents of Alaska and be willing to supply: an Alaska address, number of Alaska and worldwide Alaska Business

employees, a top executive, and general contact information. For your company to be added to the Corporate 100 survey list (surveying takes place in January and February each year) please contact Emily Olsen, Customer Service Representative, at (907) 276-4373 or surveys@akbizmag.com.

April 2019 | 53

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | DIRECTORY

Usibelli Coal Mine

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | MTA

Leading the Tech Revolution MTA builds infrastructure and networks for the long-term

T

Through the eUnlimited Gaming Series, MTA supports the eSports community and creates scholarship opportunities via the MTA Foundation.

MTA

54 | April 2019

he November 30, 2018, earthquake was not an insignificant event. But despite experiencing a pretty good shake, Matanuska Telephone Association (MTA) CEO Michael Burke is proud to report that the association’s network didn’t have any service outages, though in some areas it ran on backup power for a short time.

It’s symbolic of how MTA has found solid ground in the midst of significant changes in its industry. Burke says, “Across the country, telecommunications co-ops are struggling in this landscape of extreme technological change. Not us. MTA continues to grow and develop during a time of immense change.”

MTA and its wholly-owned subsidiaries have been growing in many ways, including expanding its team of employees and its engagement with the community. “I probably lost count in terms of how many people we’ve added in the last several years,” Burke says.

To find quality employees, MTA’s HR team regularly participates in recruitment efforts, including attending job fairs, sponsoring internship programs, and working with the Alaska Job Corps Center located in Palmer on internships and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) through apprenticeship programs “to hopefully bring in new talent and train them up.”

While recruitment officers are looking for candidates with a strong, applicable skill set, Burke emphasizes that it’s equally important that potential employees are excited to learn and grow and are coachable.

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“Across the country, telecommunications co-ops are struggling in this landscape of extreme technological change. Not us. MTA continues to grow and develop during a time of immense change.”

Michael Burke, CEO, MTA

performs exceptionally well. “Maybe it’s a great engagement with a customer or they participated on a project that maybe they were assigned to, or maybe they just jumped in and helped out, but they really contributed,” Burke explains.

Recently the company launched MTA Connect, which allows the entire MTA team to engage positively with each other. “It’s an app that people can put on their computers or phone, and it’s a way to communicate almost like a social media network within the company,” Burke says. Employees can post and respond to each other about certifications, completed projects, positive initiatives, and more.

“It’s a lot of real-time communication

throughout the company about what employees are doing and recognizing them for all the work they’re performing.”

Burke says MTA’s employees have responded “really well” to MTA Connect, which launched in late 2018. “We’ve got just over 85 percent participation... the platform is engaging and gives everyone a chance to recognize and be recognized.”

MTA Connect is just one tool MTA uses to build unity among departments and employees. The organization coordinates cross training Lunch & Learn activities on a monthly basis, which are open to all departments. “This has really created a united culture, despite the fact that many of our departments are quite different,” Burke

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | MTA

This willingness and eagerness to learn is met with training and educational opportunities on day one and throughout an employee’s career at MTA. “We try to make sure we give people the right tools and education to be successful,” Burke says, including onsite or offsite training programs, as well as technical, marketing, or business-related education. “We try to customize it as much as possible for what that employee may need, not only just to do their job today but also for career development in the future.”

To that end, MTA has a strong continuing education program for its employees.

“We allow employees to go out and do graduate level work or certification. We pay for that—encouraging people to add to their skill sets—which benefits both the employee as well as the company.” MTA offers tuition assistance up to 80 percent for formal education and pays 100 percent for training and certifications required for an employee’s position.

MTA supports and rewards its employees beyond just professional development. For example, MTA offers the Spot Award Program, through which supervisors and managers have an opportunity to provide a bonus to an employee who

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | MTA

says. Topics can include information on new MTA products or initiatives or even technology that isn’t MTA-specific. “We had one [in February] where we talked about social media and just educated employees about what type of information gets collected on social media and how you can better control that.”

In the near future, Burke reports, MTA will be utilizing MTA Connect to launch department profiles. These profiles will include information on what the department does as well as the people employed in it.

“We have a lot of people that are always out in the field; we have a lot of construction activities going on… so it makes it harder in some ways for them to interact on a daily basis. We’re trying to get more outreach to them to make sure they feel included,” he says.

And having employees in the field is only one of many ways that MTA interacts with its customers. “MTA is a co-op, which means we are owned by our customers; we’re owned by the people in the community. So that creates a stronger connection, I believe, with the people that we provide service to that are essentially our neighbors out here,” Burke explains.

One very visible way MTA connects with

56 | April 2019

MTA Foundation offers some its member-owners is through scholarships specifically insponsorships, such as for the tended to help youth pursue Curtis D. Menard Memorial education in technology or Sports Center in Wasilla, the telecommunications, as well as Harry J. McDonald Memorial scholarships that are broader in Center in Eagle River, the MTA scope. In 2018, the Foundation Sports Center in Palmer, the MTA had about 120 scholarship apEvents Center in Palmer, “and, plicants apply for the 17 scholarmost recently, Skeetawk, the ships offered, and for the 2019 alpine ski area run by Hatcher Michael Burke, CEO, MTA program the MTA Foundation Alpine Xperience” in Hatcher MTA will award 27 scholarships.

Pass.

MTA also hosts workshops and lecPerhaps unique to the company’s expertise, MTA supports the eSports com- tures in the community to empower its munity in Alaska, primarily through the member-owners and patrons “to live a eUnlimited Gaming Series. “This Series has connected life.” Burke says, “We try to positively impacted the Mat-Su Borough think about how we can better deploy School District’s efforts in eSports, as technology that will help meet those well as created more scholarship oppor- customers’ changing needs, and we try tunities through the MTA Foundation [an to be a partner with those customers as MTA subsidiary],” Burke reports. “Gaming well. It’s not just delivering broadband or has become very big, from a technology some type of technology solution but standpoint, and MTA is an internet com- trying to find ways to help customers pany, so we’re actively involved in terms better understand that technology and of helping support that community and make it easier for them to use.”

For example, many of MTA’s customers hosting events.”

The MTA Foundation provides scholar- who still have traditional cable TV services ships to youth within MTA’s 10,000-square- in their homes may struggle to embrace mile service area, running from Eagle River new streaming entertainment options. north to past Denali National Park. The MTA offers workshops that educate those

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | MTA

customers about what streaming technologies are available, how to set them up, and how to manage them, easing the uncertainty or stress that some may feel approaching new technology. That oneon-one outreach is a near-term solution, and MTA is also doing market research to understand, long term, “how we can make sure whatever product, services, and infrastructure we build will better serve them.”

MTA and its affiliates focus on the future, and one aspect of that focus is their ongoing commitment to the environment.

“There are few commitments that MTA takes more seriously than our commitment to the environment and making the world a cleaner and safer place for our generation, as well as future ones down the road,” Burke says.

MTA’s Palmer-based headquarters was recently the recipient of a Green Star award from the Alaska Forum on the Environment, which highlighted the utility’s efforts in waste reduction, energy conservation, and pollution prevention within the workplace. MTA is one of ten companies to receive the award for 2019.

MTA is also a leader in the telecommunications industry in terms of technology adoption and deployment. “We’re making the Mat-Su and Eagle River areas very unique for the future, in that we’re putting out the kind of infrastructure that rivals anything being built anywhere else in the country.” As of 2018, MTA has extended more than 130 miles of fiber, including 58 miles of new fiber to “every new subdivision that goes in our area,” reaching approximately 1,544 individual lots. The company is planning more than 30 miles of fiber initiatives for 2019, as well.

“We’re sort of like landscape architects,” Burke states. “A landscape architect will go out, and they’ll plant trees and bushes, and they have this vision in thirty years how all these plants will grow and create a landscape that maybe you didn’t see at first. I think the technology we’re deploying is very similar. I probably couldn’t even begin to imagine, thirty years from now, what new services and new businesses we will enable.

“MTA is really excited for the future of Alaska. We’re really at the beginning of a technology revolution… and we’re creating the infrastructure that will allow all kinds of new and creative minds to come up with new ways to help Alaska thrive and be successful into the future. And we’re very proud and happy to be a part of that.”

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April 2019 | 57

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BEACON

Healthy, Safe, and High Functioning Beacon’s quest to serve every Alaskan

Beacon staff at the company’s Fairbanks location.

Beacon OHSS

S

ince Beacon Occupational Health and Safety Services was founded in 1999, the company has operated with three core values: rock star customer service, operational excellence, and have fun. According to Beacon President Holly Hylen, “Part of the ‘secret sauce’ of a strong company culture is to recruit and hire like-minded folks who share our passion for serving others, being part of the community, and loving and enjoying what they do.”

Mark Hylen, Beacon’s vice president, agrees. “Really our team helps inspire that culture. Probably the biggest part of our orientation process is around our

core values, so we try to inspire the elements of having fun, rock star customer service, and quality excellence at the

Electric sign-on allows paperless check-in for Beacon customers.

Beacon OHSS

58 | April 2019

very beginning, and then it’s really the people that embody it.”

The Hylens both recognize that Beacon’s greatest asset is its employees.

Holly states, “I tell people all the time that 95 percent of our assets walk out the door every day, because it’s really our team who defines who we are and gets all the credit for the success that Beacon has been able to achieve.”

Employee retention is important to the company, and Mark says Beacon has been “blessed with very low employee turnover.” Because the company has many employees with a long history, when Beacon is looking for new talent, they value greatly any recommendations their current staff members may supply.

“We do recruit through all of the normal channels, but a lot of our best hires come from employee referrals,” Holly says. “Our employees understand our culture and our expectations and do a really great job of bringing like-minded folks to the application process.”

Another natural result of hiring employee referrals is that Beacon often hires local talent. However, because

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BEACON

Beacon offers several lines of service (including remote medical, safety solutions, clinical services, and training options), the company occasionally has to look Outside to fill specific skilled positions, especially those directly involved with healthcare. “Particularly for healthcare, it’s become a very tight market,” Mark explains. “Although we have a physician assistant program here at the University [of Alaska], you can’t place someone out in a remote setting that hasn’t had experience with emergency care and expect that person to be able to triage independently.”

New employees of every skill level receive some kind of training at Beacon, though what that training entails “varies dramatically because of our different lines of services and locations throughout Alaska,” Mark says. “When they come onboard we do orientation, and not just within whatever service line they’re working; we try to make sure that everybody has a broad understanding of the services Beacon has to offer because a lot of our success has been around clients who will contract with us for a specific service and then realize all the other things we can do. So where a client might just need a drug test, the next thing you know we’re brought in as an onsite clinic for them on the North Slope.”

One key part of retaining such a highlyskilled staff is recognizing the ways in which employees do excel. Beacon hosts large holiday parties for their employees, organizes family-friendly events, periodically treats staff to dinner, and has other activities that allow employees to feel appreciated and spend quality time with each other. Holly says, “One thing that we’re really good at is acknowledging someone when we see them going above and beyond and thanking them for representing Beacon and our value system.” She says the Beacon leadership team has a weekly call during which the team shares information about outstanding employees “so everybody is aware of what’s been seen and can then go out of their way to also thank that employee, which matters.”

Beacon has a safety division staffed with nearly fifty safety professionals, which Mark says is a huge boon to the company in terms of their own safety programs and standards. “The division is often client-focused, but having those

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BEACON

Beacon’s near-site clinics allow organizations to provide medical services to their employees.

Beacon OHSS

60 | April 2019

internal resources and being able to apply them to our own lines of work is kind of like making sure that the mechanic’s car is running smoothly.” He describes Beacon’s safety record as “impeccable,” with zero lost-time incidents in the last five years.

“Our biggest focus right now, though, is not to be just complacent but to really work on process,” he says. Beacon has many procedures and processes, and as employees become familiar with them, there can be a tendency to not think about them as much or review them fairly quickly. Holly says, “We’ve grown as we’ve been in business, and our safety program has naturally matured with the organization, and we’re at the place where we’re trying to simplify our processes and make it easier and more straightforward for our team to understand the expectation as it relates to our safety program.”

Beacon’s entire business is safety. The company’s website states, “At the end of the day, we want to do our part to ensure that all employees go home in the same condition (or better) as when they clocked in.” Beacon’s care for its employees, the companies it serves, and its clients’ employees lends itself toward a deep interest in the communities in which it operates.

“We love the Alaska community,” Mark says. “First and foremost, we’re Alaskans through and true.” Mark and Holly, who were both born and raised in Alaska, take the time to participate on many nonprofit boards, and Beacon supports organizations such as Special Olympics Alaska, Alaska Process Industry Career Consortium, March of Dimes, Habitat for Humanity Anchorage, and many others. The company gives employees time off so they can support nonprofits in areas they are passionate about, as well. “Alaskans rise up and support other Alaskans, and Beacon believes that being good in business means being good in the community,” Mark says.

Beacon also has an eye on the greater good for the environment. “We’ve taken some very strategic initiatives around going as paperless as possible. Our clients will start to see some streamlined processes related to our referral process and [test results].” The goal is to make the process more automated (and green) for clients and for the patients being treated or tested. Mark says, “We’re making sure

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Beacon OHSS

that rock star customer service is being delivered at all levels.”

In a relatively new line of business, Beacon offers family practice services to employees and their families on behalf of employers—a line that Holly says has been successful and is rapidly growing.

“We knew it would be successful, but I

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don’t think we expected it to be quite this successful. It’s pretty exciting.”

While Beacon’s locations are in more populated places, many of the services they provide are to remote regions of the state, which usually translate to Alaska’s largest industries, including oil and gas, mining, construction, and

Alaska Business

transportation. Holly says the team is excited to see Alaska’s economy gradually turn in a positive direction, with jobs evening out and even ticking up in many of those industries. “We are job advocates; we work with employers in every industry… so we’re excited about some of the upcoming projects and are looking forward to continue to see that growth in 2019 as well as 2020.”

She continues, “We are just so grateful for the client loyalty that we’ve had, and how they allow us to be part of their employer family. They trust us to help them with their pre-hire training, their pre-hire physical, the drug testing.

They allow us to partner with them with their safety and training programs and participate in their ongoing compliance needs for their employees. It’s a great place of privilege.”

Mark summarizes, “We wouldn’t be here without our employees and our clients. And to say we’re grateful is an understatement. We’re Alaska proud, and we’re proud to work with the organizations that we work with, and we’re proud to work with the team that we have at our company.”

April 2019 | 61

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BEACON

A staff member conducts drug screening at Beacon’s Cordova location.

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BP ALASKA

‘Heat, Light, and Mobility for a Changing World’ BP Alaska sets sights on another 40 years in Prudhoe Bay

I

n 2017, BP Alaska celebrated forty years of operations at Prudhoe Bay, which over the last forty-plus years has produced 13 billion barrels of oil.

“We’re trying to go for forty more,” says BP Alaska President Janet Weiss. “We can’t get there by doing what we used to do.”

To that end, as of a late-February interview, BP Alaska had completed 40 percent of a 3D seismic program on the North Slope, “one of the neatest things that I’ve seen in a few years,” Weiss says. The seismic survey, which should be completed this month, encompasses 455 square miles, the largest of its kind performed by BP Alaska in Prudhoe Bay. “We’re doing that in a forty-two-year-old field, which is fantastic. We did a smaller shoot at the North End of Prudhoe a few years ago, and it was so valuable, so

62 | April 2019

beneficial, that we wanted to do the entire field.”

Collecting this data allows BP Alaska to identify pockets of oil that were bypassed earlier “and help really sustain a longerterm drilling program.” The second part of that long-term equation is having the right equipment—operating at the right price— to get at the oil.

“I’m extremely excited about two rigs that are up and running at Prudhoe Bay; they’re running with our costs really reduced so that we can go after those smaller targets that are out there,” Weiss says.

Reducing the cost of running an oil rig is no small feat. In order to accomplish it, BP Alaska went through a multi-phase process, including identifying potential areas of cost savings, running those identified areas through an ideation process, and then, one-by-one, dismissing or adopting those ideas.

For example, the company looked at how to plan wells in a fraction of the time, as well as understanding the causes behind poor well outcomes to avoid those in the future.

“So there were a lot of little things

that made up these big cost reductions,” Weiss says.

And BP Alaska’s focus on efficiency has been ongoing for years.

According to the company, from 2015 to 2017, “BP Alaska improved its operating efficiency from 80 percent to upwards of 85 percent. That represents an additional 10,000 to 15,000 barrels of oil flowing through the Alaska pipeline every day— the equivalent of adding a whole new field within Prudhoe Bay.” New tech directly tied to oil production and related to oilfield operations has also enabled BP Alaska to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.

“When you think about the extensive infrastructure that we have on the North Slope and the cost to maintain and keep that up, we’ve got to really embrace technology, and I love the way our team has gone after embracing technology,” Weiss says. “That’s what’s really going to bring in forty more.”

The BP Alaska team has adopted drone technology, virtual reality technology, and sensors and wireless gauges to better understand its equipment and facilities.

“Our awesome, tech-savvy Alaskan

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CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BP ALASKA

The central gas facility at Prudhoe Bay. BP Alaska

Janet Weiss, President, BP Alaska BP Alaska

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April 2019 | 63

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BP ALASKA

BP Alaska team members working on the 455-square-mile 3D seismic survey in Prudhoe Bay. BP Alaska

employees have come together and put us in a different place digitally in understanding that state of our data and how to get information at the user’s fingertips in just a couple of clicks,” says Weiss.

And Weiss sees significant value in having Alaskans on the team beyond just their technical prowess. “What I find with Alaskans is an affinity for the state that runs deep, and so they really give that extra passion, that extra energy, that extra push because they care about the longterm for the state.” It’s why Alaska-hire is a huge priority for BP, and the majority of BP Alaska employees are Alaska residents.

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In fact, BP Alaska does the bulk of its hiring through the University of Alaska system, has a partnership with APICC, and also has an eye on students who grow up in Alaska, attend college out of state, and then want to return.

Wherever they grew up, Weiss says BP Alaska is on the lookout for employees whose values align with the company’s.

BP’s mission is to provide heat, light, and mobility to a changing world, which Weiss says translates in a practical sense into looking for employees who can embrace innovation and change and are action oriented.

At the same time, BP Alaska participates in a high-risk industry in one of the most challenging environments in the world, and so it’s vital that employees feel the weight of that responsibility and can follow set processes and procedures.

“So just think about that—people who can consistently follow processes while being innovative. So [our employees] have to understand what the boundaries are and when to innovate. But if we’re clear about that, we can really get people unleashed in the right places.”

BP Alaska tries to meet that high level of expectation with ongoing recognition.

One way the company does this is through its Energize! program.

In the program, any employee can recognize any other for an exceptional idea or contribution, such as a new idea to improve safety. An employee writes up information about what a colleague did and then chooses a number of points to be awarded. Points can be redeemed immediately for an award of the recognized employee’s choosing or saved for a larger prize down the road. “What we’ve seen is a lot of peer-to-peer recognition, and just lots more recognition going on because everybody gets involved,” says Weiss.

BP Alaska also supports its employees through training and ongoing education opportunities. For example, for employees in engineering or science-based roles, the company has a program called Challenge, which, in addition to introducing them to the company’s vision and mission, speeds up the employee’s professional development. “We like to try to get an equivalent five-year professional in three years with this program,” Weiss explains. “So we make sure they have hands-on experience, access to mentors, and big exposure to our global business and what’s going on.”

For its frontline technicians, BP Alaska

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Weiss is passionate about education and loves the company’s Teachers of Excellence program, which “recognizes teachers from throughout Alaska for their dedication to teaching and for inspiring students.” She is also happy to report that in that last several years, BP Alaska awarded more than $3.5 million in various scholarships to approximately 850 graduating high school seniors from across the state.

To Weiss, BP Alaska’s investment in Prudhoe Bay is an investment in Alaska.

“Prudhoe Bay really is the foundation for the energy renaissance that is going on

Alaska Business

on the North Slope; you have to have Prudhoe flowing through TAPS to make sure these other cool, new discoveries have that foundation to really build on.

“The world’s energy demand is increasing, and customer demand is to provide that in a cleaner way,” Weiss says. “Bringing in new technology in the right way can do both of those, and I like the way that BP is really embracing that dual challenge, and here in Alaska we have a big part to play in the global energy transition when we think about a better world for our kids and our kids’ kids.”

April 2019 | 65

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | BP ALASKA

has put a graduated leveling system in place where new employees are connected to mentors and assigned an area in which lead operators keep an eye out to ensure the employee is doing well and advancing in a meaningful way.

“There is great pride [at BP] in developing capability in others; that is something that we value highly,” she says. “You can see those that might have twenty to twenty-five years of experience wanting to invest in those that are just joining the company.”

That desire to help each other is an integral part of BP Alaska’s culture, and one the company plans to maintain in the midst of making some adjustments.

“BP is a very polite culture, but we need to get scrappier as we go forward,” Weiss explains. “We need to get into a deeper, business-driven mindset, with safety as the core, the priority.”

It was not anticipated when first oil was produced in Prudhoe Bay that the field would be in operation forty years later, and BP Alaska has set the goal to still be working in Prudhoe Bay in another forty years. To meet that goal, Weiss expects it will take every employee to step up to meet that ambition. “What I’m trying to do here is really instill a stronger business-drive DNA—a stronger vibe of more transparent conversations… If people came here today they would first describe BP employees as very smart and very nice. And what we’re attempting to achieve is very smart, very nice, but more eye-of-the-tiger, more eye on the goal.”

As Weiss states, safety is at the core of all of BP Alaska’s operations, and so the company has also been utilizing a program called “How I Show Up” in recent years. That program is focused on strengthening the value of caring enough to speak up, even if it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient. Weiss says, “So if you’re seeing somebody that might be putting themselves at risk, care enough to stop and intervene.”

As BP Alaska pushes itself forward as a corporation, it continues to invest in Alaska communities. Weiss reports that the company invests approximately $3 million every year in Alaska community programs and nonprofit organizations.

BP Alaska employees support more than 800 education and community groups in addition to about 230 youth sports teams.

CORPORATE 100 SPECIAL SECTION | EMPLOYEE PROFILE

The Wonderful History of Bev Crum

Bev Crum, ER nurse manager for the PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center.

PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

Forty years of compassion at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

By Tasha Anderson

M

y interview with Bev Crum, ER nurse manager for the Emergency Department at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center, was absolutely delightful. It is clear, from even the short conversation that we had, that she is an intelligent, highly qualified, and deeply compassionate woman who has dedicated her career to caring for patients, peers, and her community.

PeaceHealth’s history stretches back in Ketchikan to 1923, when the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace opened the Little Flower Hospital. Today PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center employs 500 people, 80 percent of whom are women. The center’s number of employees qualified the organization for our 2019 Corporate 100 list, and because of the hospital’s rich history, we thought it was the perfect candidate to connect Alaska Business with an employee with an equally rich history. Enter Crum, who has worked at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center for more than forty years.

She is originally from Ohio and moved to Ketchikan in 1976, so she’s now lived more of her life in Alaska than elsewhere.

While in Ohio, “I had a friend that was in Ketchikan doing some seasonal work. And when I heard that person talking about Ketchikan—the mountains, the water, it’s

66 | April 2019

laid-back, how nice the community was—I was intrigued.” She arrived in Ketchikan via the Alaska Marine Highway on Seward’s Day. “It was kind of interesting coming in on Seward’s Day because you couldn’t do anything. I had broken my glasses on the ferry and needed a screw put on them, but nothing was open. At the time it just didn’t make sense to me, but now that I’ve lived here all these years, I do understand how important those days are.”

Crum can’t point to anything specific that led her to a career in healthcare; rather, she’s always just kind of known she was heading that direction. “Back when I was growing up, you either wanted to be a nurse or a teacher—there really weren’t that many opportunities for women back then.” Before heading to Ketchikan, she had worked for three years in pediatrics at an Ohio hospital after earning her nursing degree.

The themes of her career are mentoring and growth. She has been licensed as an

EMT and taught skills and proctored exams in that field; she was on the Ketchikan Emergency Medical Services Board, which led her to join the Southeast Region EMS board; in the 1980s she became a CEN, or certified emergency nurse; she’s been an instructor for ACLS, PALS, TNCC, ENPC; and she’s participated in sexual assault response training several times.

And all of that education and career development has been matched by official accolades. Crum was the 1996 Manager of the Year in Ketchikan. She was named by the Emergency Nurses Association as the Manager of the Year as well, “which was an international award and was quite fabulous; I received that in Baltimore, and my staff had written very nice things about me. It was quite an honor and a real highlight for me in my career,” she says. She’s also been nominated and named as Manager of the Year specifically at the hospital, and she received the Mission and Values Award for Collaboration in 2017.

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PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

insurance up front, and that’s been one important thing for us, is that we take care of people first and worry about the rest later.”

—Bev Crum ER Nurse Manager PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center

Over the course of her forty years, she’s worked primarily in emergency response, though she also worked in the long-term care unit and in pediatrics. She became a manager in the late seventies, and today as the ER nurse manager her day-to-day activities cover the emergency department, including trauma and sexual assault, and her team also covers disaster and emergency preparedness.

“Even though I’m a manager, what I enjoy most is that I still do hands-on patient care,” she explains. “I’ll help over lunches or breaks or if they’re busy. What I really enjoy is just being there for the patient… If your family goes to the emergency room, you want someone there to be their advocate and to look out for them—to put an arm around them or get them a glass of water. Those seem like simple things, but for all my years, those are important things for people.”

While her passion for helping others has been constant, very few other aspects of the healthcare industry have remained the same for forty years.

“When I first started, we did very little charting, and anymore if you don’t chart it, you didn’t do it.” She absolutely sees the value in detailed documentation to improve standards of care but says it’s a lot of work. “You almost feel like you need glasses with a video camera that can record everything for you, because it’s very cumbersome to do and try to take care of patients.”

And while her charting glasses haven’t entered production quite yet, many other technological advances have takwww.akbizmag.com

en place. “We got our first electronic medical record in 1998,” Crum says.

With the initiation of electronic health records, it became necessary for employees to have a user number for access.

“For some unknown reason, I got the number 911, and it’s like somebody must have known I was going to outlast my colleagues,” she laughs. “It’s kind of a cute thing for me.”

One of the biggest changes specifically in the emergency department is staffing. In the 1970s, there were no emergency room physicians. Instead, nurses would assess the patient, call a local community doctor, and then develop a plan for treatment.

This system ended in the early 1980s, when the doctors found the system to be too much of a burden on their private practices. The hospital tried a few different systems, including having doctors in the ER on the weekends or on nights, until deciding to have full time emergency physicians in the department in 1989.

Early in her career, “we didn’t have Medevac services, so if we had a critical patient that we needed to transport out, they had to buy an Alaska Airlines ticket, and that took twelve seats to go on the stretcher,” Crum says. She’s seen CT and MRI technology change the quality of diagnostics and the hospital staff’s ability to better determine whether a patient could be treated on site, and she remembers a time when the hospital still had sisters in the building, though their numbers have dwindled and none are there today.

She’s been able to ground herself Alaska Business

amongst all these changes, but looking forward she hopes that Ketchikan, which is a small community, isn’t lost in the big system that is healthcare. “It’s important to me that, with all of the system-ness that goes on, that we do remember our own local community and try to fit what the system wants to our community.”

She says the culture at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center is one of team spirit and is driven by the PeaceHealth mission to take care of anyone who passes through the center’s doors. “It makes no difference who they are. We don’t ask for insurance up front, and that’s been one important thing for us, is that we take care of people first and worry about the rest later.”

She’s found value in her long career at PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in large part because of that culture, which supports her and her staff as they demonstrate care and compassion to their patients. “I am so grateful for all of the wonderful caregivers/persons, not only from PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center but from across the state that have crossed my path during my tenure, and I’d like to give special acknowledgement to all of the emergency department caregivers that have helped to make my role so much easier throughout the years.”

It would seem they return the sentiment. According to a PeaceHealth article from January 2017 titled “A best friend in the worst times,” if there’s something going wrong, one can always see Crum in the midst of it, trying to make things better.

April 2019 | 67

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2019 Corporate 100 Alphabetical Listings Afognak Native Corporation Ahtna, Inc. Alaska Airlines Alaska Commercial Co. Alaska Communications Alaska General Seafoods Alaska Railroad Corporation Alaska Regional Hospital Alaska USA Federal Credit Union Alsco Alyeska Pipeline Service Company Alyeska Resort/Hotel Alyeska American Fast Freight Arctic Slope Regional Corporation AT&T Baker Hughes, a GE Company Bartlett Regional Hospital Beacon Occupational Health & Safety Services Bering Straits Native Corporation BP Exploration (Alaska) Bristol Bay Native Corporation Calista Corporation Cape Fox Corporation Carrs Safeway Central Peninsula Hospital Chenega Corporation Chugach Alaska Corporation Chugach Electric Association Coeur Alaska Colaska Colville CONAM Construction ConocoPhillips Alaska Credit Union 1 Crowley Alaska Cruz Companies Alaska Dave & Buster’s Denali Universal Services Denali. A division of Nuvision Credit Union Doyon, Limited ENSTAR Natural Gas Everts Air Cargo FedEx Express First National Bank Alaska Foundation Health Partners Franz Bakery GCI Goldbelt, Incorporated Granite Construction Company Grant Aviation Great Northwest Guardian Flight Halliburton Energy Services Hecla Greens Creek Mining Co.

89 63 9 19 42 24 32 26 15 98 33 30 80 4 46 91 36 72 48 10 11 28 97 5 25 71 18 67 52 27 86 68 16 53 56 95 73 39 65 40 82 61 37 35 8 100 6 74 59 83 85 87 62 50

Hilton Anchorage Homer Electric Association Hope Community Resources Jacobs Lynden Mat-Su Regional Medical Center Matanuska Electric Association Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union Matson MTA Municipal Light & Power N C Machinery NANA Regional Corporation North Pacific Seafoods North Star Behavioral Health Northern Air Cargo Northern Star Resources Limited (Pogo Mine) Northrim Bank PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center Peter Pan Seafoods Price Gregory International Princess Cruises, Holland America Line & Seabourn Providence Health & Services Alaska Pruhs Construction Ravn Air Group REI Ryan Air Schlumberger Oilfield Services Sourdough Express South Peninsula Hospital SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium Subway of Alaska Tanadgusix Corp. (TDX) Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport The Alaska Club The Hotel Captain Cook The Odom Corporation Three Bears Alaska Trident Seafoods Corporation Udelhoven Oilfield System Services Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC) Unisea Usibelli Coal Mine Vigor Alaska Wells Fargo Bank N.A. Westward Seafoods

77 92 31 17 23 29 81 90 38 70 75 76 2 12 51 54 58 64 44 13 78 45 3 93 14 84 96 43 88 47 7 69 99 57 20 55 49 41 1 66 60 22 94 79 34 21

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OIL & GAS

Operating Behind the Scenes Oil and gas services suppliers keep the industry running smoothly

B

By Julie Stricker

rian Benson has spent more than forty years working with Alaska’s oil and gas industry. As the Alaska area Vice President of Airgas, an Air Liquide America company, he has seen some major ups and downs in the industry.

“Some of the largest growth we saw was during the pipeline days,” he says.

“Then we had some contraction, and then more growth, and then some contraction during the 2008 period when the country went through recession,

70 | April 2019

and then steady growth until Alaska went through our recession here about three years ago.”

The latest recession occurred after oil prices plummeted in 2014, erasing nearly 6,500 jobs and $680 million in wages, according to a 2017 study by the McDowell Group commissioned by the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.

Benson is seeing signs of a brighter future.

“We’re starting to see some exciting growth,” he says. “I don’t want to be political, but the government has changed.

It has become more business-friendly, so the players up on the Slope are starting to get busy with work that has been on the books for two or three years. And we’re seeing growth within the North Slope as exploration plays westward into the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.”

That’s good news for the thousands of people who work for the hundreds of companies that keep Alaska’s oil and gas industry up and running. Oil and gas provides the lion’s share of revenue for the state. The industry also is responsible for about one in six jobs in the private

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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Airgas’ main plant is in Anchorage. It manufactures bulk oxygen and nitrogen and imports CO2 and argon from Canada. Airgas is an Air Liquide company. © William (BJ) Murdock

sector, or about $13.2 billion in wages, according to McDowell Group.

Alaska’s North Slope is remote by nearly any definition. Only one road— mostly two-lane, unpaved, steep, and winding in places—leads to the sprawling oil and gas operations that spread out from a hub at Deadhorse. Barges operate in a narrow window when ice recedes in the Beaufort Sea each summer, and blizzards often delay air travel to and from the region. But the North Slope, along with oil and gas operations on the Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet, is the economic lifeblood for Alaska. The oil and gas services industry helps keep that blood pumping.

While the big oil and gas companies and the trans-Alaska pipeline directly employed 4,275 workers in 2016, oil and gas support businesses employed 6,095, according to the McDowell Group study.

Thousands of people work on the Slope.

Not only do they need the equipment www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 71

“I’ve been up here since 1955 and I’ve seen a lot of changes, but the way the state’s going right now and the opportunities that we have as a company and the opportunities that are there for our clients in the oil and gas industry, it’s just exciting.”

—Brian Benson, Vice President Airgas

and tools to do their jobs, they also need transportation, housing, food, and other amenities. These are supplied by companies such as Doyon Drilling, which is manufacturing its ninth state-of-the-art drill rig for use in the oilfields; Airgas, which supplies safety equipment and bulk gases such as nitrogen for well stimulation; and Alaska Roteq, which distributes industrial pumps and machine specialty parts.

Other companies provide food, housekeeping, and janitorial services, among many, many other services. According to the study, the hundreds of oil and gas support vendors supply about $4.6 billion in operating and capital expenditures.

Airgas employs about sixty-five families in Alaska and has been in the state since 1952, initially as Anchorage Oxygen and later as Industrial Air Products. It took on the Air Liquide America banner in 1972 and in 2016 integrated with Airgas. Its main offices, along with its air separation and cylinder packaging plant, are located in Anchorage, with stores and warehouses in Wasilla, Homer, Kenai, and Fairbanks.

About a third of its business is with the oil and gas industry and another third is

medical, Benson says. The rest is a mix of service, retail, and construction.

North Slope Expansion The westward expansion of exploration on the North Slope by companies such as ConocoPhillips and Oil Search is providing a lot of growth opportunities, Benson says.

In 2017-2018, ConocoPhillips had one of its busiest exploration seasons in more than a decade as it drilled several wells to help delineate its Willow discovery, which is estimated to hold at least 300 million barrels of recoverable oil. In 2015, a partnership by Repsol and Armstrong Energy announced it discovered a billionplus-barrel prospect they named Pikka.

“In my career, I’ve seen some $120 oil drop to like $30, and when that happens, things just kind of button up,” Benson says.

“There’s a certain amount of work that needs to be done, maintenance that can’t be put off. But the growth of infrastructure, that doesn’t happen unless there’s some stability. I think that the oil companies are seeing some stability, or potential stability, in our tax regime up here. We’re seeing investment that frankly is pretty exciting.”

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was teaming up with Doyon Drilling to build a state-of-the-art extended-reach drilling rig for its Fiord West field, located northwest of the Colville River Delta. The rig will be able to drill 33,000 feet and access resources in a 125-square-mile area around the rig from ConocoPhillips’ existing infrastructure. It is expected to go online in 2020, with about eighty direct jobs and another seventy to eighty support jobs, according to Aaron Schutt, president of Doyon, Limited.

Doyon Drilling currently operates eight drilling rigs on the North Slope and has about 300 employees. Its highly mobile rigs are designed for the North Slope’s extreme arctic conditions. In 2018, its Rig 19 set a North American drilling record when it drilled a horizontal lateral well 21,478 feet long at ConocoPhillips’ CD-5 site.

The Next Best Idea Coming up with the next best idea is the biggest challenge when working with oil and gas companies, says Kevin Laurin, president of Alaska Roteq. Based in Wasilla, Alaska Roteq provides full machining services, thermal spray coating, welding, balancing, field machining, field mechanics, and engineering. The company

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Airgas has deep roots in Alaska, dating to the 1950s when it was known as Anchorage Oxygen.

Airgas

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 73

“There’s a lot more competition out there from a machine shop standpoint, well, from every standpoint of what we do… Money doesn’t flow as easily as it used to. There’s a lot more scrutinizing to make sure that the money needs to be spent.”

—Kevin Laurin, President, Alaska Roteq

74 | April 2019

also specializes in pump repair and is a statewide distributor for products such as pumps, air compressors, mechanical seals, valves, and instrumentation. It employs about thirty people.

“We play in every market there is when it comes to our distribution,” Laurin says.

“I don’t care if it’s the villages with small little water pumps or it’s the North Slope with big 5,000-horsepower injection pumps. We cover it all.”

The company opened its doors in 1993 as BW/IP, which became FlowServe, a global pump manufacturer. In 2001, the company bought the facility from FlowServe and became Alaska Roteq, Laurin says. In the nearly thirty years he’s been with the company, Laurin says the industry has gotten tighter, especially with the downturn after 2014.

“There’s a lot more competition out there from a machine shop standpoint, well, from every standpoint of what we do,” he says. “Way less people doing the same amount of work and way more hierarchy to get things approved. Money doesn’t flow as easily as it used to. There’s a lot more scrutinizing to make sure that the money needs to be spent.”

Diversification is crucial to the company’s success. Laurin says about half of Alaska Roteq’s business is through its shop, which does specialty welding, coatings, machining, and grinding. Product distribution makes up the other half.

“For the distribution, it’s statewide,” he says. “We play in the water-wastewater world. We play in mining. We play in all the markets. From the shop standpoint, it’s mainly North Slope business and some mining.”

One challenge for Alaska Roteq has been finding ways to upgrade injection pumps so they keep working in the North Slope’s harsh conditions.

“We’ve done years and years and years of upgrades and upgrades and upgrades and finding the next weak link,” Laurin says. “You spend a lot of effort to make the pump run longer, and then the next time they want to run longer yet. So you’ve got to come up with new ideas to make it run longer.”

It’s never boring, he says. “It’s always challenging to come up with the next best idea.”

Laurin says the oil and gas industry has recovered enough to be on par with where it stood before the price collapse, and the future is looking promising.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

“Because there’s more competition than there’s ever been, I would say we’ve got concerns there, but as a whole, I don’t think the purse strings are being held quite as tight as what they were,” he says. “I think there’s going to be some money cut loose for projects. Obviously, with ConocoPhillips moving forward with new exploration and Eni spending money … BP looks like they’re probably going to spend some money this year. The future definitely looks promising.”

New Opportunities When Air Liquide moved under the Airgas umbrella, it opened up new avenues of business for the company, Benson says.

The company provides bulk liquid nitrogen and oxygen from its Anchorage facilities.

It also manufactures dry ice and ice pellets, which it ships statewide. Airgas is also a major supplier of safety equipment, one of the top two or three in the country, Benson says. Even that, however, is affected by what happens on the North Slope.

“The thing I’ve noticed in my time here is that when there’s nothing going on up north, all business contracts,” he says.

“Even our medical [business] shrinks when we’re not selling a lot to the explorers or pipeline builders because people are putting off that trip to grandma’s house or putting off elective surgery. The whole economy is shrinking in relation to oil sales. That’s kind of a barometer, and we expect as the oil business comes up, the rising tide is going to float more boats. It’s going to help people eat out more, so they’re going to buy more CO2 for their sodas at McDonald’s.”

It’s not just the oil industry that has Benson bullish about the future. Major mineral prospects at Donlin Creek, Pebble, the Ambler mining district, and even rare earth minerals in Southeast Alaska are big opportunities for Alaskans, he says.

“It’s an exciting time to be a person who works for Airgas and an exciting time for me as an Alaskan,” Benson says. “I’ve been up here since 1955 and I’ve seen a lot of changes, but the way the state’s going right now and the opportunities that we have as a company and the opportunities that are there for our clients in the oil and gas industry, it’s just exciting. I haven’t seen anything like this really since before the trans-Alaska pipeline started. And I can see it’s not going to get as crazy as that, which is a good thing. Everything is a lot better planned this time.” www.akbizmag.com

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E D U C AT I O N

Kate Hamre is a teacher at Inlet View Elementary in Anchorage.

NEA-Alaska

Educational Hurdles Alaska falls behind national trends

S

By Vanessa Orr

chools throughout the nation are facing a teacher shortage, and nowhere is this felt more starkly than in Alaska, where a large number of educators are recruited from the Lower 48. This, in addition to other factors including the remoteness of many of the state’s schools, the lack of a competitive retirement system, and legislative budget issues, makes recruiting and retaining skilled educators a monumental challenge.

According to Dr. Lisa Skiles Parady, executive director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, the situation has 76 | April 2019

become even more dire in the last couple of years.

“We are in a national crisis in terms of an educator shortage, and what makes it even worse in Alaska is that we have historically relied on the Lower 48 to recruit teachers, principals, and other educators,” she explains. “Teachers used to come to the state from all over the nation to find jobs; the Alaska Teacher Placement job fair in Anchorage had lines out the door. Now, the numbers have fallen considerably; last year, 211 participants came to the fair, and a high percentage of those were already employed here as teachers and were looking to move to other districts.”

“I’ve been part of the Lower Kuskokwim School District for twenty-seven years, and the first job fair that I went to as an

aspiring teacher there were 1,300 candidates,” agrees Daniel Walker, superintendent of schools for the Lower Kuskokwim School District (LKSD). “Now 200 people is a large number.”

Alaska’s rural areas are especially hard hit, as teacher turnover is strikingly high. According to the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project’s website, some school districts in the state suffer from up to 85 percent turnover, which not only results in a lack of cohesiveness within the school community but also tends to result in poor student performance.

While the Anchorage School District is one of the 100 largest in the nation with 3,000 teachers and 50,000 students, 135 of Alaska’s 512 schools have fewer than 50 students and 82 schools enroll 25 or fewer students.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Glenn Charlie works as a para-professional at William Miller Memorial School in Napakiak.

NEA-Alaska

“In 2016-17, the average school teacher retention rate in urban areas was 83.3 percent; in rural, remote areas, it was 57.1 percent,” says Skiles Parady. “The more remote you are, the higher the turnover.”

Principals and superintendents are not immune, either. “Last year, the principal turnover rate was 26 percent, and principals are second only to teachers when it comes to positive student achievement,” says Skiles Parady, adding that in the past five years, the total superintendent turnover rate was approximately 70 percent.

“High turnover rates affect school stability, which affects learning.”

An elementary school teacher works with students at Mount Redoubt Elementary in Soldotna.

NEA-Alaska

Why Teachers Leave While some of the turnover can be attributed to teachers nearing retirement age, one of the biggest reasons that educators leave is the lack of a sustainable retirement plan, according to Tim Parker, president of NEA-Alaska. In 2006, the state switched from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan, which puts those who were hired after that date—about half of all current teachers—at risk.

“The retirement program we had before that date included a safety net based on the number of years you worked; anyone hired after that date gets what is www.akbizmag.com

basically a 401K,” he explains. “The state puts in 7 percent and the educator puts in 8 percent, which, by state calculations, means that many people will be running out of money after about ten or fifteen years. We encourage people to save a whole lot more—like an additional 25 percent. But who can take an additional 25 percent out of their salary to put in a retirement vehicle?”

Educators in Alaska also don’t receive social security, and in fact are penalized Alaska Business

through the federal government’s Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, according to Parker.

“If a teacher collected social security from a previous job, when they retire, their social security payment can be massively reduced, depending on the number of years that they worked in the private sector,” he says. “Teachers take a double hit; they have no security in their retirement account and their social security payments are reduced. They’d be better off April 2019 | 77

Lower Kuskokwim School District students attending the ANSEP STEM academy.

LKSD

from a retirement perspective to work at a gas station or a grocery store.”

One benefit to teachers—but not to school districts—is that they are vested after five years so that they can transfer their 401K to another state that has a defined benefit system. “Because of the teacher shortage, they can easily get hired somewhere else,” says Parker.

“We’ve created a massive incentive for people to leave the state by taking social security and retirement away.”

Even those teachers who come to Alaska and hope to stay may find that job uncertainty makes it untenable. New

educators are especially subject to fluctuations in the state’s budget, which provides approximately two-thirds of the funding in larger school districts. And budgets that aren’t determined until very late in the legislative session can mean that teachers are laid off until the money comes through.

“When there is no forward funding, districts have to start handing out pink slips, which means that hundreds of teachers get laid off, so they head out of state,” says Parker. “Once the legislature figures the budget out in June or July, the districts try to rehire these people, but it’s too late. They need to lock up those jobs in January-April

“Because of the teacher shortage, they can easily get hired somewhere else. We’ve created a massive incentive for people to leave the state by taking social security and retirement away.”

—Tim Parker, President, NEA-Alaska

78 | April 2019

when teachers are signing contracts for where they’ll be working next year.”

Parker fears that this year teachers will be seeing more of the same. “The governor has proposed a cut of $20 million after schools already had their budgets, which would cause every district to lose additional money. Though things are still up in the air, the chance of getting a pink slip is going up, making teachers think that this is not the place to be.”

While other states are actually increasing teacher pay, Alaska is not.

“When I started teaching twenty years ago, Alaska was ranked in the top three in the country for teacher salaries, even factoring in the cost of living; now we’re in the middle of the pack at best,” says Parker, adding that the average salary in the state is approximately $60,000. “Nationwide, many other states are increasing wages dramatically; Washington State increased them by close to 20 percent, and Los Angeles teachers just saw a 6 percent wage increase. States are adding incentives and making sure that teachers are compensated as a way to deal with the educator shortage.”

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o book a meeting, it helps to o book a meeting, it helps to have your heart in the place, a have your heart in the place, a nose for business and the mind of an nose for business and the mind of an educator. Monica Kane, UAA’s Chief educator. Monica Kane, UAA’s Chief of Staff and Contract Administrator, of Staff and Contract Administrator, has all three. The Western Association has all three. The Western Association of College and University Business of College and University Business Officers returns to Anchorage in 2021, Officers returns to Anchorage in 2021, the second time Kane’s advocacy has the second time Kane’s advocacy has drawn the group’s annual meeting to drawn the group’s annual meeting to Anchorage. The city gets the economic Anchorage. The city gets the economic benefits of a visit from academia’s top benefits of a visit from academia’s top business officers, and WACUBO gets business officers, and WACUBO gets a campus full of Alaska-sized wonders a campus full of Alaska-sized wonders for their meeting. for their meeting.

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A job fair for educators in Austin, Texas, in October 2017. ©Toni McFadden

While all of these issues affect teachers in both urban and rural Alaska, those teaching at remote schools face another challenge.

“The number one reason for turnover in our district is distance from family, and unfortunately, we can’t control that,” says Walker, adding that, historically, LKSD has a smaller turnover than most other school districts around them, averaging between 18 percent and 20 percent.

LKSD is the largest of Alaska’s Rural Education Attendance Areas, spanning 21,000 square miles and including twenty-two remote villages and the hub of Bethel. There are 4,100 students across the district and 350 certified teachers, 27 principals, and 6 assistant principals. Approximately 60 to 80 teachers leave each year, and 4 to 6 principals.

“There are things we can control and things we can’t, so we concentrate on what we can do to make it a positive experience so that they want to stay,” says Walker. “We also make sure that we are proactive and intentional on the front end, selecting candidates that are the right fit for our circumstances—people who want to work in very rural areas that are 95 percent Alaska Native, who are seeking a very different cultural experience.”

Recruitment and Retention Every year, Alaska loses about 1,000 of its 8,000 to 9,000 teachers, so it’s imperative that the state find ways to attract and keep more educators. According to Parker, it costs about $25,000 per teacher to bring them to Alaska, with about 1,000 being hired each year. “That’s a substantial amount of a district’s budget, so you want to keep them the best you can,” he 80 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

“People still want to move to Alaska, so that’s a big pull; it’s their dream to live here, but from an economic standpoint, it’s not their first pick.”

—Tim Parker, President NEA-Alaska

says. “People still want to move to Alaska, so that’s a big pull; it’s their dream to live here, but from an economic standpoint, it’s not their first pick.”

The University of Alaska is working to train more teachers in-state, as well as to encourage high school students to go into the education field. Approximately 250 students graduate eligible for a teaching

www.akbizmag.com

Students working (and playing) in a Ruby classroom.

ASMP

license each year from the university’s three campuses, with the majority starting their career in Alaska.

“Our program in Alaska isn’t like those in other states; the big difference is context,” says Steve Atwater, executive dean of the Alaska College of Education at the

Alaska Business

University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). “We prepare the students to work in Alaska schools, which means that there is a strong cultural emphasis and a focus on using the local context to drive instruction.

“Some of our students travel to rural schools to get student teaching

April 2019 | 81

Mentor Hal Neace surrounded by kids in Brett Stevens’ fifth-grade class in in Utqiaġvik. ©Brett Stevens, ECT

experience, and these visiting assignments are often very nontraditional; they are teaching multiple grades as well as multiple subjects,” he continues. “It is a very different type of teaching than they’d do down south.”

Unfortunately, the program at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) School of Education was denied accreditation for its initial licensure programs earlier this year, which left the school and its students unsure of where things stand. Programs affected by the loss of accreditation are bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education, elementary education, secondary education, and the master’s degree program in secondary education.

“The state board approved UAA’s programs for students graduating this spring and in August; they will get their teaching licenses; beyond that, we don’t know,” says Atwater. In mid-February, the State Board of Education approved a request from the university to consider spring and summer 2019 graduates eligible for licensure and to show they have graduated from a state-approved program. Both UAS and University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) still have accredited teaching programs, and a small number of enrolled students are currently transferring or have already transferred to other campuses.

According to Atwater, each campus 82 | April 2019

has its own recruiting strategies, which include outreach to high schools. “We partner with Education Rising, which is a national organization that encourages senior high school students to go into the teaching profession,” he explains. “UAS has also recently hired a recruiter for the UA system, and the university is dedicating resources to help with recruitment and retention.”

The university also sponsors the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project, which provides individualized support to first- and second-year teachers. Mentors visit with teachers monthly and speak weekly by phone, email, or Skype to make sure that teachers have the help they need.

LKSD recruits teachers through the Alaska Teacher Placement program and employs two former principals who live in the Lower 48 to travel to 80 to 100 job fairs each year.

“We also have a long history of growing our own educators; if we support people from our local communities to become certified teachers, they already have community connections and understand the culture and language issues they’ll face,” says Walker, adding that a large part of LKSD’s student population are English learners who still speak indigenous languages. “If we can recruit people from the community and support them to get a four-year teaching degree, we are

ahead of the game. It’s one less person that we need to recruit from Outside.”

LKSD is also developing relationships with teaching colleges in the Lower 48 and will bring up student teaching candidates to spend a semester working at a rural Alaska school. The district recently revamped its Career Ladder program to allow students multiple pathways to become teachers—either supporting them while they study at UAF; enabling them to work full-time in their communities while studying at night via distance learning; or even paying them to study full-time.

“They work for us while they’re working to get their degree; it’s a very expensive program, but it gets them through the program sooner,” says Walker. “Every semester we pay for, they owe us one year of service.”

With so many obstacles in the way, it’s a wonder that Alaska’s school districts— and its students—are doing as well as they are.

“There are a lot of dedicated people here who have a passion for teaching; you hear over and over about how much they care about learning in the classrooms,” says Parker. “You focus on the kids and you try not to think about the economics.

At the end of the day, a lot of successes happen and you feel good about that. It’s what keeps you going—connecting to the communities and the kids.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

H R M AT T E R S

From Recruiting to Onboarding The importance of quality new hire work flows

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ith more than 100 million employees in the American workforce, we have a melting pot of generations working amongst teams or actively seeking employment. We find ourselves caught in a paradox; torn between change resistant dynamics of honoring the legacy of a company or accepting advancement in management philosophy. Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z dynamic organizations are challenged with engaging a work force including multiple generations in the workplace. Complicating matters, according to Gallup (2017), only 18 percent feel their work is important based on the mission and purpose communicated by their employers. Furthermore, in 2016 the average annual organizational turnover rate in the United States workforce was roughly 18 percent. It is estimated that all other generational turnover aside, Millennials, who report the lowest rate of engagement, cost the US economy roughly $30.5 billion annually (Gallup 2017).

Millennials (ages 23-28) make up roughly half of the work force and when combined with a tightening labor market, it is vital to recruit, hire, manage, communicate, and develop employees in a way that addresses turnover and a lack of purpose.

Changing Dynamics With such transparency, employees no longer approach employment based on pay and benefits. Rather, employees from multiple generations are seeking employment with a consumer’s approach. This is evident in the competition for skilled and talented workers. Candidates of all generations have access to technological information available about company brand, purpose, culture, and development opportunities and they are doing their homework. Suddenly a company’s website, employee reviews, community outreach, and brand management all become part of the recruitment process.

By Paula Bradison Employees of all generations are seeking an experience and a brand they can commit to. There is no question that pay and benefits remain relevant, but they are no longer the basis for all employment decisions. This dynamic demands companies attend to their reputation, culture, and talent at hand. At a time that online recruitment has become cost effective, trends show an uptick in the use of marketing and recruitment firms to identify and secure the best resumes. Employees are seeking a workplace that provides a quality work experience from beginning to end. For this reason, research from Gallup’s 2017 Report State of the American Workforce captures the dynamic best: “Employees make judgments and from options about their organization every single day- from the first day” (Gallup 2017) Employee Life Cycle Most onboarding and orientation processes are combined into a few-days process that focuses primarily on getting the person in the position as fast as possible and making sure that person is as productive as possible, as quickly as possible. Small to midsize firms typically depend largely on a “sink or swim” process of training or on the job training shadowing another employee with a fulltime job or leaving the position for which they are training. All things considered, when hiring or addressing turnover, there is a bottom line that needs to be met. What we find is that we have managers reluctant to compromise investment to set aside limited resources in order to address the actual problem. Research suggests that a company’s bottom line cannot afford not to invest in an employee life cycle from the get-go.

In reality, employees develop opinions of trust and commitment to an employer from their very first interactions. Consistency between recruitment, training, and onboarding with vision and purpose are key to advancing

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a lasting and productive relationship. Whether acknowledged or not, the employee life cycle encapsulates the most significant and influential interactions between employee and employer, and can be understood in seven distinct stages.

Attract, Hire, Onboard, Engage, Perform, Develop, and Depart Each stage requires deliberate attention and investment to the employee’s role, the manager’s relationship to the employee, the team dynamic, the available workspace, and the well-being of the individual—Keeping in mind that the engagement, performance, and development of each employee is the goal of each stage and the cycle as a whole. Performance reviews no longer address the needs of employer or employee.

Constant commitment to the coaching and development of an employee lowers turnover and significantly increases productivity.

Not only does attention to an employee life cycle improve the bottom line, it offers structure and consistency between hiring and departing of employment. The employee life cycle is an integral piece of fostering a brand and culture that can be trusted and invested in before, during, and after employee tenure.

Based on a development focus, attention to the employee life cycle attracts top talent and facilitates improvement of both the individual and the organization as a whole.

Paula Bradison is CEO and Managing Director of Alaska Executive Search.

She can be reached at akexec.com or 907-276-5707.

TOURISM

Phillips Cruises and Tours vessel the Klondike Express.

Phillips Cruises and Tours

Alaska’s Shipshape(d) Economy The financial impact of the cruise industry

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By Tracy Barbour

he cruise industry is crucial to Alaska tourism and the state’s financial well-being. The industry includes approximately 2,180 Alaska businesses that provide tours, activities, and services to the cruise lines and their passengers, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA). The businesses range from retail, restaurants, and car-rental companies to air transportation providers, hotels and lodges, day cruises, and shore excursions.

The financial effect of the cruise industry is evident across multiple sectors, including direct visitor spending, cruise line spending and payroll, crew member spending, air and ferry tickets, employment and labor

84 | April 2019

income, and revenue to municipal and state governments.

Alaska, a Top Travel Destination Alaska is one of the top three cruise destinations in the world, with about 20 percent of its cruise passengers coming from outside the United States, according to CLIA. The state welcomed 2.2 million visitors from October 2016 to September 2017, based on Economic Impact of Alaska’s Visitor Industry 2017. The report, released in November of 2018, was prepared by McDowell Group for the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, Division of Economic Development.

The report also indicates that within the transportation industry, 49 percent of Alaska’s visitors traveled by cruise, 47 percent were visitors who entered and exited the state by air, and 4 percent were visitors who entered or exited the state by

highway or ferry. And the bulk of all travelers—86 percent, or 1,926,300—visited between May and September, while 14 percent, or 316,600, visited between October and April.

Alaska’s visitor volume has been increasing fairly steadily since the low point of 2009-2010, showing an overall increase of 27 percent since that period, says Heather Haugland, a senior project manager at McDowell Group. Increasingly, more of the state’s visitors are arriving by cruise ship. “For the last decade or so, cruise passengers have made up around half of all Alaska visitors, based on annual counts,” Haugland says. “This proportion has been on the rise recently, as the cruise market has been growing at a faster pace than the air market.”

The cruise industry, Haugland says, is very significant to the overall economic health of the state. “In addition to nearly $300 million in direct spending by cruise lines on goods, services, and payroll

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in Alaska, they facilitate a tremendous amount of spending from crew and passengers throughout the state,” she explains. “Cruise passengers account for a sizable portion of the $2.2 billion spent in Alaska on tours, retail, lodging, transportation, and dining.”

Regarding tourism in general, Haugland says, the cruise industry plays a role in the independent market in several ways: Cruise lines contribute to the state’s marketing program, which is aimed at the entire spectrum of visitors; cruise lines provide additional marketing value in that their advertising exposes millions to images of Alaska, whether or not those people convert to cruise passengers; and some cruise passengers return to Alaska as independent travelers.

The state’s appeal as a travel destination is not surprising to Sarah Leonard, president and CEO of the Alaska Travel Industry Association. “Alaska holds an exotic, yet safe image of a destination within the United States, offering amazing wildlife viewing, scenic landscapes and outdoor activities that Alaska is known for, and wonderfully rich cultural experiences in port communities throughout our state,” Leonard says.

In fact, she says, Alaska’s cruises can be the first experiences travelers have in the state. Of all Alaska’s visitors—cruise and non-cruise alike—40 percent say they have visited before. And 26 percent of all cruise visitors are repeat visitors to the state. “This cycle of visitors and the continuing popularity of cruising to Alaska drives visitor numbers, which in turn generate economic activity for individual businesses, for communities, and for the state,” Leonard says. “This economic life cycle contributes to a healthy tourism industry, providing economic returns to Alaska.”

With half of Alaska’s visitors choosing to cruise, Alaska cruise partners help drive the state’s visitor numbers. “The cruise industry is a significant segment of our industry, which is consistently contributing economic benefits in the forms of jobs and revenue to communities and the state,” Leonard says.

Alaska’s Cruise Operators There are currently about twenty cruise lines operating in Alaska, representing everything from large ships to smaller vessels, all of which offer an assortment of services. These operators call on a variety of ports in communities along the Inside www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 85

Passage in Southeast Alaska and in places like Homer in the central region of the state.

For example, Princess Cruises operates a fleet of seventeen cruise ships that carry 2 million guests each year to more than 360 destinations worldwide. In Alaska, Princess primarily calls on Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, and Sitka, and it features glacier-viewing experiences at Glacier Bay National Park, Tracy Arm Fjord, Hubbard Glacier, and College Fjord, according to Lisa Syme, vice president of Alaska product management. “Princess has an array of award-winning Alaska shore excursion options for every interest from wildlife watching to gold rush history, cultural education, and outdoor adventures,” Syme says. “We’re proud to offer excursions that are recommended by two of the most trusted names in world travel— Discovery and Animal Planet—including

their grandchildren to relive their memories from years ago. Our tours allow guests to check items off their bucket list, with all of the stunning scenery of mountains, glaciers, and wildlife that they can see in one day.”

Impact of Visitor Spending Spending by out-of-state visitors to Alaska is highly impactful to the state’s economy. Direct visitor industry spending, incidentally, includes spending by outof-state visitors on their Alaska trip, cruise line spending, cruise ship crew member spending, and spending by visitors on their air and ferry tickets traveling to and from Alaska.

According to Economic Impact of Alaska’s Visitor Industry 2017, total direct spending by visitors, cruise lines, crew members, and spending on air and ferry tickets equaled $2.8 billion in 2017. Nearly

“Cruise passengers account for a sizable portion of the $2.2 billion McDowell Group

spent in Alaska on tours, retail, lodging, transportation, and dining.”

—Heather Haugland, Senior Project Manager McDowell Group

excursions that are exclusive to Princess that can’t be booked independently.”

Windstar Cruises has a small fleet of six luxury ships that visit 300 ports in eighty countries worldwide. Carrying about 150 to 310 passengers at a time, Windstar calls on hidden harbors, off-the-beaten path places, and popular ports. In Alaska, it offers sailings that deliver authentic local experiences like letting active travelers kayak in Kenai Fjords.

Whittier-based Phillips Cruises and Tours offers a 26 Glacier Cruise and Glacier Quest Cruise from May to October. The day cruise operator has several boats that can accommodate 149,285, or 328 guests per trip. “We have been cruising for over sixty years in Alaska, so many residents have grown up with us and first traveled on our glacier cruises when they were kids,” says Sales and Marketing Director Lisa Kruse. “Now they are parents bringing their children and grandparents bringing 86 | April 2019

80 percent of that direct spending can be attributed to visitor out-of-pocket spending; 12 percent to spending on air and ferry tickets; 11 percent to cruise line spending; and 1 percent to crew member spending.

This visitor spending occurred in various economic sectors, with several categories receiving about one-fifth each: lodging (21 percent), gifts (20 percent), food and beverage (20 percent), tours (18 percent), and “other,” which is largely made up of overnight packages that affect several sectors. And nearly half (44 percent) of visitor spending occurred in Southcentral, with one-third (32 percent) in Southeast, 18 percent in the Interior, 5 percent in Southwest, and 1 percent in the Far North.

Incidentally, shore excursion participation in Alaska is extremely high compared to other cruise destinations, with an estimated 80 percent to 90 percent of passengers purchasing at least one excursion, according to CLIA. Wildlife

viewing, sightseeing tours, and riding the Alaska Railroad are extremely popular with cruisers. Some 22 percent of passengers who cross the Gulf of Alaska participate in an extended land tour, generally consisting of a rail segment and overnight stays in Fairbanks, Denali, and Anchorage.

Cruise line spending and payroll are also significant economic drivers in Alaska.

Spending in this category includes payments to hotels, motor coach companies, the Alaska Railroad Corporation, and other components of land tours that are included in the cruise package price. Cruise lines and their subsidiaries spent an estimated $297 million on goods and services provided by Alaska businesses, employee payroll, and tax payments during the report’s 2017 study period. This estimate resulted from detailed 2017 purchasing and wage information provided by five major cruise lines: Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Royal Caribbean International (which operates both Royal Caribbean Cruises and Celebrity Cruises), Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Carnival Cruise Lines. Together, these cruise lines represented 91 percent of 2017 cruise passenger traffic.

Crew member spending also contributes considerably to the state’s economy.

Economic Impact of Alaska’s Visitor Industry 2017 indicates that about 27,000 crew members visited Alaska in 2017, spending an estimated $22 million in the state. Each crew member generally sails on ten to twenty individual voyages, visiting multiple communities on each voyage, and making purchases at retail stores, restaurants, bars, and other establishments.

In terms of visitor spending on air and ferry travel, an estimated $315 million in airplane ticket spending took place in Alaska in 2017, the report revealed.

Spending in this area impacts the state’s economy in the form of landing fees, fuel purchases, airline employee wages, and other expenditures in support of airline operations. In addition, visitors to Alaska spent an estimated $11 million on ferry tickets—all attributed to Southeast— to enter and exit the state in 2017.

Effect on Employment and Labor Income Direct spending by visitors in Alaska— including those involved in cruise-related travel—translates into jobs, labor income, and economic output. That’s because visitor spending creates jobs and payroll

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with tour companies, hotels and lodges, retail establishments, transportation providers, and a range of other businesses.

In turn, visitor industry businesses and their employees re-spend a portion of that money with other businesses within and outside of Alaska.

Overall spending by the Alaska visitor industry—including direct, indirect, and induced effects—resulted in 43,300 jobs in 2017, $1.5 billion in labor income, and $4.5 billion in economic output, according to Economic Impact of Alaska’s Visitor Industry 2017. Regionally, Southcentral accounted for the largest portion of employment at 20,700 jobs (48 percent), followed by Southeast at 11,925 jobs (28 percent), Interior at 8,500 jobs (20 percent), Southwest at 1,800 jobs (4 percent), and Far North at 375 jobs (1 percent).

These visitor industry jobs are concentrated in five sectors of Alaska’s economy: eating and drinking establishments (6,900 jobs), accommodations (6,200 jobs), retail businesses (5,300 jobs), tours and activities providers (5,000 jobs), and transportation providers (4,100 jobs). In terms of labor income, three categories generated close to the same amount of direct income at $173 million: transportation, food and

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drink, and tours and activities. In addition, accommodations income totaled $163 million, and retail income totaled $108 million. There was also another category of direct jobs created by additional “industry” spending—cruise lines, crew members, and air and ferry tickets—which accounted for 4,100 jobs and $133 million in labor income in 2017.

Tourism-related jobs tend to be lowerpaying compared to some other industries, but they help drive Alaska’s economic engine. These jobs are significant, Leonard says, in that for some smaller communities, the number of jobs created by one tourism-related business can have positive ripple effects for many additional indirect businesses supporting visitors, from accommodations to coffee shops, restaurants, and more. “While some employment is entry-level, the visitor industry more than other sectors, perhaps, offers a first step into a workforce that can project someone further in hospitality or other employment,” she says.

“The skills learned in the visitor industry, like customer service, communications, marketing, accounting, management, etc., can overlap into other employment opportunities. The tourism industry also

Alaska Business

offers opportunities in long-term and year-round careers, representing 1 in 10 jobs in Alaska and at a peak, over 50,000 jobs.”

Revenue to the Government Alaska’s state and municipal governments benefit tremendously from revenue generated by the visitor industry. User fees, sales taxes, lodging taxes, income taxes, and other payments all flow to state and local governments in Alaska directly or indirectly from the visitor industry.

Economic Impact of Alaska’s Visitor Industry 2017 credited $125.6 million of the state’s revenue to out-of-state visitors. Of that number, $33.3 million was attributed to several forms of direct payments from cruise lines: the Commercial Passenger Vessel Tax, the Large Passenger Vessel Gambling Tax, and the Commercial Passenger Vessel Environmental Compliance Program.

Other examples of income attributed in 2017 to out-of-state visitors, including cruise-related visitors, came from Alaska Railroad Corporation revenue from passengers and contracts to tow private rail cars ($31.9 million), Fish and Game revenue from licenses and tags ($25.5 million), and

April 2019 | 87

“Alaska holds an exotic, yet safe image of a destination within the United States, offering amazing wildlife viewing, known for, and wonderfully rich cultural experiences in port communities throughout our state.”

—Sarah Leonard, President/CEO Alaska Travel Industry Association

corporate income taxes in the “tourism” category ($11.2 million), which includes payments by cruise lines and other visitor industry businesses.

Municipalities in Alaska collected an estimated $88.5 million in revenue from the out-of-state visitor industry in 2017, including $17.8 million in dockage and moorage fees primarily from Juneau and Ketchikan. (The docks in Skagway, Whittier, Sitka, and Icy Strait Point are privately owned. Seward’s dock is owned by the Alaska Railroad Corporation.

Juneau has both private and public

docks.) Local governments in Alaska also earned $37.6 million in sales tax revenue and $33.1 million in lodging tax revenue in 2017 from out-of-state visitors.

Industry Trends From a trend perspective, Haugland has noticed that governmental revenue from the cruise industry has increased significantly in the last several years, due to a variety of factors, including cruise traffic growth and an increase in fishing license fees.

She’s also seen a marked change in

visitor traffic. One big shift in the summer of 2018 was a 23 percent increase in “cross-gulf” passengers—those that begin or end their cruise in Seward or Whittier, rather than sailing round-trip to and from Southeast. “This allows many more passengers to experience Southcentral and the Interior on their Alaska trip,” Haugland says.

And although small cruise ships represent a fraction of total traffic, they have been growing in recent years. These passengers have a bigger impact on the economy as they tend to be higher-

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88 | April 2019

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ATIA

scenic landscapes and outdoor activities that Alaska is

income and stay overnight before and/ or after their cruise. Haugland says, “I’ve also noticed an increase in the mid-sized ‘luxury’ market, which, likewise, brings higher-spending visitors to Alaska.”

As another key trend, several cruise lines are enhancing their offerings in Alaska. Phillips Cruises and Tours— with sixty years of operation in Prince William Sound—is offering new routes, more vessels, and more services.

Phillips completed a refit on its M/V Klondike Express in 2017 and recently purchased a new high-speed catamaran, the M/V Bravest. The vessel, which can carry 285 passengers, will be used on the 26 Glacier Cruise starting this spring. “We are also running a new departure across Prince William Sound on Saturdays and have space for groups on the Valdez to Whittier segment,” Kruse says. “We are entering the luxury market with our 80-foot yacht offering full day expeditions for a limited number of guests.”

Phillips Cruises and Tours has also boosted its cruise and coach package with expanded transportation services.

This year, the company will be working with Greatland Adventures and Premier

Alaska Tours to provide coach service for its guests. “Our investment to expand infrastructure is due to the continued growth we have seen since 2009,” Kruse says. “Whittier is close to Anchorage, and daily coach service makes the connection smooth and enjoyable for our guests.”

Princess Cruises is celebrating fifty years of cruising to Alaska this year with its largest deployment ever, including seven ships and more than twenty-three cruisetours. “The 2019 season will also feature the Alaskan debut of Royal Princess—Princess’ largest and newest ship offering the Princess MedallionClass Experience,” Syme says.

Princess is also augmenting its Alaska cruisetour offerings with the grand opening of Fannie Q’s Saloon at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. It has also added an exclusive treehouse experience at the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. And in honor of this anniversary year, Princess created specially-themed offerings that bring unique Alaska experiences to life through local seafood and by inviting real Alaskans aboard to share their stories.

And recently, Windstar Cruises an-

nounced a “Beyond Ordinary” Savings Event and Star Perks bonus on hundreds of cruise departures through 2020.

Windstar also embarked on a $250 million initiative to enhance its Star-class ships and its onboard guest accommodations and experiences.

With all the enhancements being made by cruise operators, Leonard expects the financial impact of the cruise industry to continue to grow right alongside the tourism industry. “As Alaska’s cruise visitors make up half of all Alaska visitors and as the volume of visitors increase due to new and larger vessels providing itineraries to Alaska, this tourism segment continues to expand,” she says. “If we continue to see this popular trend in Alaska as a cruise destination, a positive outcome is the growing economic benefits.”

CLIA also has positive expectations for Alaska’s tourism and cruise industries.

The association anticipates that tourism will be even brighter in 2019 than it was in 2018—which was a record year for the industry. Its projections for 2019 include 37 CLIA Alaska ships, 567 voyages, and 1.3 million passengers.

“In every job that must be done

there is an element of fun.”

Mary Poppins

Find big mountains and big ideas when you meet in the Mat-Su Valley.

Just 35 miles north of Anchorage. www.alaskavisit.com www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 89

TOURISM

A 1906 Compound light touring vehicle with a woman’s day dress (1901-03) at the Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum in Fairbanks. © Vanessa Orr

Arctic Shadows sculpture at The Museum of the North. (1996, Jacques and Mary Regat)

The Museum of the North, located on the University of Fairbanks campus.

© Vanessa Orr

© Vanessa Orr

Chasing the Aurora Tourism from a tourist’s perspective

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By Vanessa Orr

ying in my cozy bed inside the toasty, tastefully decorated room staring up at the star-filled night sky from a Borealis Basecamp igloo, it was hard to believe that, with all of these creature comforts, I was actually spending the night off-the-grid outside of Fairbanks waiting for the aurora to light up the sky.

I had planned on roughing it a little, having made plans to travel in February to Fairbanks and then up the Dalton Highway to above the Arctic Circle to chase the elusive Northern Lights.

What I hadn’t expected was the level of quality, custom-tailored accommodations and tours that would take the trip to a higher level.

While I often write about Alaska businesses, I rarely get to experience them from a user’s perspective, especially when it comes to being a tourist in the 49th state.

But my recent trip to Fairbanks and the Arctic Circle to witness the aurora gave me a first-hand look at why more and 90 | April 2019

more travelers cite Alaska as one of the number one items on their bucket lists.

Seeing the Lights During aurora season, generally August 21 through April 21, there’s always the chance to catch the Northern Lights in action. What many people don’t realize is that it doesn’t have to be winter to watch them dance—a fact of which I was naively unaware. And while other Alaska sites advertise themselves as Northern Lights locations, the aurora is especially impressive in Fairbanks and all the way north to Wiseman, as these cities sit under the Auroral Oval: a ring-shaped region that encompasses Fairbanks on the southern end and Wiseman to the north.

This has spawned an entire industry focused on helping tourists have an incredible aurora experience. A number of lodging companies, already decorated to the hilt with photos of authentic Alaska experiences such as dogsledding and gold-panning, have added special warming huts, called auroriums, to keep

tourists toasty while witnessing the lights. In Fairbanks, for example, the Taste of Alaska Lodge not only has rooms with patio doors that open right out to a field where you can stand to view the immense sky but also a yurt on the property where aurora-watchers can get warm. The 280-acre property, homesteaded by Walter and Dorothy Eberhardt in 1947, is now run by their grandson, Kory Eberhardt, who is more than happy to share his knowledge and photo tips with his guests. The hotel itself is a mix of Alaska-themed items and antiques collected from all over the country, making it a unique destination for those who are looking for something far different than a franchise hotel.

Borealis Basecamp, located twenty-five miles outside of Fairbanks, is not what you’d expect to find in Alaska—or even on this planet. Massive acrylic-domed igloos dot the mountaintop to allow the widest angle of observation while still enabling guests to stay warm in their Toyo-heated rooms. The igloos’ custom-made, 16foot windows were created by basecamp co-owner Adriel Butler, who based them on a helicopter window design as a way to increase visibility. And the rooms even feature dry-flush toilets so that you never have to go outside in an area where outhouses are not uncommon.

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Meals are served in a massive yurt that looks over the mountain, and guests can choose from Chef George-prepared entrees that include salmon, crab, and flank steak, as well as a soup and salad course and desserts at a quality that you’d expect to find in a fine dining restaurant instead of an off-grid ecolodge. There are also numerous activities to keep visitors entertained, from dogsledding and walking tours to backcountry snow machine rides.

Chena Hot Springs Resort, about sixty miles outside Fairbanks, also provides an ideal location to see the aurora. Since a storm had blown in on the day I visited, I chose to stay instead in the 106 degree outdoor Rock Lake pool, which is naturally heated by water coming from 3,000 feet underground. There’s something really special about basking in the steaming water while being surrounded by ice and looking up into a starry Alaska sky; this one-of-a-kind experience can’t be found anywhere else.

Chena also offers a lot of other attractions, most notably the Aurora Ice Museum. This attraction, made of more than 1,000 tons of ice and snow, can be visited year-round as it’s kept at a balmy 25 degrees so the ice doesn’t melt.

Inside, I was fascinated by the carvings created by Steve and Heather Brice, world-champion ice sculptors who have a workshop based within the museum. I was especially entranced by the frozen flowers within the ice, and of course, the massive ice bar, where our host served appletinis in glasses carved of ice. While I’ve never held a drink with mittens before, little touches like these really make the moment. And of course, the selfies were stupendous.

Two things that stand out about all of these accommodations are that they offer something uniquely Alaskan and they provide alternative entertainment opportunities, ranging from hiking to dog sledding, in case the aurora doesn’t make an appearance. It’s always good to have a Plan B when the main attraction depends on Mother Nature.

During the Day While I practically made chasing the aurora a full-time career, there’s still a lot of daylight to get through before you get the chance to see the big show. Luckily, Fairbanks is full of unique offerings, including three world-class museums that www.akbizmag.com

Athabascan handicrafts at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center in Fairbanks. © Vanessa Orr

you might expect to find in much larger cities.

The Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitor Center is a great way to get oriented—if you don’t know the history or the culture of the Fairbanks region, this is the perfect crash course. Having lived in Juneau for almost a decade, I thought I was fairly familiar with the state—turns out that I had a lot to learn about the northern climes. The museum includes everything from stories of Athabascan life to the animals that make Interior Alaska their home.

The Museum of the North, located on the University of Fairbanks campus, combines history and art in a jawdropping package. Just driving up to the massive, abstract iceberg-shaped building set against a panoramic vista gives one a feeling of just how large this area is— and how small humans really are when pitted against this backdrop. The art within the museum’s walls is spectacular and includes everything from sculptures to beadwork to paintings and carvings; there’s even a decorated outhouse made of found materials and historic objects.

It is a fitting monument to showcase the talent of the people of the Last Frontier.

The Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum hosts an astounding collection of vintage automobiles accompanied by vintage clothing—I can’t imagine anyAlaska Business

Flowers in ice at the Aurora Ice Museum at Chena Hot Springs. © Vanessa Orr

where else you could see a 1920s Assuit gown and shawl paired with a 1920 Argonne Model D two-passenger roadster. While the concept seems a little strange at first, this melding of motor-age fashion with the automobiles that inspired it is fascinating, and museum Manager Willy Vinton is more than happy to share stories of Fairbanks’ early auto history. This is the type of exhibition that you’d expect to find in Los Angeles or a much larger urban city— just another example of what makes a trip to Fairbanks special.

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Borealis Basecamp, located twenty-five miles outside of Fairbanks. © Vanessa Orr

You can also take a run up to North Pole for a holiday (or any day) shopping opportunity. In addition to stocking up on everything you can imagine for Christmas, you can fill out postcards on the spot that they’ll send from the store so it even has a North Pole stamp. This is especially cool (pun intended) for kids and grandkids who might be waiting to hear from you back home. (I’ll note that my 89-year-old dad also got a kick out of it!)

If you’d prefer to get some exercise but still want a truly Alaska experience, visit the Running Reindeer Ranch. Owners Jane Atkinson and Doug Toelle started raising reindeer back in 2007 at the request of their daughter, Robin. They now have a herd that—while used to humans—is still pretty wild, which you can see when they get a little too close to each other and decide to make room with clashing horns. At the ranch, you can actually hike with the animals, who are loose; it’s is a little disconcerting if you’re used to hiking with a dog, or anything that weighs less than 300 pounds.

The reindeer follow their own path and aren’t afraid to be a little pushy if you’re in the way.

What I really appreciated is that the staff takes the time to teach you about reindeer and share a wealth of fascinating facts about these animals. Far more than a petting zoo, you actually get to interact with them as well as watch them forage in the wild—a much better way to understand these beautiful animals compared to a zoo safari-type tour.

Traveling the Dalton While there are many reasons to stay in Fairbanks to wait for the lights, there are also opportunities to head even farther north. When I first signed up for the trip, I didn’t realize it would mean nine hours in a van on icy roads—yet when it ended, I was so sorry that it was over. You definitely feel like you’re in your own version of “Ice Road Truckers” as you watch massive semis careen down the highway in the opposite lane. We even came upon a jack-knifed semi at Mile 25; it was impressive to watch Alaskan ingenuity at work as a group of drivers figured out how to get the wreckage off the road—in such a remote area, there’s no point in waiting for AAA. The view of the boreal forest was otherworldly, with huge amounts of snow still piled on the spruce trees, creating an 92 | April 2019

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almost-Seussical landscape. And a stop at the Yukon River Camp gave us a chance to stand on the frozen river, where our watering eyes caused our eyelashes to freeze. The big surprise here was that instead of standard trucker’s fare, we had our choice of delicious Asian entrees including fresh Banh Mi sandwiches or Alaska salmon noodle soup. Far from what I would expect at this far-flung location, it was the perfect road food for finishing our drive to the Arctic Circle.

Northern Alaska Tour Company went above and beyond to make sure that all of their guests were comfortable and knew what to expect from the van trip up and the flight back. Superior customer service and genuinely nice people made this experience special; not to mention that our driver, Ken Anderson, was a seventeen-time Iditarod musher and four-time Yukon Quest participant. He made our time in the van fly by, sharing stories and his immense knowledge of the state and the highway. And it gave us an extra bolster of confidence knowing that we were traveling with someone who was very familiar with ice roads and how to handle driving in Alaska.

At the Arctic Circle, Anderson even rolled out a red carpet to welcome us to our destination and took photos of us posing by the sign. We then headed up to Coldfoot Camp in a different van, while he headed back down the Dalton.

I wasn’t sure what to expect since Coldfoot was built as accommodations for the transportation crews building the highway, and while it wasn’t fancy, it was clean and cozy and warm—important factors when you’re not used to 33 degrees below zero. The full-service restaurant and bar not only had excellent comfort food but friendly staff willing to share stories of what it’s like living and working so far from “civilization.”

That night, we took a van to Wiseman, where we met Jack Reakoff, a character right out of central casting for a Bush Alaskan—except it is really his life. He shared fascinating stories, and even better, he knew how to make a cell phone work to take pictures of the aurora. An added benefit was that the company provided tripods for everyone who wanted one, as well as a fire both outside and in the cabin to help us keep warm.

I didn’t stay inside for long, however, because that night the aurora came out in all her glory, and between taking pictures www.akbizmag.com

and trying to remember to breathe while watching such an awe-inspiring sight, the three hours we spent outside went by in a flash. Even without such a show, the experience would have been worth it—but to have that moment under the dancing lights was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

While these aurora tours are geared toward helping tourists see the Northern Lights, by their very design they give visitors a far greater experience—an authentic experience meeting real Alaskans, learning how they live, and understanding why so many love the Last Frontier.

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The aurora borealis above Wiseman. (Photos taken by a Samsung Galaxy S9 with tripod.) © Vanessa Orr

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FIRST FRIDAY

Locals Artists, New Art O n the First Friday of every month, galleries, boutiques, and locally owned businesses welcome the public to get out on the town and see what they have to offer. Every location approaches First Friday with its own style, with events ranging from live music to lectures to receptions where guests can speak with local artists about their work. Many galleries, museums, and shops extend their hours to accommodate Alaska’s art collectors, enthusiasts, and novices. Whether you drop by a favorite gallery or stroll the streets to visit as many locations as possible, Alaska’s First Fridays present awesome opportunities to connect with and support the artists that live and create among us. Below Alaska Business has listed just a few locations that participate in First Friday around the state.

Anchorage Stephan Fine Arts | The Crest Gallery | Captain Cook Coffee Cubby: At the Hotel Captain Cook, these three locations coordinate to host First Friday events. This month Annie Brace will be available from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Stephan Fine Arts; Renate Martin has scheduled time from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Crest Gallery; and the Alaska Artist’s Guild is doing a group showing of new works at the Captain Cook Coffee Cubby, with the artists on site from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. stephanfinearts.com

2 Friends: Self identifying as “a most unusual gallery,” 2 Friends carries a collection of original art as well as rare and hard-to-find resale pieces; its inventory changes regularly and ranges from glass work and wood carvings to bags and clothing. The store features specific artists during their First Friday reception from 5 p.m. to

7 p.m. that also includes chocolate and sparkling cider.

2friendsgallery.com Aurora Fine Art: Established in 1990, “Aurora Fine Art Gallery has been the epicenter of high-end Alaskan art for over twenty years,” according to the gallery, which hosts artist meet-and-greets and work demonstrations in addition to its First Friday art show. aurorafineart-alaska.com Anchorage Museum: “Open galleries. Open minds. Open late.” is how the Anchorage Museum describes its approach to First Friday. The museum arranges a range of activities for First Friday, including dancing, music,

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talks and lectures, food, and more. anchoragemuseum.org

Fairbanks Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center: From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center hosts a reception featuring the work of an Interior Alaskan artist.

Artists interested in booking can contact the Alaska Public Lands Information Center. morristhompsoncenter.org Bear Gallery: For First Friday the Fairbanks Arts Association Bear Gallery opens a new art exhibit and hosts a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Artists in the exhibit are invited to attend to discuss their work with the public. fairbanksarts.org Two Street Gallery: Producing works in ceramic, painting, limited edition prints, sculpture, scrimshaw, textiles, photography, jewelry, collage,

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and mixed media, the artists of Two Street Gallery operate as a partnership to provide original art and gifts to collectors and one-time visitors. Guests can meet with the artists and sample refreshments on First Friday. 2streetgallery.com If Only… a fine store: Now in operation for twenty years, If Only is the vision of five Alaskan women that was founded to serve the Fairbanks community and invite visitors in as guests. In addition to participating in First Friday, the store also hosts an annual holiday open house and solstice celebrations. ifonlyalaska.com

Homer Fireweed Gallery: Open year round, this gallery is a regular participant in Homer’s First Friday scene. Fireweed Gallery offers a selection of original arts, prints, sculpture, jewelry, pottery, and other hand-made items. fireweedgallery.com

Art Shop Gallery: In addition to works from new (to the gallery) Alaskan potters Birch Grove Studios and Kristen Edwards, the gallery carries Alaskan art, limited edition prints, fine art posters, and a selection of Alaskan gifts, including Native crafts made of ivory and bone.

Art Shop Gallery regularly participates in First Friday in Homer from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. artshopgallery.com Ptarmigan Arts: In operation for more than thirty years, in 2013 Ptarmigan Arts was purchased by a cooperative of artists (now numbering thirtyseven), who own, operate, and staff the gallery in addition to creating the beautiful works found there. For First Friday the gallery exhibits a new show with an artist’s reception that includes refreshments. ptarmiganarts.com Bunnell Street Arts Center: This gallery’s mission is “to

Alaska Business

nurture and support innovative art of exceptional quality in all media.” On First Friday this month, the gallery will be opening an exhibit by Alicia Kelly, with an artist talk taking place at 6 p.m. bunnellarts.org

Juneau Alaska State Museum: The museum is open late for First Friday every month, extending its hours to 7 p.m. and offering free admission. museums.alaska.gov/asm/ Davis Gallery: Located at Centennial Hall and operated by the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council, the Davis gallery opens new exhibits

by Alaskan artists quarterly in June, September, December, and March. Public receptions to the current exhibit take place from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. during First Friday. jahc.org/jacc/davis-gallery/

April 2019 | 95

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APR Alaska Native 4 Art Auction This annual fundraising event features pieces by local Alaska Native artists available for purchase through a silent and a live auction. Proceeds from the event underwrite the cost of operating KNBA (90.3 FM), which discovers and shares the music of local and national Indigenous artists and contributes to the dialogue on issues important to Alaska Native and Native American communities.

This year’s auction starts at 6 p.m. at the Hotel Captain Cook. nativeartauction.org

APR The Importance 5-28 of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde created his final and most lasting play, The Importance of Being Earnest, in 1895. Considered one of the greatest comic masterpieces of all time, this farce plays with love, religion, and truth as it tells the tale of two men whose deceptions result in a series of crises that threaten to spoil their romantic pursuits. cyranos.org

APR Sweet Rivalry 13 Sweet Rivalry is an annual event that raises funds for The Arc of Anchorage to continue its work providing services and programs that benefit Alaskans with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Alaskan culinary teams battle head-to-head in two competitions: the dessert sculpting competition where edible works of art using sugar and chocolate are built live and the dessert course competition, featuring teams vying for votes as guests taste their exclusive dessert creations served during the ultimate dessert course, starting at 6 p.m. at the Hilton Hotel Anchorage. thearcofanchorage.org APR 2019 Alaska 20 Heart Run All money raised at the Heart Run at the Alaska Airlines Center benefits the American Heart Association and will fund research and community 96 | April 2019

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programs that help to fight cardiovascular diseases and stroke.

The timed run begins at 9:30 a.m. and the untimed walk/run starts at 10 a.m. www2.heart.org/site/ TR?fr_id=3897&pg=entry

APR Senior 25-27 NYO Games The Senior NYO Games celebrates Alaska’s rich diversity and is open to students grades 7-12. Athletic events include the kneel jump, wrist carry, stick pull, toe kick, one-hand reach, two-foot high kick, one-foot high kick, Alaska high kick, and seal hop.

Additional activities include musical and dance performances, the Pilot Bread recipe contest, and the Opportunities Expo. citci.org/partnerships-events/ nyo-games/2019-games

FAIRBANKS

APR Arctic Man 9-14 Arctic Man, which takes place in Paxon, south of Fairbanks, is making changes for 2019: instead of the ski and snowboard race, this year Arctic Man will feature several motorized events, providing more activities “that people can get involved in and give spectators some events to watch,” according to the organization. arcticman.com APR Fairbanks 26-28 Outdoor Show Vendors from Alaska and the Lower 48 gather to present fishing charters, hunting expeditions, boats, ATVs, trailers, rafting, kayaking, outdoor gear, fishing and hunting supplies, camping supplies, taxidermy services, and more at the Carlson Center. Hours are Friday 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. carlson-center.com

GIRDWOOD

APR Alyeska 12-14 Spring Carnival

and Slush Cup Spring Carnival takes advantage of the long days with extended hours of lift operations, great spring-skiing

EVENTS CALENDAR KETCHIKAN

APR Hummingbird Festival 1-30 Through the month of April, this festival celebrates the return of migratory birds back to Alaska. The most notable bird at this festival is the Rufous hummingbird, who begins arriving in Ketchikan in mid-March. The festival includes guided hikes, art shows, activities for children, and many other birding events. alaskacenters.gov/ketchikan.cfm conditions, and Alyeska’s largest and most popular winter event, Slush Cup, where competitors dressed in zany costumes attempt to skim across a ninety-foot long pool of freezing water. Other activities include the Sitzmark costume party, Idiot Swim, Dummy Downhill, XTRATUF tug-ofwar, and live music. alyeskaresort.com

JUNEAU

APR Alaska Folk 8-14 Festival Juneau emerges from winter with the state’s largest annual gathering of musicians from Alaska and beyond for a week of musical performances, workshops, dances, and just plain jamming. The best part: it’s free and open to the public.

Activities take place at Centennial Hall. akfolkfest.org

APR As If! 25-28 As If! is the Alaska State Improv Festival performed at McPhetres Hall & Hangar Ballroom; it’s dedicated to the art of unscripted theater and features performances by improv ensembles from Alaska and Outside and includes workshop opportunities. Attendees can buy a season pass or purchase tickets to individual performances. asifest.com

PETERSBURG

APR Blessing of 28 the Fleet

The annual blessing of Petersburg’s fishing fleet is sponsored by the Sons of Norway Lodge. Afterward,

coffee and pastries are served at Fisherman Memorial Park with visiting and stories about the various boats and old time fishermen and fisherwomen. Open to the community and broadcast over the radio. petersburg.org

SKAGWAY

APR Skagway 19-21 Spring Festival The Skagway Spring Festival is “Your cabin fever reliever” and features an international folk festival, show of winter artwork, an artisan craft market, and “Clean Sweep,” a program to clean up Skagway after the long winter. skagway.com/event/skagwayspring-festival/2019-04-19/

VALDEZ

APR Fat Bike Bash 5-7 The annual Chugach Fat Bike Bash features a little something for everyone from fun-loving fatties to cross-country specialists and the return of the Downtown Downhill for adrenaline junkies. valdezadventurealliance.com

WRANGELL

APR Stikine River 25-28 Birding Festival This festival is a celebration of spring in Wrangell and annual spring eagle migration and shorebird migration on the Stikine River. Activities include a golf tournament, fish fry, art workshops, and speakers. stikinebirding.org

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BUSINESS EVENTS APRIL APRIL 1-3

Governor’s Safety and Health Conference Egan Center, Anchorage: The Alaska Safety Advisory Council works with organizations to promote safety so that resources can be marshaled and used to reduce the menace of accidental death and injury. akgshc.com APRIL 4-5

AKHIMA Annual Meeting BP Energy Center, Anchorage: The Alaska Health Information Management Association (AKHIMA) is a state organization affiliated with the national organization American Health Information Management Association, an association of worldwide health information management professionals. akhima.org APRIL 4-6

AKMGMA Annual Conference Alyeska Resort, Girdwood: The Alaska Medical Group Management Association is a professional organization comprised of group practice administrators, managers, healthcare executives, consultants, and vendors located throughout Alaska. akmgma.org APRIL 5

Seymour Awards Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: Join Visit Anchorage at its annual black-tie-with-a-twist awards banquet as the organization celebrates those in the tourism and visitor industries who go above and beyond. anchorage.net/rsvp/ APRIL 10-12

2019 CLSA Conference Hilton Anchorage: The theme of this year’s conference for the www.akbizmag.com

Clinical Laboratory Scientists of Alaska is “Lab Science the Central Piece of the Puzzle.” ascls-ak.org/ students/clsa-conference/

MAY 7-10

Wakefield Fisheries Symposium

Wedgewood Resort, Fairbanks: This conference offers Category A+ or A continuing education credits. Credits are accepted by the ARRT and ARDMS for Ultrasound. aksrt.com

Anchorage: This symposium aims to provide a forum for discussion on ways to facilitate effective cooperative research, a platform for scientific talks on the application and results of cooperative research, and opportunities to evaluate how such research might be best envisioned, applied, and implemented. seagrant.uaf.edu

APRIL 24

MAY 8-10

India-Singapore Business Conference

Alaska Bar Convention

Anchorage: This is the second conference held on these important Southeast Asian markets, organized by World Trade Center Anchorage. wtca.org

Fairbanks: This conference provides opportunities to complete CLE requirements as well as an opening reception, several luncheons, and an awards reception and dinner. alaskabar.org

APRIL 11-13

AKSRT Annual Conference

APRIL 25-26

APA Safety Summit

and promoting the continued development of the profession of optometry. akoa.org MAY 17-18

ADS Annual Meeting Westmark Baranof Hotel, Juneau: The annual meeting of the Alaska Dental Society, which is “Committed to enhancing the dental profession and the health of all Alaskans.” akdental.org MAY 30

Alaska Oil & Gas Association Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: AOGA hosts a one-day conference focused on industry trends, legal and scientific issues surrounding development, and national and state-level energy policies and politics. aoga.org JUNE JUNE 14-18

MAY 13-16

Coast International Inn, Anchorage: The mission of Alaska Power Association is to assist its members in accomplishing their goals of delivering electric energy and other services at the best value to their customers. alaskapower.org MAY

AWWMA Statewide Conference Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage: This conference is a venue for information, technology, expertise, curiosity, and thirst (for refreshment and knowledge) for the Alaska Water Wastewater Management Association. awwma.org

MAY 2-4

ACP Alaska Chapter Meeting

MAY 16-19

Sheraton Hotel & Spa, Anchorage: ACP is the American College of Physicians, and the annual chapter meeting is an opportunity for CME credits and MOC points. acponline.org

ACUL Annual Meeting Talkeetna: The Alaska Credit Union League’s annual meeting is an opportunity to gather, network, and learn. alaskacreditunions.org/ events.html

MAY 2-4

Alaska VFW State Convention

MAY 16-19

Anchorage: The annual convention includes a Joint Memorial Service, VFW Business Session, guest banquets, and other events. alaskavfw.org

Alaska Optometric Association CE Conference Alyeska Resort, Girdwood: The mission of the AKOA is to influence the future of eye care by ensuring the welfare of Alaskans

Alaska Business

Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference Kenai Peninsula College, Homer: Sponsored by the Kachemak Bay Campus-Kenai Peninsula College/ UAA, this highly acclaimed, nationally-recognized conference features workshops, craft talks, public readings, and panel presentations in literary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and the business of writing. sites.kpc.alaska.edu/writersconf JUNE 17-21

9th Annual Nuka System of Care Conference Nuka Wellness and Learning Center, Anchorage: The general conference presents Southcentral Foundation’s developed and proven content on organizational strategies and processes; integrated medical, behavioral, and traditional practices; and supporting infrastructure. southcentralfoundation.com

April 2019 | 97

INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS ANC More than 5.6 million passengers traveled in and out of the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) in 2018. The airport also saw 2.79 million tonnes of air cargo during 2018. Almost 85,000 additional passengers, a 3.1 percent increase compared to the previous year, passed through the gateway of Alaska. Most of the increase can be attributed to a robust tourism industry. Last year airlines boosted their flight frequency, used larger aircraft, or both, to accommodate the increased demand.

Anchorage, the world’s fifth busiest air cargo airport, also saw solid growth in its air cargo numbers. Air cargo grew by 2.52 percent to 2.79 million tonnes. dot.state.ak.us/anc

Thrively Digital Enterprising Women magazine named Anchorage business owner Kristen Fowler Lindsey a winner of its 2019 Enterprising Women of the Year Awards.

Lindsey is an industry veteran with nearly twenty-five years of technology marketing experience and is president and owner of Thrively Digital. Lindsey is the only honoree from Alaska, with other award recipients including women from the United States, Canada, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Turkey, Germany, and Switzerland. thrivelydigital.com

ISER According to the 16th annual construction forecast prepared by Scott Goldsmith for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, construction spending in Alaska this year will be around $7.2 billion, up 10 percent from last year.

Excluding an estimated $200 million in spending attributable to the 2018 earthquake, spending will be $7 billion, up 8 percent from last year. The spike in spending is primarily due to an increase in petroleum spending which will grow 13 percent to $2.7 billion and national defense spending which will also grow 13 percent to $700 million. Although most other sectors will also see 98 | April 2019

increases, their growth will be modest, partially due to the continuing recession and uncertainty surrounding the resolution of the state revenue shortfall. iseralaska.org/publications/?id=1738

Trilogy Metals Trilogy Metals announced a new regional exploration budget of $2 million, which is in addition to the previously announced 2019 programs and budgets of $16.2 million, increasing the exploration budget at the company’s Upper Kobuk Mineral Projects located in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska for 2019 to $18.2 million. trilogymetals.com

Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority During their regular meeting in January 2019 in Juneau, the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority board of trustees directed $650,000 in funds for two Anchorage housing projects. Trustees approved $150,000 for RurAL CAP’s Sitka Place and $500,000 for the United Way of Anchorage’s Anchored Home Pay for Success project.

With its Sitka Place project, RurAL CAP is planning to remodel its existing property into fifty-one efficiency units that can house more than one person, expanding capacity and accommodating couples. United Way of Anchorage’s Pay for Success project intends to significantly expand permanent supportive housing in Anchorage by adding up to 270 additional units. Trust funds are supporting United Way of Anchorage in the “startup” phase of the project and will help with supportive services for the first sixty program participants to support long-term tenancy and connections to other beneficial social services. alaskamentalhealthtrust.org

Spruce Root The 2018 Path to Prosperity winners are Mud Bay Lumber Company, a family-based, small-scale sawmill in Haines, and Juneau Composts, a composting service available in Juneau

that serves households and businesses of all kinds. Each will receive $25,000 for consulting and technical assistance.

The Path to Prosperity program is facilitated by Spruce Root and is made possible through a partnership with The Nature Conservancy and the Sustainable Southeast Partnership.

The application period for the 2019 Path to Prosperity competition is April 1, 2019, through May 31, 2019. spruceroot.org/path-to-prosperity/

Anchorage Fire Department The Anchorage Fire Department formally placed in service its new Heavy Rescue truck. The new rescue truck is housed at Fire Station 4, located at 4350 MacInnes Street.

Heavy Rescue 4 replaced a fifteen year old smaller truck that reached the end of its service life. In 2016 voters approved a bond that allowed the department to custom build the truck to meet its needs serving the community. This Heavy Rescue is designed to support rescue operations within the Municipality of Anchorage stretching from Knik Bridge north to Portage Valley south of town. muni.org/departments/fire

DNR The Alaska Department of Natural Resource’s Division of Forestry and the US Forest Service have partnered to award a second timber sale in Southeast Alaska under a Good Neighbor Authority agreement. The $2.1 million Vallenar Bay Timber Sale contract with ALCAN Timber Incorporated of Ketchikan was signed in February.

The sale covers approximately 481 acres on state and federal land on the north end of Gravina Island, approximately five miles west of Ketchikan. The sale includes a mix of old- and young-growth Sitka spruce, western hemlock, red alder, western red cedar, and Alaska yellow cedar. The total volume of the sale is approximately 16 million board feet. Customers are in the West Coast, Asia, Canada, and Southeast Alaska, depending on market conditions. dnr.alaska.gov

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RIGHT MOVES ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska hired Legal Director Stephen Koteff and Policy Director Triada Stampas.  Koteff will create, manage, and implement a program of strategic litigation to defend and expand Alaskans’ civil liberties. Prior to joining the ACLU of Alaska, Koteff was the human rights advocate and chief of enforcement for Alaska’s Human Rights Commission, where he litigated cases for more than twenty years on behalf of discrimination victims and guided the agency’s enforcement policies and investigative activities.  Stampas is responsible for leading the ACLU of Alaska’s policy advocacy to local, state, and federal law makers and administrators, as well as overseeing an aggressive program of grassroots organizing. Stampas earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and her master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.

BSNC Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) promoted Krystal Nelson to Senior Vice President/Chief Operating Officer and Dan Graham to Senior Vice President.  Nelson joined BSNC in 2014 following a successful eighteen-year career working in public and private business sectors Nelson managing federal, state, and municipal contracts. Her experience

includes management of multi-million dollar programs and projects, union negotiations, and managing more than 1,200 personnel.  Graham joined BSNC in 2014 after nearly twenty years managing projects for the public and private sector in Graham construction, remediation, and service work. His background includes management and operational responsibility for large multi-million dollar international programs, implementing strategic plans and policies, and facilitating corporate marketing and business development.

PDC Engineers PDC Engineers announced several promotions within the employee-owned company for the close of 2018.  Utilities Market Sector Lead Karen Brady was promoted to the position of Principal Engineer. Among the attributes listed in her Brady recommendation for the new position were Brady’s willingness to step into leadership positions within the company, her dedication to client care, revenue management, and work toward PDC’s expansion of services. She has been with PDC for seventeen years.  Angela Smith, lead engineer of PDC’s Aviation group, has been promoted to Senior Associate. Smith has seventeen years of Smith industry experience and has

been with PDC for two of those years.

She has worked hard to expand PDC’s client base in Southcentral Alaska and has been pivotal in strengthening the firm’s aviation group to its strongest level since the organization of the company.  PDC Business Development Director and Planner Pat Cotter was promoted to Senior Associate. Cotter has been with PDC Engineers for nine Cotter years and has served as an associate for the past six years. He leads the firm’s planning group in its land development services market sector and has filled the role of business development director for the past two years.  As a key leader in PDC’s highway group within its transportation market sector, Anne Nelson has been promoted to the Nelson position of Associate.

Nelson has worked with PDC for twelve years as a civil engineer and has earned her PE while at the firm. She has a reputation for being an excellent lead engineer and always takes time to mentor others.  Kevin Puustinen, a senior civil engineer in PDC’s utilities market sector, has been promoted to the position of Associate.

Puustinen Puustinen has had his professional engineering license since 2010 and has performed and managed civil engineering design and construction assignments throughout Southeast Alaska.

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 Widely respected in the industry for his knowledge and his positive relationships with clients, Randy Williams has been promoted to Williams the position of Associate.

Williams joined PDC in 2015 as a senior mechanical engineer and commissioning agent and has been the lead mechanical engineer on several projects and the project manager for other multidiscipline work.

Alaska USA Alaska USA Federal Credit Union has selected four individuals to fill executive level positions within the organization.  Wayne Bailey has been selected to fill the new position of Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer. Bailey Bailey has more than twenty-five years of experience with Alaska USA. He holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado Boulder.  Scott Hansen has been selected for the position of Chief Lending Officer.

Hansen has more than forty years of consumer lending Hansen and collection experience and has been with Alaska USA for more than thirteen years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Utah.  Jessica Graham has been promoted to fill the position of Chief Risk Officer, General Counsel. Graham has more than fifteen years Graham of in-house corporate law experience. She holds a degree in law from Duke University School of Law.

 Maria Quick has been selected for the position of Senior Vice President, Accounting and Treasury.

Quick has more than Quick thirteen years of industry experience and is a licensed CPA with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Northwest Nazarene University.

Great Alaskan Holidays  Great Alaskan Holidays announced the addition of two new, full time key personnel: Antonio Arroyo and Deven Shorey have Arroyo each recently completed their first year under the company’s new apprentice technician program for Great Alaskan Holidays.

Both Arroyo and Shorey are now continuing on with the company to earn the status of RVDA Registered Technician.

Shorey

Tlingit & Haida  Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska promoted Helene Bennett to Tribal Operations & Self Governance Manager.

Bennett previously served as Bennett the executive assistant to Tlingit & Haida’s Chief Operating Officer Ken Truitt.  Janae Franklet has been promoted to Tribal Child Support Manager at the organization. Franklet first joined Tlingit & Haida in Franklet August 2010 as the TCSU Specialist where she prepared cases for court and testified for purposes of

establishing paternity and child support obligations.

Thomas, Head & Greisen  Thomas, Head & Greisen announced the appointment of Shane A. Baird, CPA, as a Director of the firm. Baird has Baird been with Thomas, Head & Greisen since 2006 with a focus on audit and accounting. He has more than sixteen years of public accounting experience in planning and performing financial statement reviews and audits, financial statement preparation, and accounting training and consulting.

AWWU  Mark Corsentino has been appointed as the new General Manager of the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility.

Corsentino holds a master’s in civil engineering and a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from Marquette University. He has more than eighteen years of professional experience in the industry.

First Bank  Todd MacManus has been promoted to President and CEO of First Bank. MacManus holds a bachelor of arts in business MacManus administration with dual concentrations in finance and law and public policy from Gonzaga University.

MacManus has served in several key roles at First Bank over the past fifteen years, most recently as a vice president, commercial loan officer.

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April 2019 | 101

AT A GLANCE What book is currently on your nightstand?

I’m on a memoir/biography kick. I’m currently reading Becoming by Michelle Obama and have Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart by Lisa Rogak and Survival Math: Notes of an All-American Family by Mitchell Jackson on deck.

What movie do you recommend to everyone you know? 9 to 5. Lots of life and HR lessons to be learned from that cinematic classic!

What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work? Kick off my shoes, turn on the radio (KNBA 90.3 FM and KSKA 91.1 FM are my go-to stations) and check in with my two kiddos (Kaden—eight and Sloane—two) about their day.

If you couldn’t live in Alaska what’s your dream locale?

I’d love to live in the San Juan Islands in Washington State.

If you could domesticate a wild animal what animal would it be? I may have to start growing a lot of bamboo, but I think a panda would be an adorable addition to our crew.

102 | April 2019

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

OFF THE CUFF

R

Renea Saade enea Saade, a shareholder at Littler

AB: Dead or alive, who would you like to see perform live in concert?

Saade: Prince—who knew that Bill Popp and I would have the same taste in music? [Editor’s Note: see February’s Off the Cuff featuring Bill Popp.]

Mendelson, counsels clients in Alaska

and the Pacific Northwest on a broad range of employment issues including wage and hour compliance, accommodation and leave requests, enforcement and defense of noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements, workplace

AB: What are you most superstitious about?

Saade: I will always walk around any type of steel grate or cellar door on a sidewalk. I won’t take the chance that I may fall through.

investigations, and discipline and terminations.

Saade also assists clients in the development, revision, and enforcement of employee handbooks, policies, and contracts and provides onsite employment law training. She regularly represents employers in federal and state court proceedings, agency audits, and investigations.

Prior to joining Littler, Saade was a partner at two West Coast firms, as well as an associate at firms in Seattle and Boston.

Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time?

Renea Saade: Ha! What free time?

AB: What is your greatest extravagance?

Saade: My husband Kyle and I kept our wedding super small and super cheap, choosing instead to spend money on our honeymoon trip to South Africa. We stayed at wellappointed B&Bs and a beautiful 5-plus star Safari Camp. It was very luxurious and oh, such an amazing experience!

AB: What’s your best and worst attribute?

Saade: I say “yes” to a lot. That’s likely both my best and worst. But, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is too short and I want to be sure to get out there, enjoy it, and make an impact where I can.

Hence my lack of any free time (see answer to Question #1).

AB: Is there a skill or talent you’ve always wanted to learn or are learning?

Saade: I wish I would have learned to be fluent in another language.

AB: What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Saade: Agreed to jump out of a perfectly good plane.

AB: What’s your go-to comfort food?

Saade: Nothing tasted as good as my grandmother’s Middle Eastern cooking growing up. While I occasionally try to make some of it—it never tastes quite the same.

Images © Kerry Tasker

AB: Other than your current career, if you were a kid today, what would your dream job be?

Saade: Stunt driver.

AB: What is your favorite way to get exercise?

Saade: Walking around and exploring a new city or town. www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

April 2019 | 103

ALASKA Construction

2019 CORPORATE

11,588 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Granite Construction Company, 6,900 employees Second highest—Price Gregory International, 3,000 employees

Engineering

77,000 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Jacobs, 77,000 employees

Financial Services

262,996 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Wells Fargo Bank N.A., 259,000 employees Second highest—Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, 1,830 employees

Health & Wellness

393,131 Worldwide employees (including Alaska)

Industrial Services

1,723 Worldwide employees (including Alaska)

Top contributor—N C Machinery, 1,023 employees Second highest—Denali Universal Services, 700 employees

Manufacturing

Top contributor—Franz Bakery, 4,000 employees Second highest—Vigor Alaska, 2,300 employees

Mining

3,802 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Coeur Alaska, 2,000 employees Second highest—Northern Star Resources Limited (Pogo Mine), 1,200 employees

Native Organizations

58,958 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, 12,736 employees Second highest—NANA Regional Corporation, 12,671 employees

Oil & Gas

310,387 Worldwide employees (including Alaska)

T

Top contributor—Schlumberger Oilfield Services, 100,000 employees Second highest—BP Exploration (Alaska), 74,000 employees

he Corporate 100 list is Retail/Wholesale Trade comprised of companies 317,059 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Carrs Safeway, 283,000 employees that provide vital employment Second highest—Alsco, 18,000 employees in Alaska’s population centers as well Seafood as its rural areas, which are often in 15,080 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Trident Seafoods Corporation, 9,027 employees need of job opportunities. For example, Second highest—North Pacific Seafoods, 1,530 employees Trident Seafoods Corporation, which Telecommunications 268,083 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) tops the 2019 list, has shore-based Top contributor—AT&T, 265,000 employees Second highest—GCI, 2,200 employees processing plants in Akutan, Transportation Chignik, Cordova, False 438,513 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Pass, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Top contributor—FedEx Express, 400,000 employees Second highest—Alaska Airlines, 23,000 employees North Naknek, Petersburg, Travel & Tourism Sand Point, St. Paul, and 183,145 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) Top contributor—Hilton Anchorage, 163,000 employees Wrangell.

Second highest—Dave & Buster’s, 16,000 employees In addition to seafood, other major Utility 1,074 Worldwide employees (including Alaska) job-providing industries represented Top contributor—Chugach Electric, 300 employees Second highest—Municipal Light & Power, 230 employees by the 2019 Corporate 100 companies include healthcare, Alaska Native corporations, and transportation.

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E M P L OY E E S

Employing Alaska & Beyond

6,300 Worldwide employees (including Alaska)

WORL DW I DE

Top contributor—Alaska Regional Hospital, 249,000 employees Second highest—Providence Health & Services Alaska, 119,000 employees

0

ANS Crude Oil Production

TRENDS

2/28/2019

Construction

01/01/2014

Top contributor—Colaska, 815 employees Second highest—Granite Construction Company, 335 employees

05/01/2011

2,115 Alaska employees

Engineering

09/01/2008

1,000 Alaska employees

Top contributor—Jacobs, 1,000 employees

Financial Services

01/01/2006

Top contributor—Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, 1,279 employees Second highest—Wells Fargo Bank N.A., 650 employees

05/01/2003

ANS Production barrel per day 523,149 Feb. 28, 2019

3,723 Alaska employees

Health & Wellness 14,723 Alaska employees

Top contributor—Providence Health & Services Alaska, 4,200 employees Second highest—SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, 2,000 employees

Industrial Services

E M P L OY E E S

814 Alaska employees

09/01/2000

0

400,000

800,000

1,200,000

SOURCE: Alaska Department of Revenue Tax Division

ANS West Coast Crude Oil Prices

Top contributor—Denali Universal Services, 595 employees Second highest—N C Machinery, 219 employees

2/28/2019

Manufacturing 310 Alaska employees

Top contributor—Vigor Alaska, 200 employees Second highest—Franz Bakery, 110 employees

09/01/2012

Mining

1,307 Alaska employees Top contributor—Hecla Greens Creek Mining Co., 430 employees Second highest—Coeur Alaska, 390 employees

Native Organizations

09/01/2008

14,039 Alaska employees

Top contributor—NANA Regional Corporation, 4,329 employees Second highest—Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, 3,628 employees

Oil & Gas

A L A S K A

4,906 Alaska employees Top contributor—BP Exploration (Alaska), 1,560 employees Second highest—ConocoPhillips Alaska, 1,095 employees

Retail/Wholesale Trade

ANS West Coast $ per barrel $67.90 Feb. 28, 2019

09/01/2004

09/01/2000 $0

$20

$40

$60

$80 $100 $120 $140 $160

SOURCE: Alaska Department of Revenue Tax Division

5,289 Alaska employees

Top contributor—Carrs Safeway, 2,700 employees Second highest—Alaska Commercial Co., 1,000 employees

Seafood

10,801 Alaska employees Top contributor—Trident Seafoods Corporation, 4,941 employees Second highest—North Pacific Seafoods, 1,500 employees

Statewide Employment Figures 10/1976—12/2018 Seasonally Adjusted 12/01/2019

Telecommunications 3,299 Alaska employees

Labor Force 355,543 Dec. 2018 Employment 333,153 Dec. 2018 Unemployment 6.3% Dec. 2018

01/01/2010

Top contributor—GCI, 2,000 employees Second highest—Alaska Communications, 554 employees

Transportation

05/01/2004

Top contributor—Alaska Airlines, 1,825 employees Second highest—Ravn Air Group, 1,300 employees

09/01/1998

8,359 Alaska employees

Travel & Tourism

01/01/1993

Top contributor—Alyeska Resort/Hotel, 800 employees Second highest—Princess Cruises, Holland America Line & Seabourn, 475 employees

05/01/1987

2,095 Alaska employees

Utility

09/01/1981

Top contributor—Chugach Electric, 300 employees Second highest—Municipal Light & Power, 230 employees

01/01/1976

1,074 Alaska employees

0

0

3,000

6,000

9,000

12,000

15,000

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

SOURCE: Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Research & Analysis Section

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www.penco.org April 2019 | 105

ADVERTISERS INDEX 49th State Brewing Company................. 95 49statebrewing.com/anchorage

Cruz Companies.......................................... 37 cruzconstruct.com

Pacific Pile & Marine...................................99 pacificpile.com

Afognak Leasing LLC.................................. 71 alutiiq.com

Denali - a division of Nuvision Credit Union............................... 59 denalifcu.org

Pacific Seafood Processors Assoc......... 39 pspafish.net

Ahtna Inc........................................................ 45 ahtna.net Alaska Air Cargo - Alaska Airlines..............3 alaskaair.com Alaska Dreams Inc....................................... 73 alaskadreamsinc.com Alaska Executive Search............................ 83 akexec.com Alaska Logistics............................................20 alaska-logistics.com Alaska Mergers & Acquisitions LLC........44 akmergersandacquisitions.com Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium................................................ 108 anthc.org

Dorsey & Whitney LLP............................... 63 dorsey.com Doyon Limited.............................................. 65 doyon.com Explore Fairbanks........................................88 explorefairbanks.com First National Bank Alaska............................5 fnbalaska.com Foss Maritime................................................ 41 foss.com Fountainhead Hotels.................................. 85 fdialaska.com Global Diving & Salvage Inc..................... 22 gdiving.com

Parker Smith & Feek....................................49 psfinc.com PenAir.............................................................. 56 penair.com Personnel Plus.............................................. 95 perplus.com Petro 49.......................................................... 74 petromarineservices.com Petroleum Equipment & Services Inc... 75 pesiak.com PIP Marketing Signs Print..........................46 pip.com Security Aviation.......................................... 23 securityaviation.biz

Alaska USA Federal Credit Union.....17, 33 alaskausa.org

Great Originals Inc...................................... 22 greatoriginals.com

Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC)..................................9 searhc.org

ALSCO............................................................. 93 alsco.com

Hecla Greens Creek Mining Co.............. 59 hecla-mining.com

Stellar Designs Inc.......................................94 stellar-designs.com

Altman Rogers & Co................................... 75 altrogco.com

Junior Achievement................................... 81 juniorachievement.org/web/ja-alaska/

Technipress...................................................80 tpress.net

American Fast Freight................................69 americanfast.com

Kenai Peninsula Borough.......................... 71 kpb.us

The Lakefront Anchorage.........................44 the-lakefront.hotelsofanchorage.com

American Heart Assoc...............................42 www.heart.org

Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP...............80 lbblawyers.com

American Marine / PENCO...........104, 105 amarinecorp.com

Lynden Inc..................................................... 29 lynden.com

The Megan Room Conference & Events Center........................................... 57 themeganroom.com

Arctic Information Technology............... 55 arcticit.com

Matanuska-Susitna Convention & Visitors Bureau.........................................89 alaskavisit.com

Turnagain Marine Construction.............. 87 turnagain.build

Matson Inc..................................................... 47 matson.com

UAF - Cooperative Extension Service...68 uaf.edu/ces/

New Horizons Telecom Inc..................... 15 nhtiusa.com

United Way of Anchorage......................... 25 liveunitedanchorage.org

North Star Behavioral Health................... 11 northstarbehavioral.com

University of Washington.......................... 92 foster.uw.edu

Northern Air Cargo.........................100, 101 nac.aero

Urban Pain Institute.......................................9 urbanpain.org

Northrim Bank.............................................. 13 northrim.com

Usibelli Coal Mine.......................................40 usibelli.com

Novagold Resources Inc........................... 43 novagold.com

Visit Anchorage............................................ 79 anchorage.net

NRC Alaska.................................................... 21 nrcc.com

WesternAircraft............................................ 19 westair.com

NU FLOW Alaska.......................................... 72 nuflowalaska.com

Westmark Hotels - HAP Alaska............... 85 westmarkhotels.com

Odom Corp................................................... 61 odomcorp.com

Wostmann & Associates Inc.................... 57 wostmann.com

Arctic Office Products............................... 38 arcticoffice.com Bristol Bay Native Corp............................107 bbnc.net Calista Corp..................................................60 calistacorp.com Carlile Transportation Systems............... 51 carlile.biz Central Environmental Inc....................... 36 cei-alaska.com Chugach Alaska Corp................................ 35 chugach.com Conrad-Houston Insurance Agency..... 41 chialaska.com Construction Machinery Industrial (CMI)....2 cmiak.com Cornerstone Advisors................................ 27 buildbeyond.com Credit Union 1..............................................64 cu1.org 106 | April 2019

Trident Seafoods.......................................... 31 tridentseafoods.com

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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