Alaska Business June 2022

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CONTENTS JUNE 2022 | VOLUME 38 | NUMBER 6 | AKBIZMAG.COM

FE AT UR E S 10 ALASKA NATIVE A Seat at the Table

Native participation in cultural tourism

By Richard Perry

16 INSURANCE Run for Coverage

Commercial liability insurance trends

By Tracy Barbour

22 MILITARY

Liquidating the Ice Curtain Federal Scout Readiness Centers readied for civilian life

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

28 NONPROFITS

Reimagining the Workplace An era of new opportunities for change

By Laurie B. Wolf

34 OIL & GAS

Vitus Energy Lands in Anchorage Investing in expanding fuel options statewide

By Alexandra Kay

72 TOURISM

Living on the Road RVs grow in popularity as vacation options

By Vanessa Orr

78 ENGINEERING Bespoke Boats Marrying form and function on Alaska’s waterways

Eastern Shipbuilding Group

ADF&G

By Rachael Kvapil

84 FISHERIES

The Peril of Pink

Salmon under pressure from species competition and changing climate

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

QUICK READS 8 FROM THE EDITOR

90 INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS

94 ALASKA TRENDS

90 ECONOMIC INDICATORS

92 RIGHT MOVES

96 OFF THE CUFF

4 | June 2022

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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For some, it’s expanding operations to a new community. For others, it’s investing in technology to create new opportunities.

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CONTENTS JUNE 2022 | VOLUME 38 | NUMBER 6 | AKBIZMAG.COM

SPECIAL SECTION: TRANSPORTATION 46 TRUCK AND TRAILER TAILORS Meeting Alaska’s specialty hauling needs

By Rindi White

54 REEFERS ON ICE

Logistical hurdles in the fisheries supply chain

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

60 URBAN AVIATION

Anchorage airstrips tie the city to the sky

By Katie Pesznecker

64 I, CAN

A journey through the supply chain

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

Kerry Tasker

Sarah Lewis

By Scott Rhode

40 LOGISTICS MATCHMAKING

Remora app pairs cargo with carriers

By Vanessa Orr

ABOUT THE COVER Nearly a year ago, our Best of Alaska Business (BOAB) section highlighted Arctic On-Demand, an aviation logistics solutions provider, as the best new company started in 2020. Arctic On-Demand flared brightly and is already gone, shut down last November—for a happy reason. In between BOAB voting and the July issue, Arctic On-Demand founder Rebecca Clark (left) veered into a new start-up, her second in as many years, with her friend and hangar-mate Jody Oyen (right). They created Remora, a computer app that puts excess aircraft capacity to use, pairing freight or passengers with available space. Think of it as ridesharing in the air. Remora has already attracted the attention of Launch Alaska, a nonprofit that accelerates small firms that have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bonus for the climate is just one of the benefits that Remora’s approach to optimizing air logistics might have, in addition to supplying carriers with more paying customers and reducing costs for residents in aviation-dependent communities.

Photo by Kerry Tasker 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. © 2022 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.

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6 | June 2022

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FROM THE EDITOR

A

laska Business doesn’t cover politics, nor do we accept political advertisements. This policy was launched with the magazine in the ‘80s and has been reinforced time and time again in the nearly four decades we’ve been reporting.

With that clearly established, I’d like to write a few words about Don Young. Like many of the policy decisions he was involved in, Young was a foundational fixture in the Alaska landscape, and he was instrumental in building the Alaska that we know today. Whether or not one agreed with his decisions, his longevity in the US House of Representatives and the influence he was able to build over nearly five decades of holding office were assets to Alaska that cannot be easily replaced.

Regardless of the challenge, Alaskans need to select someone to act on our behalf in the US House of Representatives. There are forty-eight candidates on the ballot for the primary election, taking place this month on June 11 (the general election will be August 16). That’s a lot of options for us to consider, especially in this pivotal moment. Those who liked Young’s policies will want to ensure their continuation, while those who disliked them will see this as an opportunity to adjust course.

The candidates themselves, and their supporters, are of course eager to provide the public with guidance on how to vote. In their eagerness, they reach out to media platforms, including Alaska Business, throughout the campaign process.

Campaign season is when it’s personally the most difficult for me to adhere to our no-politics policy. It’s not that I necessarily want to advocate for a specific candidate, it’s more that my passion in my position is providing information. I love learning, and I love sharing what I’ve learned. So when a respected editorial source and partner reaches out to us with information on a candidate that they are championing, it’s difficult to politely but firmly respond that we cannot use, and definitely will not publish, any of that information.

And it’s the one time when I question if our policy on politics matches our mission to support Alaska businesses. Are we best serving our readers by maintaining our stance of pro-business development without alliance to any party or politician, or would it perhaps be a service to promote the candidates that our readers, sources, and advertisers believe will best serve the needs of the business community?

I default—as I do editorially time and time again—to consistency: a policy isn’t a policy if it’s turned on and off depending on convenience or circumstance.

I am happy to deliver one politically minded message: whatever your vision for the future of Alaska, it will never come to pass if you don’t engage—and vote. We have exactly one voice in the US House of Representatives; make sure to use yours in choosing the right one.

VOLUME 38, #6 EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor Tasha Anderson 907-257-2907 tanderson@akbizmag.com

Editor/Staff Writer Scott Rhode 907-257-2902 srhode@akbizmag.com

Social Media Carter Damaska 907-257-2910 enews@akbizmag.com

Editorial Assistant Emily Olsen 907-257-2914 emily@akbizmag.com

PRODUCTION STAFF Art Director Monica Sterchi-Lowman 907-257-2916 design@akbizmag.com

Design & Art Production Fulvia Lowe production@akbizmag.com

Website Manager Taylor Sanders webmanager@akbizmag.com

Photo Contributor Kerry Tasker

BUSINESS STAFF President Billie Martin VP & General Manager Jason Martin 907-257-2905 jason@akbizmag.com

VP Sales & Marketing Charles Bell 907-257-2909 cbell@akbizmag.com

Senior Account Manager Janis J. Plume 907-257-2917 janis@akbizmag.com

Senior Account Manager Christine Merki 907-257-2911 cmerki@akbizmag.com

Full-Charge Bookkeeper James Barnhill 907-257-2901 accounts@akbizmag.com

Tasha Anderson Managing Editor, Alaska Business

CONTACT

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A L A S K A N AT I V E

A Seat at the Table Native participation in cultural tourism

By Richard Perry

O

ver the last fifty years, Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) have become a vital part of the state’s economy. They represent a variety of industries, including construction, environmental services, government contracting, natural resource development, technology services, and real estate. They also play a major role in tourism.

10 | June 2022

Like many economic sectors, the COVID-19 pandemic slammed the Alaska tourism industry. The last couple of seasons interrupted an emerging new direction involving cultural tourism.

Sarah Leonard, president and CEO of the Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA), is keen on developing more opportunities for tourism in 2022. ATIA

promotes Alaska’s tourism industry as an economic opportunity, providing statewide marketing resources, education resources, and advocacy to members.

Recently, the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded a $10.5 million grant to the State of Alaska that Governor Mike Dunleavy designated to ATIA.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Rod Barbee

The grant is meant to help tourism businesses and Alaska’s communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant made possible major updates for ATIA’s webpage with new features, particularly a cultural tourism emphasis. The redesign adds an online interactive map, featuring a new trip planning tool. This provides information on Alaska Native cultures, tourism www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 11

“Tribal inclusion is a real asset for ATIA with 229 federally recognized tribes in the state… We have only begun showcasing the diversity of cultures that this state has to offer. Having the voice of the tribes included truly maintains the authenticity and integrity that ATIA wants to represent.”

Camille Ferguson, Economic Development Director, Sitka Tribe of Alaska

opportunities, and content in a userfriendly format.

“This website is vital to our dynamic destination marketing program and is designed to showcase the state’s beautiful mountains, glaciers, wildlife, and cultures,” Leonard says. “In fact, it is an integral part of the new content development that was to enhance and incorporate Native and cultural tourism imagery and information.”

The map highlights Alaska Native lands and their location, and it

includes the appropriate Native land acknowledgment.

ATIA's online interactive map was developed with ATIA’s Cultural Enrichment Subcommittee.

In years prior ATIA did not emphasize Alaska Native villages and Alaska Native stakeholders in a meaningful way.

Leonard was key in inviting greater inclusion for Alaska Native people and companies to communicate with villages, tribes, and Alaska Native corporations for tourism opportunities.

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12 | June 2022

"We were trying to do a better job about reaching out to villages, tribes, and Alaska Native corporations to be part of our committees or discussion meetings,” Leonard says. “We’ve had training and webinars concerning the pandemic and economic development that include rural areas that have more representation of Alaska Native villages and Alaska Native stakeholders.”

Connect the Dots Emily Edenshaw was recently elected to the ATIA board of directors executive committee as secretary/membership chair. She is also the president and CEO of Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC), the living cultural center in northeast Anchorage. ANHC promotes the active observance of Alaska Native culture and traditions. It is the only statewide cultural and education center dedicated to celebrating all of Alaska’s cultures and heritages from five major regions.

“In 2017 I went to an ATIA board meeting and there was time for public comment,” Edenshaw says. “I asked if they valued indigenous people,

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do they value cultural tourism, and if our indigenous voices were being represented through ATIA.” Edenshaw says she also had the chance to review the board reports and financials, and then she started to connect the dots. She recognized that ATIA would be responsible for marketing Alaska as an indigenous place. Importantly, she also discovered that at that time there was no money spent on cultural tourism.

She well understood that whenever a project is under development, whether it's a tourism opportunity or transportation access for natural resource development, the appropriate ANCs and village organizations ought to be included.

“If you value [cultural tourism], then why aren't you spending any money on it?” Edenshaw recalls asking at the ATIA meeting.

Soon after, ATIA, under Leonard’s leadership, sought to actively engage with the Alaska Native community.

“The last three to four years we have done a better job outreaching to villages, tribes, and ANCs to be part of our committees or discussion

Cultural tourists enjoy a presentation on Tlingit heritage at the Jilkaat Kwaan Heritage Center at Klukwan, near Haines.

Kirk Hewlett | iStock

BETHEL

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Alaska Business

June 2022 | 13

“We've had an emphasis with our Native Alaska stakeholders to improve on our content around Alaska Native cultural tourism and working to develop appropriate images in partnership and sharing those messages or amplifying that message and then trying to gather shared content, like maps and such.”

Sarah Leonard President and CEO Alaska Travel Industry Association

meetings,” Leonard says.

“One example is we reached out to Camille Ferguson [economic development director for the Sitka Tribe of Alaska] and Edenshaw to run for the ATIA board of directors.”

ATIA holds member-elected positions by region. Ferguson was appointed to the board of directors as well as Edenshaw. They were actively recruited to help develop and include Native organizations and rural areas to have greater representation of Alaska Native villages or Alaska Native stakeholders.

“Cultural tourism includes destination marketing programs that have historically marketed different cultural experiences,” Leonard says.

"More recently, and I think rightly so, we've had an emphasis with our Native Alaska stakeholders to improve on our content around Alaska Native cultural tourism and working to develop appropriate images in partnership and sharing those messages or amplifying that message and then trying to gather shared content, like maps and such.”

Ferguson has overseen the Sitka Tribe’s forays into cultural tourism. She established, expanded, and managed tourism, transportation, and gaming departments, the Tribal Tannery, as well as the Community House Convention facility.

Ferguson recently received ATIA’s Denali Award, its highest award for professionalism and leadership, as well as the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association President’s Award and the Department of Interior’s Director’s Partnership Award.

“Tribal inclusion is a real asset for ATIA with 229 federally recognized tribes in the state,” Ferguson stated in a March press release. “We have only begun showcasing the diversity of cultures that this state has to offer. Having the voice of the tribes included truly maintains the authenticity and integrity that ATIA wants to represent.”

Life Through an Indigenous Lens Defining cultural tourism is important, especially given that Alaska Native cultures are as diverse as Alaska itself.

Most of the villages are remote and off 14 | June 2022

the road system, with many having a population smaller than 200.

“Cultural tourism is a way of life,” Ferguson says. “A way of life that is interpreted by Indigenous people in how they live, what they eat, what they wear, or the landscape around them that is [connected to the Indigenous] place names."

The 2022 Heritage and Cultural Tourism Conference hosted by the Sitka Tribe in March featured ATIA’s Leonard as a keynote speaker. The conference agenda included, in part, the economic impacts of cultural tourism, understanding the cultural and heritage traveler, and assessing community cultural and heritage development.

“Recently we’ve seen changes,” Ferguson says. “Historically, the villages and ANCs have not had a seat at the table. It was only the past couple of years we've been actually brought to the table at the state level with ATIA. This has been a positive change. You can see the difference just within the Heritage and Cultural Tourism Conference and the people that want to be a part of the conference. That includes cruise line representatives [and] Alaska Airlines, as an example.”

Historically, the majority of Alaska’s tourists visit by cruise ship. However, due to COVID-19 the cruise industry was shut down for the 2020 season, and the 2021 cruise season started about three months late with only eight ships docking instead of the usual thirty or more.

Even as Alaska’s tourism industry anticipates a recovery from COVID-19, it’s looking to partner with ANCs and diverse Alaska Native communities, a vital and meaningful way to share the rich cultures of Alaska and to provide better appreciation that reflects greater authenticity.

"We have to understand that every day we fight stereotypes,” Edenshaw explains. “There's so much information out there around Alaska and it is too often assumed we were born in an igloo or that it's just Indians and Eskimos. I think that as Alaskans in terms of tourism and the power that tourism has, we could really demystify and combat those stereotypes in a really meaningful way.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

MORE GREAT LEADERS WELCOME Joe Everhart is one of the greats.

A true leader whose unbridled community spirit, compassion, and generosity—shared with so many over so many years— has benefited our entire community.

With sleeves rolled up, Joe has spent hundreds of hours in volunteer service, chaired and served on numerous nonprofit boards and committees, setting an inspiring example both within and outside his company.

It’s with heartfelt thanks that United Way of Anchorage board and staff join together to wish Joe Everhart a most happy retirement from Wells Fargo after 32 years of service.

United United Way Way of of Anchorage Anchorage

INSUR ANCE

Run for Coverage

Commercial liability insurance trends

By Tracy Barbour

16 | June 2022

L

iability insurance is like a blanket that keeps out the chilly drafts of lawsuits for bodily injury or property damage. The types of claims are changing in the days of COVID-19, leading to a growing demand for liability insurance, which leads in turn to rising rates and policies with fewer bells and whistles. The elevated costs and more restrictive coverages in Alaska indicate a hardening market, according to experts. However, Alaska businesses can implement strategies to better position themselves to navigate the evolving landscape of liability issues.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Paying More to Fewer Carriers Many companies that write policies in the Lower 48 opt not to do so in Alaska, in part because of the state’s sparse population. That translates into less competition—and fewer insurance market options for Alaska businesses.

“With the market hardening, there’s been a pull out of a number of carriers: Scottsdale ended its auto dealer’s policy and Philadelphia quit writing its business owner’s policy,” explains Christopher Pobieglo, president of Business Insurance Associates, an independent agency that sells a full spectrum of risk management products. “In some cases, if you get a really niche industry, you might have only one or two insurance companies to go to here. The used auto dealers in Alaska only have a few insurance companies that write that.”

Pobieglo says the market began hardening a year or two ago; it had been a soft market before then for about fifteen to eighteen years. “A lot of businesses have only known a soft market, so they’re used to getting their renewals and Christopher Pobieglo Business Insurance Associates prices dropping,” he says. “Now the insurance companies are asking a lot more questions; they may ask for more supplemental information.” For example, some companies have an infectious disease supplement that queries businesses about their COVID-19 policy. Other insurance carriers are asking clients to disclose situations ahead of time and may not cover exposures that have not been disclosed.

In addition to raising premiums, Pobieglo says carriers are requiring higher deductibles to make insured parties put more skin in the game.

Higher pricing is mainly in the property, auto, and excess lines of coverage, says Matt Thon, an AnchorageMatt Thon based account Parker, Smith & Feek www.akbizmag.com

“The days of a handshake deal and being able to work things out without legal representation are becoming extinct… When something goes sideways, everybody’s going to be named in the suit. It’s best to just lawyer up.”

Matt Thon, Account Executive, Parker, Smith & Feek

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“There is the risk of error from not being able to manage and tend to employees as you normally could…

If you are away from your job and you have to depend on your employee to manage the job, you need more insurance in place.”

Tracey Parrish, Owner and Operator Alaska Pacific Insurance Agency

executive at risk management and brokerage firm Parker, Smith & Feek.

“General liability, for the most part, has been pretty stable,” he says. “Claim frequency is fairly stable.”

PLI and D&O One of the more visible shifts is the increased interest in professional liability insurance (PLI) and directors and officers (D&O) liability coverage, says Stacey Matteson Stacey Matteson, Umialik Insurance Company vice president and general manager of Anchoragebased Umialik Insurance Company.

PLI, also known as errors and omissions coverage, is ideal for businesses that provide professional services, regular advice, and/or contractual services.

It can help cover claims if someone alleges a business made a mistake or failed to provide a service.

Pobieglo attributes much of the increased need for PLI to an uptick

in independent consultants. “We’ve seen a lot of cases where professional consultants and engineers who were previously employed by the government and private companies have been cut back, and the use of independent contractors has gone up,” he says.

That tracks with Matteson’s observation: “The highest-demand industries requiring professional liability and/or directors and officers coverages are construction, civil construction, social service, and nonprofit accounts.”

Increasing litigation has also been an influencing factor. “The days of a handshake deal and being able to work things out without legal representation are becoming extinct,” Thon says. “When something goes sideways, everybody’s going to be named in the suit. It’s best to just lawyer up.”

Just because more people are hearing about costly lawsuits and judgments doesn’t mean all businesses need PLI coverage, though. “Now, some people are getting it because a contract requires it,” Pobieglo says.

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“However, you should always make your insurance purchases based on the exposure of your business—not what people are telling you that you have to have.”

Directors and officers insurance, as the name implies, covers a business or other organization if a lawsuit is brought against one of their directors or officers. It can help the covered entity avoid paying out of pocket for claims or lawsuits that could result in stiff fines or even criminal penalties.

The increase in D&O coverage reflects a growing number of nonprofit organizations, says Tracey Parrish, owner and operator of Alaska Pacific Insurance Agency. During the pandemic, people have been trying to help their communities more, which has resulted in the creation of more nonprofits that require D&O insurance to cover their board members.

“People are really into strengthening communities these days,” Parrish says.

“With a nonprofit, they can solicit money in different ways [without having to compete as a for-profit business].”

Employment Practices Liability Liability insurance protects businesses not only from lawsuits by disgruntled vendors or customers but from claims filed by employees. This area of coverage is called employment practices liability insurance (EPLI), and according to Parrish, it’s more popular in the COVID-19 era, too. EPLI provides coverage for an assortment of laborrelated issues, including wrongful termination, invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, breach of contract, emotional distress, and wage-andhour law violations. One reason for the heightened interest in EPLI is the popularity of remote work. With more employees working from home, the potential risk to the employer rises.

“There is the risk of error from not being able to manage and tend to employees as you normally could,” she says.

Risk factors can also increase with employees who are working on site with limited supervision from management.

But whether companies need EPLI will depend on the level of risk in their specific work environment. “If you are away from your job and you have to depend on your employee to manage

the job, you need more insurance in place,” Parrish says.

EPLI also covers discrimination claims, which these days might include dress code complaints. “Everything is changing,” Parrish says. “I don’t think it’s bad that they are changing… Some people want to wear tattoos and nose rings, or they don’t want to wear certain Tracey Parrish Alaska Pacific Insurance Agency things to work.”

EPLI is one of the more undersold coverages available, Matteson says.

The recent increase in demand for this type of coverage appears to be a result of many very highly publicized lawsuits in the media. “Recent media coverage related to the #MeToo movement has also caused companies to focus on this coverage when purchasing their insurance portfolios,” she says.

Thon expressed similar thoughts, saying the #MeToo movement emphasized the need for EPLI

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“A retail store has a mild exposure, but trucking companies’ claims are going through the roof…

They say that the average crash that involves a tractor trailer truck runs $400,000—and if fatalities are involved, that number goes to $4.8 million.”

Christopher Pobieglo President Business Insurance Associates

coverage. “The conversations have gotten better; I think it’s more top of mind with people now,” he says. “I think people are feeling more empowered to come forward about things that happened to them.”

According to Pobieglo, 20 percent of all US court cases involve employment practices claims; 60 percent of employment practices suits are brought by former employees; and wage-and-hour claims have tripled since 1997. “And it impacts everybody,” he says. “About 40 percent of the employment practices claims are from companies with 100 or fewer employees—so it hits larger and small businesses.”

Moreover, employment practices lawsuits can be expensive to engage in, and employers have a lower chance of winning. “If it goes to litigation and goes to court, business owners will win only about 40 percent of those cases,” Pobieglo says. “The average verdict—if the employee wins—is $400,000 to $500,000… Discrimination and sexual harassment claims have all gone up, and $150,000 is the average cost to defend yourself for litigation.”

Small businesses can purchase EPLI for an average cost of $1,000 to $2,000 a year, Pobieglo says. And the coverage can be added to a general liability or business owner’s policy for a more affordable rate than having a stand-alone policy. “Ultimately, every business has to make decisions about balancing coverage and what they can afford by transferring that risk to insurance,” he says.

Other Popular Liability Types As new risks arise, insurance products are available to blunt the sting. For instance, the expanded use of cyber liability insurance is a current trend—and not just among large companies, Thon says. Companies of all sizes are being targeted with ransomware and other types of cyberattacks, making cyber insurance even more relevant now. “Three years ago, we were barely talking about it; now it’s become a hot topic,” he says. “We [Parker, Smith & Feek] have done multiple webinars about cyber insurance and what the exposure is…

If you don’t have cyber insurance, 20 | June 2022

you’re taking that risk into your own hands.”

Pollution liability insurance is also being requested more frequently, even for less conventional situations.

“That’s getting written into a lot of contracts as a requirement,” Pobieglo explains. “Sometimes you see it with businesses you might not think have pollution exposure, but they may have to provide it because the contract says they have to.”

And for extending all kinds of liability policies, there’s excess insurance.

With the rising frequency and cost of litigation, excess liability insurance provides a safety net—depending on the type of business involved. “A retail store has a mild exposure, but trucking companies’ claims are going through the roof,” Pobieglo says. “They say that the average crash that involves a tractor trailer truck runs $400,000— and if fatalities are involved, that number goes to $4.8 million. Last year, there were over 4,000 deaths that involved trucks.”

Adapting to the Environment What can or should businesses— especially small companies—do to adjust for the changing liability climate? Pobieglo says the key tactic is for businesses to be aware of their risk and implement a process to manage it or transfer to an insurance policy. He explains, “You can do site inspections, review your contracts and lease agreement, or hire an HR consultant to make sure your employee handbook is up to date…

And consider that every person in a business is a risk manager, from the president down to the custodian.”

Parrish recommends investing in training, which can enhance employee retention and safety.

She is also a strong proponent of acknowledging employees’ efforts.

“It’s small, but it’s a big thing,” she says. “If you don’t, people will go somewhere else because they have so many choices now.”

As a piece of general advice, Thon encourages clients to fully engage with their insurance agency. “Don’t try to do this on your own,” he says. "If you have a great working relationship with your insurance professional and their team, you’ll get a lot further.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

M I L I TA R Y

Liquidating the T Ice Curtain

Federal Scout Readiness Centers readied for civilian life

Alaska Army National Guard

By Isaac Stone Simonelli

he Alaska Army National Guard is giving away property. Dozens of buildings across the state are no longer needed. The divestiture program began in 2013 with a building given to Shaktoolik Native Corporation, and in 2021 more sites were handed over to communities than in any single year.

A change in Department of Defense (DOD) mission requirements in 2011 meant much of the National Guard’s property was no longer necessary.

Among these facilities were the Federal Scout Readiness Centers, which were put in place during the Cold War as part

22 | June 2022

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

“We're currently working on transferring over the Tununak armory to become the new washateria for the town because theirs burned down… There's just so many things that these buildings are being used for.”

Kevin Vakalis, Realty Officer, Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

Alaska Army National Guard

of early warning measures and strategic defense. In many ways, leaders at the time viewed Alaska as a “tripwire” for any Soviet aggression in the Arctic that directly threatened North America.

The Scout Battalions, which were the United States’ northern frontline, were composed primarily of Alaska Native service members originally recruited during World War II to patrol northern and western Alaska. These members of the Alaska Territorial Guard, which was disbanded in 1947, continued to serve as part of the Alaska Army National Guard’s Scout Battalions of the 297th Infantry, often referred to simply as Alaska Scouts.

“The Scouts were men and women who used centuries-old Arctic skills to spot probing Soviets,” explains Tom Wolforth, a cultural resources manager and tribal liaison for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA). “Their place in the US military was so valuable and respected that they sometimes trained the Army’s elite special operations forces sent up from the Lower 48.”

With the onset of the Cold War, the membership in Alaska Scouts boomed, prompting the construction of the Federal Scout Readiness Centers. These 20-foot by 60-foot metal buildings were constructed between 1959 and 1961.

Similar 30-foot by 40-foot buildings constructed in the ’70s accommodated the expanding National Guard presence in many Alaska villages.

“The Scout Battalions were one of the United States’ first lines of defense against Soviet aggression, and the armories were used as mobilization centers for state and federal activation of troops,” explains Kevin Vakalis, a realty officer with the DMVA Facility Maintenance Office who has been working with the divestiture program since 2018. “It was our Ice Curtain to combat the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union.” www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 23

The Curtain Comes Down

Unalakleet Native Corporation took possession of the local armory to use as a maintenance warehouse.

Alaska Army National Guard

The armory in Petersburg was built in 2001, but it was mothballed by 2015, when only two local National Guard members needed it for regular drills.

Alaska Army National Guard

The original National Guard armory in Togiak was relocated in the early ‘80s when it was at risk of falling into the bay due to coastal erosion.

Alaska Army National Guard

24 | June 2022

Because of its strategic location, Alaska saw significant amounts of military construction as tension between the Soviet Union and the United States escalated and fears of nuclear war hung heavy. The Cold War was one of the most important forces in the development of the territory and state, according to a report by the US Army Corps of Engineers– Alaska District.

While the divestiture of Federal Scout Readiness Centers in Alaska didn’t begin in 2011, many military facilities were closed before the end of the Cold War due to improved technologies, new weapons systems replacing obsolete systems, cost reduction goals, and changes in strategy. Before 1989, about 150 Cold War facilities in Alaska were closed and abandoned—though not all of these were Federal Scout Readiness Centers.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War in 1991 led to further military drawdown in Alaska, resulting in even more facilities being closed. Among these were a significant number of the Federal Scout Readiness Centers, many of which were made obsolete due to significant advancements in satellite technology, Vakalis explains.

Vakalis says that shutting down each of these facilities is similar—though smaller in scale—to a base realignment process. Once a facility has been identified and approved for divestiture, it must go through a rigorous environmental baseline survey process to ensure that the property poses no threat to health and safety.

“It's pretty typical out in the villages for a little bit of diesel to be spilled here and there,” Vakalis explains, “so we’ve got to go out and do soil sampling and make sure that everything is clean.

The DMVA’s environmental team have been stellar in their performance and have won awards on a national level for their efforts.”

There is also a lengthy process to determine to whom the facility will be given. First in line is the DOD, then the Department of Justice, and finally it is opened up to other federal entities. If there is no federal need, it creates the potential of giving the property to the local community.

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Vakalis says that the National Guard talks with tribal entities, Native corporations, and the city government, if there is one, about how the building might best serve the community and to whom it should be given.

“We want them to actually put together a resolution that all qualifying parties have all agreed on,” Vakalis says. “Once the community has agreed, it makes it easier for everybody else down the chain to facilitate a successful transfer.”

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Alaska Army National Guard

The key component to the agreement among the stakeholders is that the building must continue to be used in the service of the public.

“As long as that's happening, there's a disposal process that will allow them to have it for free,” Vakalis says, noting that in an event that nobody wants the building, it is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

This has yet to happen.

Divested armories are now being used as search and rescue staging areas, community centers, administrative offices, and for Village Public Safety Officer programs. The one in Fort Yukon was donated in 2019 to the school district. The building was moved onto school property and now serves as additional classroom space.

“We're currently working on transferring over the Tununak armory to become the new washateria for the town because theirs burned down,” Vakalis says. “There's just so many things that these buildings are being used for.”

In Unalakleet, the armory is being used as a maintenance warehouse by the Unalakleet Native Corporation.

“It's really useful because a lot of times there's not a lot of storage space in villages,” says Mark Johnson, the CEO of the Unalakleet Native Corporation.

“We just happen to have a number of www.akbizmag.com

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June 2022 | 25

constructing anything new out in the villages is ten times what it is pretty much anywhere else… The cost is just super exorbitant and most of the villages don't have a lot of money kicking around to be able to construct new buildings.”

Kevin Vakalis Realty Officer Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

26 | June 2022

down ahead of their environmental baseline survey.

In Unalakleet, the facility was still in good condition and offered protection from the elements. Additionally, the divesting process was smooth and easy, Johnson says, noting that the National Guard had done a good job of handling the transaction.

“This process can take from one to many years depending on land title and contamination cleanup issues. Each site is unique and individualized,” Vakalis explains. “The DMVA, along with the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, and General Services Administration continue to move the process along to ensure the ultimate goal of continued use to benefit the local communities.”

Alaska Army National Guard

“The cost of

maintenance projects going on and we needed to order materials for.”

The extra storage space is more than convenient. It allows the corporation to bulk order more materials, which helps take the edge off the extraordinary prices paid for getting supplies to the remote village.

“We can order them at a better rate and have them shipped in for a better rate,” Johnson says, “so ultimately it should save some money for the corporation, which in turn benefits the community.”

Johnson explains that while the building should save the corporation money, it would have been difficult to build something similar due to the prohibitively high costs of construction in remote Alaska villages.

“You take on the role of maintaining the building, which there is a cost to maintaining it. But I think the benefits outweigh the cost of having to maintain it compared to if you had to build a building of a similar size,” Johnson says.

Peace Dividend While the Federal Scout Readiness Centers aren’t fancy buildings, they still provide welcome opportunities in rural Alaska communities where the cost of construction is exceptionally high.

“The cost of constructing anything new out in the villages is ten times what it is pretty much anywhere else,” Vakalis says. “The cost is just super exorbitant and most of the villages don't have a lot of money kicking around to be able to construct new buildings.”

Vakalis explains that the National Guard prefers to have the buildings in top shape when they’re handed over. Ideally, once the paperwork is all done, it’s simply a flip of a switch, but the reality is that facilities are in various conditions due to the harsh environment of rural Alaska, especially the Arctic.

An Army Corps of Engineers document explains: “Vandalism and the severe Alaskan climate combined to reduce the value of many of the sites.

Numerous sites have a large cleanup cost due to vandalism, theft, and deterioration.”

Some of that risk of damage is mitigated by disconnecting pipes, draining fuel, and scrubbing them

“We do our best to upkeep them,” Vakalis adds, noting that National Guard members are dispatched to check the facilities even after they are decommissioned.

Not all of the Federal Scout Readiness Centers have been pulled out of use.

Current mission needs require eighteen locations to remain operational. They are located in Anchorage, Bethel, Fairbanks, Hooper Bay, Juneau, Kenai, Ketchikan, Kipnuk, Klawock, Kodiak, Kotzebue, Kwethluk, Nome, Quinhagak, Sitka, Utqiaġvik, Valdez, and Wasilla.

Thirty-nine out of seventy-nine sites remain to be divested and are in various stages of the federal disposal process.

Each divestiture is unique and takes tens to thousands of working hours by state, federal, and contract employees from environmental action to title transfer, Vakalis says.

“There's been an awful lot of time invested in getting these armories into the hands of the communities,” he says, “and it's really, really great to see the communities receiving these properties and utilizing them for public gain.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Photos by Kerry Tasker

The Lynden Family of Companies

N

Keeping Alaska’s supply chains moving

avigating supply chain problems during the COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging. But in true Alaska fashion, the transportation industry has worked together to keep freight moving— despite logistical and production issues occurring around the globe, and severe labor shortages of drivers, mariners, pilots, operators, and mechanics. “I’m proud to be part of the team that was able to keep the supply chain from Seattle/Tacoma to Alaska moving with little to no disruption” says Paul Friese, Vice President for Lynden Transport, part of the Lynden family of companies.

Major credit goes to Lynden’s drivers, mechanics, pilots, mariners, load masters, operations teams, customer service representatives, and many other employees who have continually stepped up and worked through challenges to ensure Alaskan communities get the supplies they need. “We want to extend a big thank you to all our employees; they keep Alaska open,” Friese says.

In response to the global challenges, Lynden is helping customers revamp their transportation and logistics plans up and down the supply chain. “With

advanced inventory planning, some products or supplies may be able to be moved by a different mode or routing than they are currently using,” Friese explains. “We build logistics plans that utilize combinations of air, land, and sea options to best balance time and cost.

As situations change, we can adjust the modes being utilized to ensure shipments get to their destination when they are needed.”

As an Alaska-owned business (#4 on the Alaska Business Top 49ers list) Lynden puts an emphasis on serving Alaska, and it is the only multi-modal transportation company covering the entire state, from Ketchikan to Kaktovik and everywhere in between. In addition to regular truck and barge service to and from the state, innovative solutions are used to reach the more remote areas of Alaska. This includes Hercules aircraft that can carry heavy and oversized loads and land on gravel or ice runways, hovercraft based in Bethel and the North Slope that move supplies across challenging and diverse terrain, and PistenBully snowcats, vehicles built for the snow and ice that can tow heavy sleighs over snow-covered tundra.

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offers the largest and most diverse fleet of tractors and trailers, containers, aircraft, and barges that carry the heaviest payloads in the industry. And the company is constantly working to enhance the safety, efficiency, flexibility, and value of its supply chain solutions.

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www.lynden.com Customer Service: 888-596-3361 Corporate Office: 907-245-1544

NONPROFIT

Reimagining the Workplace An era of new opportunities for change

By Laurie B. Wolf

A

28 | June 2022

Matt Waliszek, Orzel Photography | The Foraker Group

s we move into a new phase of pandemicinduced life, I am reflecting on where we have been—from life quakes to the Great Resignation—and considering what comes next for our workplaces.

“Life quakes” is what we called the personal experiences we saw all around us in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. Isolation, despair, divorce, job loss, the childcare crisis, isolation of the elderly— this list is inadequate in naming the cracks and chasms that appeared over the last two years. We watched as this slow-motion disaster ripped through our lives at breathtaking speed, rendering time almost irrelevant and eliminating the boundaries between our personal lives and our daily workplace experiences.

Staff meetings were now in our living rooms, makeshift offices in our bedroom and on our kitchen tables. The impact of each person’s experience was woven into every staff meeting or mundane scheduling activity. Each conversation was an invitation to be more human as we turned toward personal connections in the workplace because they were unavoidable and because we deeply needed them. In addition to the regular work focused meetings, I and other leaders I know planned meetings that focused only on personal connections to better support each person while also keeping us connected as a team.

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Quakes gave way to aftershocks, which stayed consistent but lessened in intensity. With vaccines and increased attention on accessible healthcare, hope seemed possible again. We began to think about tomorrow, not just getting through to the end of the workday. We also moved to a time of re-assessment, asking ourselves what is most important in this newly recognized fragile life. We were able to break the frame on so many assumptions that everything we knew now seemed like a question rather than a statement of fact. We walked around carefully with one another with a common sense of understanding that most questions and answers were emotionally charged with equal parts exhaustion, hope, and uncertainty.

Typically, our nonprofits and small businesses are so

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flat that leadership development has often meant that we have to “go out to go up.”

However, a reimagined workplace could mean that leaders can now “stay in and step up.”

Many workplaces had seen this before, post 9/11, when we reassessed what mattered most in our lives. We watched as volunteerism shifted, philanthropy shifted, and, yes, the workforce also changed. Making life more meaningful seemed like our collective responsibility. And so, too, in this stage we focused on what we could control.

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June 2022 | 29

The Foraker Group is a nonprofit that strengthens other nonprofits through trainings in leadership and fundraising and, in this case, reimagining workplaces.

Matt Waliszek, Orzel Photography | The Foraker Group

Demands for workplace equity were more seen, heard, and heeded (at least more than before). Travel to reconnect with family members became a higher priority, and unspent time off that was loading up our balance sheets was now a conversation. Change was in the air— our tolerance for the intolerable was no longer acceptable as our voices grew louder and more people found their footing and took action.

Maybe we should have seen it coming, but it still seemed to surprise most of us—all the questioning, all the reckoning of how to navigate a world with less health security, fewer childcare options, and less pay than the work deserves and demands. The Great Resignation was in so many ways inevitable, if we had been looking for it. This exodus from the traditional workplace is complicated. On the one hand it is a clear condemnation of our current systems that value the essential work but on the other hand devalue the essential worker. It is also condemnation of a system that requires working parents but undermines the role of parenting. And it is a reckoning of the false choice between economic

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still seemed to surprise most of us—all the questioning, all the reckoning of how to navigate a world with less health security, fewer childcare options, and less pay than the work deserves and demands.

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Maybe we should have

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Even amid this weight and worry, another phase has already begun on our horizon—one of reimagination of the workplace. And it is up to all of us to let go and let come new answers to new questions as we learn our way forward.

Reimagination will not simply be about living wages—but, yes, it should include that, too. What is reimagination about?

• It will be about new definitions of hybrid work that embrace flexibility and accountability to both the purpose and the person.

A culture that cannot demand compliance but invites and adapts to the workers’ needs; A focus that does not try to be all things all at once but rather knows the value of when it truly matters to be physically together and when it does not; A set of principles that value the consultant and the staff as vital to the team, meeting workers where they are in their need for stability and flexibility while following labor laws and the market; and A consciousness of who is favored or silenced in either an online or an in-person environment and the willingness to address those disparities and complex inequitable structures.

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Reimagine the Possibilities

• It will be about creating workspaces that highlight the “we spaces” and pull us out of the “I spaces” as we seek to rebuild the cartilage that holds our teams together and attract people back into a collaborative working environment.

• It will be less about individual organizational responses and more about collective, collaborative systems to support front line staff, back-office services, consolidated leadership, public-private-nonprofit partnerships, and perhaps even mergers that truly serve the greater good.

• It will not be the standard nonprofit mantra of “less is more” but instead a strengths-based approach infused with abundance thinking that welcomes a new mantra of “all we can do with all that we have.”

• And it will not be about just planning and leading our way forward with those in the room but with challenging ourselves to ask and elevate the voices historically left out of the room.

There are signs of this new era of re-imagination. A nonprofit colleague recently reframed in a social media post that this emergence is actually

IS

health and the public’s health and wellbeing. Woven into this complexity are the pre-pandemic and ever-present workplace inequities and biases that have only been exacerbated. There is no sound bite for all the reasons behind the Great Resignation. What is clear is that true change in our systems is both required and overwhelming for those still in the workplace. It is also necessary if we want to convince people to stay or recruit the next workforce to lead the way.

Indeed, if it took only a simple policy shift or a budget adjustment to compete, that would be one thing.

But at least for nonprofits, our budgets are baked within grant agreements or contracts or Medicaid reimbursements that have never covered real costs—and certainly don’t now. Add to this that every staff resignation compounds the work and stress for those who stay. It feels like a lot right now. Really, too much most days.

BUILDING S | CIVIL | INDUST RIA L Alaska Business

June 2022 | 31

Toward its mission of improving communities by standing beside nonprofits, the Foraker Group trains organizations in human resources strategies, such as recruitment and resolving conflicts.

Matt Waliszek, Orzel Photography | The Foraker Group

a great opportunity. She wrote with excitement about how she saw the opportunity for the next generation of staff to truly step up and step in to their leadership in ways that simply were previously unavailable. Typically, our nonprofits and small businesses are so flat that leadership development has often meant that we have to “go out to go up.” However, a reimagined workplace could mean that leaders can now “stay in and step up.” What a gift. Sure, maybe all the experience and skills are not there yet, so in our reimagination we not only get to think about a new worker but a new way of supporting each other.

In this new era, we get to ask questions about how we bring people into our organizations. Let’s be sure it isn’t just “ jump in and see if you swim” but rather conscious support that is more like mentoring and coaching than supervising. All our roles get to change in a reimagined workplace where the emphasis is on strengths and skills and welcoming new perspectives rather than compliance and constant supervision—or worse, doing nothing and hoping that the person doesn’t fail. This takes a different kind of time, energy, and commitment. We may not think we have the time because we are 32 | June 2022

tired and have been doing too much to absorb too few employees, but this is what it takes now to create spaces for leaders to rise, to create possibilities we could not see before, to be flexible in new ways, and to think differently.

I can see this new era dawn in organizations that have struggled to retain front-line staff only to be hammered yet again in the Great Resignation. They are on the verge of thinking differently. Their conversations start with “what if…” and move to exploring a model that does not exist until they invent it. For this to occur, their loyalty to the organization will make way for loyalty to those their missions serve. By placing the client in the center of their decisions and not the preservation of the institution or their own egos, the opportunities are powerful. The results could manifest in a chance for a livable wage, real healthcare benefits, accountable and standardized practices of care, and so much more. To be clear, mergers are not necessary for these results to happen, but that is one possibility.

Moreover, what could be reimagined is a better funded system of services that matches the intentions and the actions of leadership to prioritize front-line staff.

What if…?

More examples will take form as we all seize the opportunity to reimagine what is possible in our workplaces.

What I know now is that we can go there willingly as employers or be pushed by the workforce. What I also know is that we will have to lean on each other to find the energy to think creatively and differently about what is possible, to ask “what if…” together.

The temptation to just go back to what we knew might feel comfortable, but the consequences now are too great.

A welcoming workplace that fosters a sense of belonging, that centers the personal, that focuses on quality results, and that values creative, collaborative solutions is our new normal.

Let’s embrace it together and reimagine.

Laurie B. Wolf is the president and CEO of The Foraker Group.

As a born and raised Alaskan, she has been with Foraker since its inception more than twenty years ago and regularly writes and speaks about the power of the nonprofit sector in our economy and its vital contributions to our communities.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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Vitus Energy

OIL & GAS

Y Vitus Energy

Lands in Anchorage

Investing in expanding fuel options statewide

By Alexandra Kay 34 | June 2022

ellow stripes on former Shell gas stations in Anchorage gave way in 2022 to a new color scheme: the gray and orange logo of Vitus Energy. The name evokes the sea: not just Vitus Bering, the Danish navigator who put Alaska on European maps in 1741, but Vitus Energy, the company formed in 2009 to transport fuel to Western Alaska villages by barge.

Yet here is Vitus Energy at Tudor Road and Arctic Boulevard, as of January, and then at Northern Lights Boulevard and Minnesota Drive in March—far from shore. Though the company is a newcomer to Anchorage drivers gassing up their cars and trucks, Vitus Energy is no stranger to retail fuel after steadily growing through a decade of wholesaling.

“We have eight stores in what I call the road system and four stores in Western Alaska,” says co-founder and CEO Mark Smith.

The company’s overall strategy is that instead of building new stations and competing with older stations, it picks up older stations and renovates them. That gives the old owners good value and comes with an existing base of customers. “These two stations were struggling and needed a lot of reinvestment, and the owners decided that instead

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

of reinvesting they would sell the locations,” Smith says. “Purchasing these legacy stations allows the previous owner a way out and puts us into an existing facility that we can reinvest in.”

When the time came for Vitus Energy to expand into the state’s largest population center, “Two legacy properties provided an economical starting point for urban expansion,” Smith explains. Both midtown locations offer fuel and convenience store items, and the Northern Lights shop came with a liquor license.

“Vitus has been growing since inception but is just getting more visible with opening the Anchorage locations,” says Smith.

Growing in Alaska Born in Oregon while his father was attending law school, Smith grew up in Aleknagik, inland from Dillingham. He worked for his father and uncle’s company (originally Smith’s grandfather’s company), Smith Lighterage Company, which provided tug and barge services.

Smith bought the company in the ‘80s and ran it until 1999, when it joined the Northland Group under the Yukon Fuel Company subsidiary, which was later purchased by Crowley Marine in 2005. Smith and two former Yukon executives—Justin Charon and Shaen Tarter—then formed Vitus Marine, which changed its name in 2013 to Vitus Energy.

Vitus Marine remains the name of one of the company’s three main branches, providing fuel and freight to communities along Western Alaska’s coast and tributary rivers. Another branch is Central Alaska Energy, which is developing a 7 million gallon petroleum storage facility and plans to market wholesale gas and diesel products to industrial customers. And Vitus Terminals, the company’s shorebased operations, distributes fuel to commercial and retail customers.

“Vitus purchases fuel at various points around the Pacific Rim and locally here in Alaska,” says Smith. “We provide unique buying and transportation solutions for our wide variety of customers.”

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Opened in March, the Vitus station at the corner of Northern Lights Boulevard and Minnesota Drive (most recently a Shell station) faces a Chevron Denali Express across one street and a Carrs Fuel Station across the other.

Vitus Energy

probably flown a quarter million gallons out to rural locations,” says Smith.

In 2011, the Vitus team made history with a chartered ice-class tanker making a mid-winter delivery to the icebound port of Nome. Over the years the Vitus boat fleet has grown to more than eighteen vessels as the company has served more difficult-to-reach areas. And Smith says the company has reset benchmarks for safety, speed, and weather tolerance.

The company’s biggest selling item is diesel fuel in Western Alaska, where its largest customers are electric utilities. With its marine services, the company delivers gasoline and diesel to more than 100 different stops from the Arctic to the Aleutians and up the tributary rivers in between. “Our retail customers are found in Kotzebue, St. Michael, Bethel, Dillingham, Sterling, Anchorage, Chugiak, Trapper Creek, Cantwell, Healy, and Tok,” says Smith. “Initiated in the last two years are home and commercial delivery services along the highways between Talkeetna and Tok and in the general Fairbanks area.”

All Stations Go Vitus began to expand into retail sales, home, and commercial truck deliveries several years ago, mainly to increase sales and diversify from summer-only barge deliveries.

“We’re literally frozen in,” says Smith. “Getting into winter distribution of fuel and gas stations was a way to have year-round business.” Adding the distribution of winter fuel and retail gasoline sales has allowed the company 36 | June 2022

to operate—and profit—all year long.

“We subsequently expanded our retail distribution in both western and central parts of the state,” he adds.

While Vitus has been distributing wholesale fuel in Alaska since 2011, the company purchased its first convenience store/gas station in Dillingham in 2014. The store had been for sale for some time. Upon purchasing the station, Vitus was able to quickly lower the price of gas by $0.75 per gallon.

A few years later it acquired a store in Sterling, which it finished renovating in June 2019 with a full remodel of the store, including new fuel pumps and hot food service. Stores in Trapper Creek, Tok, and Healy—along with several other locations—have followed. In general, the stores include convenience grocery items, diesel, and gasoline. The Healy store sells heating fuel oil and propane, houses a laundromat, and serves as the company’s hub for truck deliveries from Cantwell to Fairbanks. The Tok location has fuel trucks for local deliveries.

The Trapper Creek location has a bulk terminal for a local fuel truck.

Vitus has also expanded fuel storage capacity and introduced it in some places. In November 2021, the company added 1 million gallons of diesel and unleaded storage in Bethel to further its vertical integration and keep costs down. The month before that, the company added 270,000 gallons of unleaded storage in Kotzebue and secured a deal with the electric utility to rent excess diesel storage. In June 2021, the company began providing fuel to the greater Fairbanks area, with

100,000 gallons of fuel and propane storage, a six-bay truck shop, and numerous new fuel trucks. And in May 2021, the company expanded its fleet of boats with the addition of a 200,000-gallon barge.

Smith says Vitus Energy is always looking for opportunities to expand its footprint and will add more retail stations as they become available.

Vitus’ presence has offered financial benefits to the communities it serves.

For example, when the company began servicing Kotzebue, offering commercial and residential services along with a gas station, gas prices dropped by $1 per gallon. And when Vitus began operations in 2011, there was a 15 percent drop in the marine transportation rate.

Smith’s upbringing means he cares about protecting the state and its people, and he says Vitus’ commitment to renovating older gas stations is a part of that. “When we commit to serving an area, we aim to deliver an economical choice, whether it’s gasoline, propane, diesel, and—as vehicles evolve—electric power,” notes Smith.

The company is also proud of its heritage and the part it plays in the local economy. Its focus is on going local for everything possible—from its employees to its vendors and the products it purchases. “Alaska has often been served by outside interests who come up and drill for oil or fish and take the profits back home, but we are an Alaskan group trying to serve Alaskans, and we believe in hiring local and using local vendors to the best of our abilities.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Transportation U

nless something moves, it stays put. Yes, that’s a rather trite observation about transportation, but give me a break. I’m a can.

Hello! My name is JGB, and I’m hosting this month’s special section. I realize it’s a little unusual for a ginger beer to present articles about transportation, but if anyone could do the job, I can.

Get it?

My story speaks for itself. All of my ingredients and packaging had to be transported to my birthplace, the Broken Tooth Brewery in Anchorage. From there, I had to be transported to a store shelf.

And when I’m recycled, I go back

38 | June 2022

onto trucks, ships, and trains to begin my new life. More than once, people told me they don’t believe aluminum recycling happens in Anchorage. Well, not with that attitude!

But enough about me. This isn’t advertising. “Reefers on Ice” also illustrates how the logistics industry puts products on store shelves, in this case seafood. Speaking of fish, Remora is a hot new startup company that aims to revolutionize logistics by using every sliver of space aboard air carriers. I suppose it’s like online dating for cargo and passengers, or “Logistics Matchmaking.”

Now, I know something about planes; I was aircraft aluminum in a previous life. But one thing about aviation that I was surprised to learn is that Birchwood Airport in Chugiak handles about 200 flight operations

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Teacherdad48 | iStock

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Summer is Here!

Take a flight with Ravn Alaska, one of Alaska’s top 100 employers.

every day. Not exactly Van Nuys (the busiest general aviation airport in the country), but pretty busy, especially for being just off the Glenn Highway.

“Urban Aviation” looks into why Anchorage has so many airstrips.

Just as the transportation sector props up the ginger beer industry (and other industries, I guess), the haulers themselves get a hand from vehicle designers and builders. “Truck and Trailer Tailors” visits some shops that trick out rides for commercial customers. In fact, there’s so much vehicle customization that it explodes outside of this special section, in “Living on the Road,” which is about RV rentals, and “Bespoke Boats,” which is about unicycles. Or is it?

Read on and find out.

Now, as we say in my business, drink up!

www.akbizmag.com

Call 800.866.8394 or visit ravnalaska.com

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 39

Remora app pairs

cargo with carriers

By Vanessa Orr

40 | June 2022

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Kerry Tasker

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Logistics Matchmaking

R

emoras are small fish that cling to larger animals for a free ride.

Their name comes from a Latin word meaning “to hinder or delay,” but the Alaskans who’ve taken the fish as their mascot are doing exactly the opposite. They’ve started a company to streamline cargo shipments.

With backgrounds in aviation and logistics, co-founders Rebecca Clark and Jody Oyen created Remora to pair cargo or passengers with the most appropriate carrier.

“Jody and I started Remora while I was the managing director of Arctic On-Demand [AOD] because we saw a market that the company was missing and also the need for a simplified tool,” Clark explains. The centerpiece of Remora is an app that helps clients schedule cargo and passenger flights on planes that have available space.

Experience in Aviation, Innovation “We were hangar mates,” Clark says of her introduction to her future business partner. “And that’s where I got my first taste of Alaska logistics, coordination, and aviation.”

A Tucson, Arizona native, Clark came to Alaska after graduating from college to join Copper Valley Air Service in Glennallen.

Oyen, who originally worked as a wildlife biologist in rural Alaska, started flying about twenty years ago and eventually began to fly commercially for Copper Valley Air, where she met Clark, who was the company’s business manager at the time.

Clark left the state for a job with MonoCoque Diversified Interests, an aviation asset company in Austin, Texas, where she dealt with aircraft acquisitions around the world. “I gained a better knowledge of aviation from a global perspective,” she says.

“That led me back to Alaska, where I started Arctic On-Demand, a thirdparty logistics company, in 2020.”

At the time, Clark was living in Oyen’s basement, with plans to find her own place.

“Then COVID hit, and we were quarantined together,” Oyen says with a laugh.

“Rebecca had only planned to stay a couple of weeks, but once Anchorage shut down, she ended up living with us, and it turned out to be a great experience.” www.akbizmag.com

During this time, the friends began talking about work challenges and realized that there was an opportunity to improve the shipping process.

“We were discussing the challenges facing AOD and other companies and realized that a market was being missed,” says Clark, noting that AOD closed in November 2021. “From both the pilot perspective and the operations side, we discussed how complicated it was to move even the smallest piece of cargo to some communities, not to mention filling a whole C-130.”

“Rebecca was expressing her frustration and lamenting how outdated these types of operations are in Alaska; a lot of air carriers still use paper manifests,” says Oyen. “While that works for them, on the customer side it involves a lot of phone calls and emails, and it’s very time-consuming. We asked

Alaska Business

ourselves, ‘Why isn’t there an app for this? There’s an app for everything else.’”

Figuring out how to streamline air cargo logistics was no simple matter, however.

“There are more than 300 airlines in the state of Alaska, and the general public isn’t aware of all of them or how to get in touch with them,” says Clark. “It’s a daunting task. There had to be a way to provide efficiency and convenience—right at your fingertips.”

Bringing the App Online To develop the app, the partners hired a developer who grew up in Alaska and was familiar with life in rural communities.

“We wanted a quality product, and it would have taken us years to learn how to code and develop it, so we hired a wonderful developer who understood what we wanted—things that someone who hadn’t spent time in Alaska would not understand,” says Clark.

“For example, he understood that there would be instances when a [Cessna] 206 would land on a gravel strip, with nowhere to deliver cargo to, or that sometimes a person on a fourwheeler was the delivery point,” she adds.

The name of the company signifies a symbiotic relationship between air carriers and cargo.

“Like the remora fish, we want the cargo to ‘latchon’ to pre-existing flights around the state, providing the cargo shipper a more economical price and efficiency in flights,” says Oyen.

While most of the general population is familiar with apps and their use, the partners chose to keep the app simple and user-friendly. “We wanted it to be much more efficient than picking up the phone and making calls,” says Clark. “And while our plan right now is to focus on aviation, the way it is designed, it can move into other logistics markets, such as ground June 2022 | 41

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“There has been tremendous infrastructure growth in Alaska over the last few years, and now people in rural areas have access to WiFi that wasn’t available before,” adds Oyen. “So it makes sense to provide an efficient, modern tool that everyone from Native corporations to healthcare facilities to retail businesses and families ordering groceries from Costco can use to get materials where they need to go. Our app simplifies shipping and makes it more efficient on both ends.”

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and marine, in the future. We have the ability to expand into different verticals as Remora grows.”

The app, which became available on the Apple app store and on Google Play in May 2021, can be used with both iPhones and Androids and is free to download. Once a customer creates a log-in, they input cargo information and multiple carriers receive the request and can offer quotes. The app also handles charter or seat requests.

“For example, a customer writes the description of the cargo, including dimensions, weight, and other details that the carrier needs to know,” says

42 | June 2022

Oyen. “Then they add the dates for the cargo to be shipped and received, and that request goes out to each carrier on our network… The carriers then analyze the information and respond to the customer with a quote,” she continues.

“The customer decides which quote works best for them, and once they accept the bid, the customer and carrier can connect through messenger on the app with more details.”

The Remora process has numerous advantages. While the customer and air carrier can stay anonymous while looking for the best price and timing, the carrier can still respond quickly and efficiently to customer requests.

“On the carrier side, things can change at a minute’s notice, so people carry their phones with them religiously,” says Clark. “Because of this, they are able to answer clients quickly with the information that’s right in front of them, and they can choose to utilize the app whenever they see fit. It’s a huge time saver for them.”

The app also introduces customers to airlines that they may not have known about before this innovation. “We are making the market a more even playing field for everyone—from small, one-plane air carriers to the full-fleet airlines in the state,” says Oyen. “On the other hand, some carriers may find that they have competitors out there that they didn’t have before.”

The app could also prove beneficial to the environment, as planes that have extra space can be filled, cutting down on the number of flights that are needed.

“When airlines can fill their flights, it enables them to fly more efficiently,” says Clark. “This is important with fuel costs so high, and

airlines also make more money by adding cargo to fill flights to the full payload capacity of the aircraft.”

“Fewer flights, fewer carbon emissions,” adds Oyen. “That’s better for everyone—and the earth.”

As cohorts and members of Launch Alaska’s portfolio, Oyen adds that Remora is a strong proponent of sustainable flying. Launch Alaska works to accelerate Alaska’s clean energy economy by scaling technology to fight climate change.

While the Remora app is free, each transaction comes with a management fee. All transactions have a set price under a certain amount of weight, and if the cargo exceeds that amount, the price is based on percentage.

“The fees are split between the customer and the carrier,” says Oyen.

“Traditionally, each air carrier charges a service fee; but now, instead of the carrier collecting a $30 service fee, we get a share because we’re providing the service to the customer and doing all of the legwork.”

She adds that contract pricing is negotiable for companies that work with Remora consistently. “So many Native corporations and government agencies move cargo and passengers around; Costco has couriers that make a lot of runs to remote lodges,” she says. “There are so many different needs in Alaska, and we’re hoping to fit them all.”

Room for Growth While Remora plans to expand into ground and marine logistics, it has its hands full with aviation changes in Alaska. This includes the addition of the Pacific Air to Sea Service, also known as Alaska PASS, at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Alaska PASS is an alternative for maritime shipping from Asia to ports on the West Coast. Instead, cargo planes would stop at the Anchorage airport, and the goods would be packed into containers on southbound ships that would otherwise return empty to Tacoma or Seattle.

“There’s also a proposal to add fuel stands and a possible cargo distribution warehouse at South Airport Park, which provides even more opportunities for cargo to come in from Asia,” adds Oyen. “Currently,

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“When airlines can fill their flights, it enables them to fly more efficiently… This is important with fuel costs so high, and airlines also make more money by adding cargo to fill flights to the full payload capacity of the aircraft.”

Rebecca Clark, Co-founder, Remora

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June 2022 | 43

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planes stop here to fuel and continue on to the East/West Coast, but if those flights unload here, that cargo could be put onto other planes or ground or marine barges, and Remora can play a role in helping to distribute that cargo very efficiently.”

UPS and FedEx are both expanding their operations at the airport, and plans are also in the works for a cold storage building aimed at supporting the cargo industry.

Clark adds that while Remora is currently focused on Part 135 aviation, which refers to small, unscheduled carriers, they see opportunity to expand into the larger Part 121 airlines, domestic and international, as well as to grow into different markets.

“Look at Hawaii, New Zealand, and Canada; they are all lacking infrastructure, and we see opportunities there on the ground and marine side of things,” says Oyen. “That may be several years out, but there is a lot of opportunity.”

She adds, “We’ve had so many people both inside and outside of Alaska reach out to us and say that this is needed— this is where aviation logistics needs to go. It’s really encouraging.”

The partners are especially pleased that the Alaska entrepreneurial community has been so welcoming as they get their business off the ground.

“It’s really fun being a female entrepreneur in Alaska. Rebecca and I weren’t very familiar with that community here, and we’ve learned a lot about other start-ups,” says Oyen.

“It’s been a really great experience so far, and we appreciate all of their support.”

“It’s pretty special not only being a female entrepreneur in Alaska but to be in aviation,” adds Clark. “There is a limited number of females in aviation, and the number in aviation technology is even smaller.”

She continues, “Alaska is a perfect proving ground, a great market, and an impeccable place to learn and develop. We are so grateful that we’re creating something here in Alaska, where we live, work, and play, and hope that we can pass down the knowledge that we’ve gained to help continue to grow Alaska’s female population in entrepreneurship and aviation.”

Matson

Industry leading expertise, resources, and reliability Matson, Inc. plays a crucial role in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and the other regions where it operates. The company’s ships transport essential cargo that people depend on to sustain their lives. As such, Matson is committed to providing good—and easy—solutions to meet the needs of the markets it serves. “Our mission is to move freight better than anyone,” says Bal Dreyfus, Matson’s senior vice president, Alaska.

Founded in San Francisco in 1882, Matson (NYSE: MATX) is a leading provider of ocean transportation and logistics services in and around the Pacific. With 4,200 employees managing logistics across multiple time zones, the company provides a critical lifeline to the non-contiguous US economies of Hawaii, Alaska, and Guam, as well as to other island economies in Micronesia. Matson also operates premium, expedited services from China to the US West Coast; provides service to Okinawa, Japan and various islands in the South Pacific; and operates an international export service from Dutch Harbor to Asia.

Matson, Inc. moves freight primarily through two divisions: ocean transportation and logistics.

The company conducts ocean

transportation services through its wholly owned subsidiary, Matson Navigation Company, Inc. (Matson), and logistics services through Matson Logistics, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary established in 1987. Matson Logistics stretches the geographic reach of Matson’s transportation network throughout North America with integrated, assetlight logistics services, including rail intermodal, highway brokerage, warehousing, freight consolidation, Asia supply chain services, and forwarding to Alaska.

Alaska Market In Alaska, Matson’s employees and equipment have served the state since 1964. Today, Matson employs 700 Alaskans, including members of labor unions such as the Teamsters, the Anchorage Independent Longshore Union, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. As part of its ocean transportation service, Matson offers service between the port of Tacoma, Washington and the ports in Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. “We operate with three D7 class containerships,” Dreyfus says.

“They provide twice-weekly service from Tacoma to Anchorage, twiceweekly service to Kodiak, and weekly service to Dutch Harbor.”

Teens with the Anchorage Park Foundation’s Youth Employment in Parks (YEP) program conduct a habitat restoration project along Chester Creek with support from Matson’s Caring for Alaska grant program.

Matson also provides a barge service between Dutch Harbor and Akutan and over-the-road and rail connections to other locations, including the Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, and the North Slope.

Over the years, Matson has taken significant steps to expand its services in Alaska. In 2016, Matson acquired the state’s largest freight forwarder, Span Alaska Transportation, to enhance its Alaska service offerings.

In 2020, Matson launched a convenient Alaska-Asia Express (AAX) service that provides carriage of dry and frozen seafood directly from Dutch Harbor to Ningbo and Shanghai, China. “We also made significant capital investments in new equipment to support the Alaska market with more insulated and refrigerated containers… and we purchased specialized chassis to support the needs of North Slope businesses,” Dreyfus says.

Prioritizing Customers and Communities Matson’s extensive history of serving as a lifeline to communities has fostered a culture of focusing on the customers and communities it serves. It builds long-term relationships by listening to customers and solving their problems. Within that, Matson takes its responsibility to serve sustenance markets seriously. “When the COVID-19 pandemic started, our concern was the safety of our people and being able to continue meeting the needs of the communities we serve,” Dreyfus says. “I’m proud to say that we, along with the industry, have done a great job of keeping

people safe and keeping the goods flowing to Alaska.”

Another key component of Matson’s corporate culture is giving back to communities where its employees work and live. For example, when the pandemic impacted many people’s jobs— through no fault of their own— Matson Giving, the company’s community support program, reallocated funding to essential social safety nets such as food banks, meal programs, and health and human services. In January, when an undersea volcanic eruption and resulting tsunami devastated parts of Tonga, Matson reached out to support community groups Matson’s M/V Kodiak arrives at the Port of Alaska. engaged in relief efforts in the South Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii, donating hazardous substance. culture. As such, Matson is engaging more than $300,000 in relief goods • Protecting ocean health and in broad efforts to minimize its and transportation services. “Our biodiversity: Matson introduced environmental impact. Its strategy goal is to help improve quality of life the industry’s first zero-solidencompasses five key areas: in our communities” Dreyfus says. “It waste policy, using “Greentainers” • Reducing greenhouse gas may sound like a cliché, but it’s about on every vessel to contain all emissions: Its goals are to achieve doing the right thing.” solid waste for proper disposal in a 40 percent reduction by 2030 landside facilities. The company (using a 2016 baseline) and net In Anchorage, Matson has also uses vessel ballast water zero Scope 1 of greenhouse collaborated with various management systems to filter emissions from its fleet by 2050. stakeholders to facilitate the Port and treat ballast water before • Improving air quality: Since of Alaska Modernization Program releasing it back into the ocean.

2019, Matson has achieved an (PAMP). The project will replace aging 80 percent reduction in sulfur critical infrastructure with four new Alluding to Matson’s dedication to oxide (SOx) emissions. In 2021, terminals for shipping companies Matson completed a fleet environmental stewardship, Dreyfus serving Alaska through the state’s upgrade, replacing older ships says: “We operate in some of the busiest import and intermodal with four new vessels built to world’s most pristine environments, freight distribution hub: Anchorage. run more efficiently on cleaner- and we feel an obligation to make “They may not realize it, but over 90 sure we protect those environments burning fuels. percent of Alaskans rely on the Port of • Recycling retired ships as best we can.

Alaska for their everyday necessities responsibly: When replacing of life,” Dreyfus says, underscoring obsolete vessels, Matson the importance of the PAMP to the recycles ships in facilities that entire state. “There are few ports in meet stringent US regulatory the world as critical to its market as standards or similar standards in the Port of Alaska.” international conventions.

Bal Dreyfus • Recording zero significant Senior Vice President, Alaska Focus on the Environment spills: Matson continues to meet 1717 Tidewater Road and Sustainability its goal of experiencing zero Anchorage, AK 99501 Environmental stewardship is also significant spills, defined as more (907) 802-0579 integral to Matson’s distinct company than one barrel of fuel or other matson.com

AlaskaBusiness Business Profile

Meeting Alaska’s

specialty hauling needs

By Rindi White

SmithCo

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Truck and Trailer Tailors

S

pecialty truck and trailer suppliers are not short on ingenuity. In a state where hauling needs are as unique as snowflakes and nearly as abundant, the skill to recognize a problem and engineer a solution is rarely far away.

Need a refrigerated storage facility to preserve a community’s whale meat? No problem. Massive snowplow/ grader/sanding vehicle? Easy-peasy. Trailer that can handle 70 tons of mining waste and dump it in precisely the right spot, every time? Can do.

Take, for example, Bob’s Services. Its “BSI” logo is visible on mud flaps of commercial vehicles all around Alaska. The company predates statehood: it’s been in business since 1952, when founder Bob Brown started moving houses for people. Sales manager Kate Forster says it wasn’t long before people started coming to Brown to see if he could help them create a custom truck. One conversion at a time, Brown built a reputation on bringing people’s truck dreams to life, whether that was adapting pickups to drive on the Alaska Railroad or outfitting trucks with snowplows and sanders for the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) crew to use to keep roads clear.

While Bob’s Services is now in its second generation of Brown ownership and operations, the commitment to getting the job done—and done well—remains the same.

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Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

“Our list of what we don’t do is shorter than the list of what we do,” Forster says. “If a customer has an idea, we will bring it to life.”

Forster says the company will work with any chassis a customer has and modify it to meet their needs, anywhere in the state. With fortyseven employees working out of the shop in north Anchorage, most of the company’s work is a balance of oil field and municipal and state vehicle jobs, with an assortment of “you never know what” in between.

Oil field builds might require a “cold pack,” she says, referring to heating pads placed on a truck’s oil pan. Some require extra toolboxes and other equipment that is more durable for working remotely in extreme cold.

Snowplows are a significant portion of Bob’s Services’ work, Forster says. Whether it’s a plow sold to a homeowner or local plow truck operator or the gigantic plows and blades the DOT&PF plow trucks use, Bob’s Services might be where it came from. The company equips and services most state plow trucks, Forster says. But not all plow trucks are the same—each is tailored to meet the needs of the community it serves.

“If it’s going to Yakutat, it’s going to be different than if it’s going to Anchorage or going to Palmer,” she says. “We also do the lighting of those trucks—in the Lower 48, they don’t understand what a moose light is.”

A moose light is the enormous light that sits atop the cab, bright enough to span the road and far beyond its edges so drivers can see moose approaching, she says.

Bob’s Services doesn’t hold contracts with the state or municipality to produce the vehicles, she says. There aren’t many other options in the state for specialty truck builds like those the company provides, yet the Bob’s Services sales team goes above and beyond in maintaining good relationships with clients who have had work done at its shop.

“The gentlemen here have been working with pretty much the same people for the last thirty to forty years,” she says. “Our big thing is retaining those relationships.” www.akbizmag.com

Keeping It Cool

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Equipment and Relationships Built to Last

In a state in which temperatures are generally on the colder side, keeping cold food from freezing can be as important as it is to keep frozen food frozen. Luckily for food retailers, Dallas Dalton has fine-tuned the process of keeping mobile refrigeration units operational.

His company, Dalton Refrigeration, specializes in just-in-time repairs for transportation companies that have unexpected breakdowns midshipment, as well as on-time services such as rented cooling units that can be used when a restaurant unexpectedly has a freezer go down, for example. His company also builds custom freeze or chill units.

“If it’s going to Yakutat, it’s going to be different than if it’s going to Anchorage or going to Palmer… We also do the lighting of those trucks—in the Lower 48, they don’t understand what a moose light is.”

Kate Forster, Sales Manager, Bob’s Services

Dalton learned about refrigeration and diesel mechanics in trade school, then he worked for a local shipping company, where a manager said Alaska lacked technicians who could repair refrigeration, or reefer, units. He quit that job to work on the North Slope, saved enough money to buy a former bread van and some tools, and in 2014 he ventured out on his own, repairing reefer units. He worked on his own for about four years, he says, and started the leasing and sales side of his business in 2018.

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Bob’s Services specializes in customizing trucks, like this Knapheide platform body mounted on a chassis the customer brought in.

Bob’s Services

A customer brought in this truck chassis, and Bob’s Services installed the steel dump body and hydraulics to make it work.

Bob’s Services

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Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

www.akbizmag.com

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

“That’s when I started getting people asking me all the time if I had something for rent. At the time, I bought two units and rented them to the Alaska Native hospital,” he says.

It’s been a growing part of his business ever since.

Dalton explains that the hospital had a major construction project under way and needed extra space to store food. He has also provided cold storage for fishermen and hunting guides.

“The first year we did about 50 moose,” he says. “We were loading containers quick.”

By the third year, Dalton says three containers were filled with more than 140 stored moose, plus wolves and bears.

“It was a service that no one ever had done,” Dalton says. “The processors didn’t have enough storage to store those… it’s a month-and-a-half market that I never knew existed.”

Those previously unrecognized markets are becoming a larger part of his business. His company has a refrigeration unit on site, held as backup in case the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs emergency storage. Dalton provides refrigeration units to Arctic Slope Regional Corporation to store whale meat from subsistence hunts, and he sets up exterior refrigeration units for restaurants that need more chill space.

Recognizing a need for smaller trailers, Dalton says his company recently built a 10-foot by 8-foot walk-in cooler on a trailer. In April it was used at a fish processing spot in Kenai; it’s also booked for a June wedding and for the Alaska State Fair.

When an avalanche left a 40-foot pile of snow on upper Hiland Road in Eagle River’s South Fork Valley, Dalton brought the trailer to the site to provide freezer space for residents who had lost power.

“All of our units were large, with three-phase power. This trailer heats, cools, and freezes, and has its own generator or can be plugged into shore power—220 [volts], single-phase power; almost every home in Alaska has it,” Dalton says. “It was something new we wanted to try so the general public can use it. Most of the time, a box truck or trailer is overkill.”

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Keeping Fresh Food Fresh

“The first year we did about fifty moose…

We were loading containers quick… It was a service that no one ever had done…

The processors didn’t have enough storage to store those… it’s a month-and-a-half market that I never knew existed.”

Dallas Dalton, Owner, Dalton Refrigeration

50 | June 2022

Although the rental market is growing, Dalton says the bread and butter of his business is Alaska’s hauling fleet, which transports fish, meat, and produce.

As consumers move toward fresh, organic produce, a refrigerator unit malfunction somewhere on the Alaska Highway from the Lower 48 can cause problems quickly.

“It was so cold this winter that, if a trailer goes down and it’s -60˚F, the food is going to freeze,” he says.

Three times this winter, Dalton drove to the border to repair refrigeration units as soon as they entered Alaska.

Frozen produce means empty shelves at the grocery store, he says.

“The majority of our work is in the transport industry, but we also do custom builds,” Dalton says. “Almost every month we have a call from someone.”

Unique Solutions for Unique Customers One such client was Dr. Lisa Espey, a Palmer-based veterinarian who owns Passages Pet Cremation and Grief Center. Dalton Refrigeration

built a freezer unit where pets awaiting cremation can be stored, she says. But she also occasionally needs to cremate a horse—or sometimes more than one—which can present a problem.

Espey says, “If the cremator is running and we have another horse, then what do you do?”

Dalton designed a container to hold up to four horses at a time, each stored on a rolling metal tray that can easily be moved by one person—an important feature, Espey says.

“The idea is, you get the horse on a pallet and the trays roll easily back and forth. That was my goal—it had to be easy for one person to maneuver it,” she says. “What’s really nice is, I can bounce ideas off him.”

Espey says the freezer turned out well and has come in handy. While her company doesn’t cremate a lot of horses, it’s an important service. Horses can live for two or three decades; families often become deeply attached to them.

“Their horses are as important to them as dogs or cats; they’re part of their family,” Espey says.

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An eighty-ton SmithCo trailer is loaded at a mine.

SmithCo

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A seventy-ton SmithCo trailer in use in Alaska.

SmithCo

One Load at a Time Hauling a load, whether it’s mining waste, gravel for a road project, or loads of snow, is a year-round task.

Scott Lovell and Duane Myears of SmithCo Side Dump Trailers are seeing rapid growth in the side dump trailer industry, which SmithCo pioneered.

Based in northwestern Iowa, the company has been designing and building side dump trailers for more than twenty-five years. Lovell is the company’s president; Myears is its national sales manager.

Alaska is a popular destination for SmithCo trailers; to date they’ve been shipping them up as needed.

“We build the trailers in groups of six, assemble them, make sure they function, then stack the frames and tubs in groups of three and get six trailers up there in three loads. We typically do that once or twice a year. Sales are so strong that everything we build is sold,” Myears says.

But this year, Lovell says, they will be partnering with North Pole Equipment Rentals as a SmithCo trailer dealer. Having an in-state dealership means the company can have stock trailers on hand, as well as a depot for parts. Bringing up more inventory might take a while, though— 52 | June 2022

the company is experiencing higher demand than ever.

“Typically on a normal year, we would have between fifty and seventy-five stock units sitting in our yard that you could call up… and come get in a week. We have zero stock units—and we have zero stock units on the schedule, and we’re [scheduled] out to late October. We will produce more than 100 trailers more than we produced last year, and we can’t produce them fast enough,” Lovell says.

What’s driving the demand? Lovell speculates it might be a mix of pent-up demand due to projects delayed during COVID-19 and companies getting equipment ready for federally-funded infrastructure projects. And some of the increase is due to focused marketing, he says.

“The concept of side dumps is really gaining popularity. The side dump is so much more versatile than any other trailer out there; it’s so much more stable. Guys are finding that, instead of having an end-dump fleet and a bellydump fleet, they can just have a sidedump fleet,” Lovell says.

Although SmithCo sells plenty of its twenty-five to thirty-ton payload, road-ready, side-dump trailers in

Alaska, the company specializes in customizing trailers to meet the needs of its earth-moving customers.

It’s not uncommon for a company working in northern Alaska to request Arctic brake hoses, Arctic wiring, and other features to keep the equipment operating smoothly at sub-zero temperatures. More commonly, Myears says, Alaskan customers need trailers with larger payloads for mining or other offroad operations.

“Our seventy-ton payload trailer is probably the most common in Alaska,” he says. “It has three axles, but they’re heavy-duty axles, and heavy-duty suspension, heavy-duty tires.”

Lovell says those trailers might be used on the North Slope to build pads for the oil industry or maybe in the construction of ice roads. The custom trailers are designed to meet each customer’s specifications, he says.

“We are a solutions provider, so we have a lot of customers or potential customers who tell us, ‘This is what I haul and this is where I haul it; I’m using this right now and this is the problem we have,’” Lovell says. “We take a look at it and design a solution around the problem they have. We will make what you need.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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Logistical hurdles in the fisheries supply chain

By Isaac Stone Simonelli 54 | June 2022

S

almon are famous for their incredible lifelong journey, from smolt leaving their natal river to roam in saltwater until their adult return, against the current, to their spawning stream. If a human snags them along the way, they undergo another voyage, almost as miraculous.

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

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harvested annually in 2017/2018, according to a McKinley Research Group report. That was turned into 2.8 billion pounds of product worth $4.7 billion. The value of that seafood depends on processors’ abilities to move it south and get it to market.

“While the international delays in the supply chain have had some impact, the domestic industry has seen less volatility due to our closed-loop system,” explains Alex Hofeling, the president of TOTE Maritime Alaska.

“As a domestic carrier operating a dedicated trade route between Alaska and the Lower 48, we have been more insulated from the pressures and challenges experienced by shippers moving items overseas.”

In response to the delays in turnaround times at ports and rising demand for refrigerated containers and trailers, Peter Pan Seafood has been forced to adjust its logistics.

“We were ready for this; it wasn't a shock that the supply chain wasn’t improving in 2022,” Wolverton says. “I think mentally we should be looking at 2023 still being a challenge.”

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Getting fresh, wild caught Alaska salmon—or any seafood—off a boat and onto a table in New York City is a logistical feat on many levels. If a seafood processor wants to get frozen or refrigerated product from point A to point B, it’s going to require shipping containers.

Unfortunately, “It is quite difficult to find them and get them organized,” says Rich Wolverton, vice president of sales for Peter Pan Seafood.

Supply chain issues have plagued the world economy since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw consumer purchasing increase, production for many items decrease, and US ports choked as dockworkers struggle to unload ships quickly enough. A shortage of refrigerated trailers and containers, often called reefers, further complicates the situation.

“The supply chain is a mess right now,” Wolverton says. “The supply chain is disrupted, not just for seafood, but everything down to the consumer is challenging right now.”

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

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twenty-foot equivalent units in 2030, according to Globe Newswire. This represents a 7.3 percent compound annual growth rate.

“The market is registering growth due to the emergence of real-time tracking technology, expansion of the e-commerce industry, and rising number of trade routes,” the release states.

The over-40-feet division held the largest share of the refrigerated container market in 2019. These containers are designed to transport delicate goods at fixed temperatures, including frozen and chilled items.

The chilled division is slated to see the highest compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2030.

TOTE currently has about 600 refrigerated cargo trailers, ranging from 30-footers to 53-footers. Because TOTE operates a closed-loop system, shuffling equipment back and forth through its own network, it’s able to hang on to all of its shipping containers.

“Our equipment stays within our network, which is an incredibly important aspect for supporting the Alaska supply chain, fisheries or otherwise,” Hofeling says.

Alaska Business

“We deal with the seasonality by working closely with the processors, who can give us the most accurate forecasts of when they would need equipment and how much equipment.”

Alex Hofeling, President, TOTE Maritime Alaska

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Boxed In How quickly ships turn over in a port is incredibly important to the supply chain. If a ship can usually make 100 trips a year but is slowed down to 80 trips a year because of port times, there suddenly is a significant shortage—even if the supply of containers and demand for them remains unchanged.

“You're either going to need to buy more equipment, or you're going to run out of equipment,” Hofeling says.

TOTE, which has been operating in Alaska since 1975, has made a significant investment in the state and continues to do so to meet the most recent increase in demand, explains Hofeling.

“We've done everything in our power to maintain and grow our refrigerated fleet to support the fishing industry,” Hofeling says. The company is pushing hard to bring as many refrigerated trailers into the fold as possible, extending leases on some, purchasing others when available, and even building them.

There has been a boom in the global refrigerated container market, which is expected to reach nearly 6 million

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

TOTE Maritime Alaska is extending leases on refrigerated trailers, purchasing whatever is available, and even building some to make sure the fleet can handle the seafood catch.

TOTE Maritime Alaska

The company does team up with export carriers, making room on its ships for their containers, moving them from Alaska to Tacoma before they are sent abroad.

“There is a meaningful amount of export, and I will say that's really where the challenges are when it comes to equipment,” Hofeling says, noting that such containers are basically removed from the system that allows for quicker turnaround times in the domestic market.

The export market accounts for about two-thirds of Alaska seafood sales value, according to McKinley Research Group’s 2020 publication The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry. The US domestic market accounts for the remaining one-third.

“For the domestic market, we traditionally provide our own equipment,” Hofeling says. TOTE is mostly focused on supporting the seafood industry in Southcentral, as well as fish that are flown in from other areas, such as Bristol Bay, which continues to set new records for sockeye salmon production.

Seasonal Surge One of the biggest challenges shippers face in catering to the seafood industry is navigating the unpredictability of the volumes processors will need to ship.

“If a processor is processing fish, they need equipment at their facility in order to move it and maintain their 58 | June 2022

own throughput,” Hofeling explains. “It requires somebody like TOTE to spot equipment, not knowing if it's going to get loaded in one week or three weeks.”

Those unknowns can end up working against a shipping company’s turn times—something that is already under a great deal of pressure because of slow unloading times in ports due to the pandemic.

This requires day-by-day, real-time planning. If a shipping company gets a call that fish are running, it needs to be able to quickly respond and get the processors the equipment they need.

“We deal with the seasonality by working closely with the processors, who can give us the most accurate forecasts of when they would need equipment and how much equipment,” Hofeling says. “We understand that’s just part of servicing that segment.”

TOTE’s business model of being a roll-on, roll-off shipper—using trailers instead of containers—speeds up turnaround times, allowing the company to focus on handling fresh seafood shipments out of Alaska.

Hofeling explains that the fresh market is perhaps the most challenging segment of the seafood industry to manage because it requires incredible coordination between all parties to ensure that the product reaches the market in prime condition.

TOTE constantly monitors the temperatures and locations of shipping containers of fresh seafood products to

ensure quality. Refrigerated containers need to remain in the range of 28°F to 30°F, while frozen product is stored at temperatures of 0°F or below.

Advancements in the real-time tracking technology that allows shippers to monitor locations and temperatures of containers has been a major driving factor in the reefer container market.

“Fresh is a small part of the market, but it's also a really important element to be able to maintain with the customers,” Hofeling says.

Wolverton explains that Peter Pan Seafood is already looking beyond the shortages of shipping containers to cold storage space in the Puget Sound area, space to safely shelve seafood until containers are available to move it south.

“Cold storage space—that's the latest challenge because the containers are held up,” Wolverton says.

While shortages in refrigerated supply containers and trailers, as well as increased port times, continue to put pressure on the Alaska seafood industry, shippers and processors are adjusting accordingly.

None of this should be customers’ problem, Wolverton says, noting that the expectation is that seafood arrives to customers when they want it.

“Our job is to take the chaos out of it and make it seamless for our customers,” Wolverton says. “They shouldn't have to see all the hard work that our teams put in to get product to them every day.”

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Urban Aviation Anchorage airstrips tie the city to the sky

By Katie Pesznecker

A

reas of Alaska accessible only by airplane have elevated Bush pilots into heroes and contributed to the state having the most aircraft per capita, by far. One in fiftyeight Alaskans holds a pilot’s license, practically a necessity when 82 percent of communities are isolated except by air. Rural Alaska’s dependence on aviation is well understood, yet air travel has also shaped the state’s biggest city. Downtown Anchorage is literally defined by the edge of Delaney Park, formerly the city’s first airstrip. Beyond its reputation as the Air Crossroads of the World, Anchorage also sits at the crossroads of general aviation.

“The Anchorage airspace is so complicated that the Federal Aviation Administration has come up with special rules and procedures just to operate inside the Anchorage airspace,” says Adam White, who manages government and legislative affairs for the Alaska Airmen’s Association. “We’ve got F-22s and Super Cubs in the same air space as 747s coming in. It’s crazy!”

Fighter jets zoom over Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Merrill Field, the city’s first airport in 1930, is now the second busiest in the state.

Alaska’s busiest, of course, is Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC), adjacent to Lake Hood Seaplane Base, the most active of its kind in the world.

Apart from those major hubs, grassy airstrips and floatplane slips dot the Anchorage Bowl and outlying areas.

The landscape shows a history where runway-ready aviators took advantage of existing geographical features or, in some cases, took matters into their own hands.

“Dunkle’s Ditch” was the moniker assigned to the runway canal 60 | June 2022

completed in 1940 that joined Lake Spenard with Lake Hood to create the seaplane base. The canal concept came from geologist and aviator Wesley Earl Dunkle, who walked away from a crash in 1936 while taking off from Lake Spenard. Many Anchorage lakes used by pilots were less than ideal, according to historian David Reamer.

Another man-made water option today is Campbell Lake Seaplane Base, dammed into existence by developers in 1959, known for its lavish lakeside homes.

“There’s another phrase pilots use, that airplanes are time machines because they save so much time… Those little airstrips help even more with that.”

Adam White Government and Legislative Affairs Manager Alaska Airmen’s Association

Anchorage hosts two neighborhood airparks: the grassy Flying Crown Airpark in Oceanview, paralleling Alaska Railroad tracks, which dates to the ‘50s; and Sky Harbor Airport, a residential runway alongside Cange Street, between Huffman and O’Malley roads, where taxiways double as driveways.

Both are tended by homeowners’ associations and lightly used by residents.

Elsewhere in the municipality, Eagle River has a couple of smaller, private airstrips, and also Fire Lake, between the Old and New Glenn Highways, a seaplane base for aircraft on floats and skis. The Birchwood Airport in Chugiak is a World War II remnant, as is the Campbell Airstrip in the Chugach Range foothills (though pilots may only access the Campbell Airstrip with permission of the US Bureau of Land Management). Birchwood, with 200 takeoffs and landings daily, is a state-owned airport, but talks are underway to transfer the property to the municipality. The state also operates Girdwood-Alyeska Airport, a base for heli-ski and sightseeing flights in the resort town.

One Mile from Anywhere “Merrill Field is the gateway to the Alaska Interior,” says airport manager Ralph Gibbs. “We are the second busiest airport in the entire state—not Fairbanks, not Juneau.”

The airport bears the name of Russell Hyde Merrill, an aviation pioneer who died in 1929 on what was his third flight that day, en route to deliver supplies to Bethel.

Today some 30 percent of the estimated 800 planes based there are commercial pilots who shuttle materials, services, and passengers to rural Alaska, says Gibbs.

“I don’t know that Alaska would have developed in the way it did without aviation,” he adds. “It’s obvious to me that the history of Alaska was enabled by aviation.”

White, a licensed pilot since 1990, agrees: “Aviation is the way to get around. You’ve probably heard the saying, if you build a mile-long road,

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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you’re only a mile out of town. If you build a mile-long runway, you can go anywhere in the world.”

In 2018, Merrill Field recorded 151,400 operations—"touch and go"s, full landings, takeoffs, and flyovers. That compares to 275,189 annual operations at ANC and 112,071 at Fairbanks International Airport.

Merrill Field covers 436 acres and includes 3 miles of roads, a 116-foot control tower, nineteen taxiways, and three runways, the longest measuring 4,000 feet. The complex also hosts helicopters and five flight schools, including one through UAA. “We’re training the next generation of aviation right here,” Gibbs says.

Gibbs, who was appointed to his manager role in 2018, has more than forty-five years of aviation experience, both civilian and military. He also has a passion for training aviators; he came to Merrill Field after running UAA’s aviation program.

Gibbs is particularly proud of Merrill Field’s recent acquisition of high-grade flight simulators, which are open to the public for paid use. They can simulate landings and takeoffs at any airport and various flight conditions. They’re a tool for training for unique trips or for practicing specific approaches, landings, and routes. The simulators can mimic piloting the smallest Cessna or Super Cub on up to a Beechcraft King Air, a 12,500-pound twin-engine craft that’s the largest to take off from Merrill Field. (The largest landing was a decommissioned FedEx 727 jet in 2013.)

“Any pilot will tell you that the more simulator time you can get before a check ride, the more proficient you can be,” Gibbs says. “It’s all about safety. I derive great joy from helping people master the art form of flying on these simulators.”

While Merrill Field has hangars, most of its pilots are “tie-down customers,” Gibbs says. They’re hobbyists who enjoy flightseeing, hunting, fishing, and other activities in hard-to-reach spaces.

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Flying for Fun, Flying for Life This community of recreational pilots is tight-knit and truly united by a passion for flight, White says.

They happily congregate at airshows, collaboratively swap helpful tips and www.akbizmag.com

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June 2022 | 61

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information on social message boards, and hang out on airstrips on pleasant days, barbecuing and talking about planes and flying.

“For us, flying is more than a hobby,” White says. “It’s how we get out and recreate. It’s how we see the rest of the state. I use an airplane to go out and harvest a moose every fall. We’ve got a few berry patches we can only get to by airplane, and we still don’t tell anybody where they are.”

The Alaska Airmen’s Association was born from this pilot community in 1951 when pilots were concerned about changing flight regulations, White says. “Folks would meet at Peggy’s Restaurant and have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and talk.

We’ve expanded from there to being the biggest membership organization in the state. We like to think of ourselves as the voice for aviation in Alaska.”

Today’s members are everyone from cargo and airline pilots to hobbyists with small planes. There are even Lower 48 members, “because they fly vicariously through their membership,” White says. “Alaska is

a dream place for folks, and being a member of our organization is a way they can feel connected.”

The organization’s original mission to protect, promote, and preserve general aviation in Alaska remains important today, White says. “We want to make sure we’re at the table with regulators and policy setters, so we’re able to advocate for our members.

We’ve got a very strong voice when our members are concerned about things.”

The aviation community in Alaska has visibility and relevance due to its economic significance. The State of Alaska’s 2019 Economic Contribution of the Aviation Industry to Alaska’s Economy reported that aviation supports approximately 35,000 jobs in Alaska, bringing $3.8 billion to the state’s economy per year. One in ten Anchorage jobs were attributed to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

“The big airplanes may be making some noise coming in and out of Anchorage, but COVID showed us Anchorage is a critical part of the global supply chain,” White says. “It’s

even more important now because of what’s going on in Ukraine. We’ve got a lot more traffic coming into Anchorage because they can’t fly over Russia.

That’s a big benefit for us because those planes have to land and get fuel and swap out crews.”

Federal COVID-19 relief from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) supported essential infrastructure and operations at Merrill Field.

“When the director of the Department of Transportation first announced these CARES funds going to the airports, it wasn’t about keeping the airplanes flying,” Gibbs says. “It was about keeping the lifeline of food and medical and other supplies open to everybody in the state of Alaska and across the United States.”

Gibbs sees the link between aviation and Alaska livelihood on a daily basis: people regularly land in small aircraft, hop into parked cars, return with groceries and supplies, and fly off to their remote homes.

“That’s the value of Merrill Field to the Anchorage economy and to the state economy,” he says.

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old homes has been a fixture for flyers since the early ‘50s.

“Anchorage kind of grew out of it and around it,” says Chuck Kopp, a former state legislator for the area. “For the aviation community, it’s a treasure.

It’s been there so long that for many decades, Anchorage hadn’t even reached it. South Anchorage was so rural. The town kind of grew up around the airpark.”

The airpark near Old Seward Highway and Huffman Road is a stone’s throw from Alaska Railroad tracks. In recent years, the railroad moved to define its authority on the right of way. At the southern end of the airpark, a sliver of runway overlaps with the railroad corridor.

Should the land become unavailable to homeowners, it would effectively block about eight of more than forty homes along the airstrip from accessing the runway.

Kopp says “very constructive dialogue” remains underway between the Alaska Railroad Corporation, the Ocean View North Runway Homeowners Association, and the board of the Flying Crown Property Owners Association.

Alaska Business

He consults for the latter party as the matter continues to be litigated.

Since 1997, Jack Brown has lived in one of the eight homes that could lose runway access. Now retired, he relishes the proximity and access the airpark affords him as a pilot.

“Returning from the cabin down on the gulf coast or some other Alaska adventure and not having to give a second thought to unloading or tying down the aircraft and just being home already is priceless,” Brown says. “Same for heading out. It’s just downstairs, ready to go!”

That lifestyle is exactly what White, with the Airmen’s Association, is trying to promote. He invites passengers from the Lower 48 to share photos they take from his aircraft. Seeing Alaska through their fresh perspective, and from the air, reminds him of how important pilots are to the state.

“I want to see what they’re seeing in Alaska,” he says. “That helps me remember how special it is to be here and how incredible it is to fly and see Alaska the way we do as pilots. For us who do it all the time, it’s good to be reminded of that.”

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From the Ground to the Sky The more airstrips, the better, as far as White is concerned. The accessibility of alternatives provides safety and travel efficiencies.

“There’s another phrase pilots use, that airplanes are time machines because they save so much time,” White says. “Those little airstrips help even more with that.”

Airline infrastructure is hardly static, from its management to its upkeep to its preservation. Take Lake Hood, the high-volume seaplane base. It’s open to the public so people can enjoy the lake and planes, while wheeled aircraft may use those same spaces for takeoffs and landings.

“It’s very special,” White says. “We have fought hard to keep Lake Hood the way it is. We want it to be a part of the community so people can just come out and enjoy the afternoon in the summer and see the airplanes.”

The more modest infrastructure at Flying Crown Airpark in South Anchorage may be forced to change, though.

The neighborhood landing strip nestled between the backs of decades-

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

I, Can A journey through the supply chain

By Scott Rhode

H

ere I sit on my shelf. I’m cold, as I should be. My contents are pasteurized, but I contain no preservatives, so my creator recommends that I be refrigerated.

I am a 12-ounce can of ginger beer.

Non-alcoholic, despite the name. A baby could drink me, except that my flavor is, well, challenging.

“I get that a lot,” says my creator, Mike Jipping. People ask him, ‘Why would you do something so niche?’ He answers, “I’m first to admit that I have a crazy streak in me.”

I’ve heard him described as a “cowabunga-type guy.” Jipping used to coordinate events for Moose’s Tooth and Bear Tooth, the famous pizzeria and movie theater in Anchorage. They make beers at the Broken Tooth brewery along Ship Creek. Jipping noticed a need for non-alcoholic beverages at daytime, all-ages events, so he made his own.

64 | June 2022

I was the first: JGB, Jipping’s ginger beer. Then came the sweeter Red Dragon, to my right on the shelf, and now our family has six flavors. We are Beach Tribe Soda Works, now in our fifth year of— “What about me?”

Oh, that’s my downstairs neighbor, Plain Jane. She’s a 16-ounce can of Zip Kombucha, so she’s always sour. And yeasty. Tastes more like beer than I do.

“Hush,” I tell her. “I’m explaining how we came to this store.”

How I Came to This Store About thirty vendors from Seward to Fairbanks sell Beach Tribe. My shelf is inside a cooler at New Sagaya City Market near downtown Anchorage.

A typical American supermarket stocks approximately 30,000 different items. New Sagaya is on the small side, yet I’m surrounded by dizzying variety. My cooler alone

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

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displays a dozen choices, including major national brands.

My creator personally drove me here and to other stores in Southcentral Alaska. My route is quite direct compared to Plain Jane. She chilled in a warehouse at The Odom Corporation, whose job is to move beverages from makers to sellers. Odom puts Plain Jane on shelves at Three Bears Alaska and Carrs|Safeway stores. Her creator, Jessie Janes, is trying to get into Fred Meyer and Costco, but it’s not as easy to convince out-of-state chains.

“We are actually a bit of a sweeter kombucha than the standard stuff you get off the shelf,” he says. “We’ve pushed some of our product down to the Lower 48 and got some feedback like, ‘Oh, it’s sweet. It’s not super kombucha-y.’”

A decade ago, hardly anybody in Alaska drank kombucha, which is basically fermented tea. Its bubbly, vinegary disposition is an acquired taste, so Plain Jane must be eyecatching to intrigue new drinkers.

Janes himself designed the simple two-color graphics for his four standard flavors, three seasonals, and three “black label” alcoholic brews.

The lighter colors, he says, appeal to women—turns out women buy Zip Kombucha at twice the rate of men— and stand out on the shelf next to darker-colored cans.

Janes says his other trick for catching eyes is that sometimes he discounts his wholesale price (which is typically half of the shelf price) in exchange for a store guaranteeing placement at eye level.

My sweetness comes from Kenai Peninsula honey, while Plain Jane’s is from cane sugar grown in Texas and sold at Costco in 10-pound bags.

Ingredients are a relatively small fraction of our shelf price, compared to the expense of labor, overhead, and special brewing tanks.

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

Birth of Brew I was born in a brewery.

Jipping leases a tiny corner of the Broken Tooth building, a forest of fat steel cylinders rising to the rafters. One of those 450-gallon tanks brews JGB, his flagship flavor, four times a year.

At a zippier pace, Zip Kombucha brews 950-gallon batches once or twice every month. The regular kind is in the tank for less than one week, and it must be tested to have less than 0.5 percent alcohol. The hard stuff takes www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 65

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Left, a 20-pound canister of carbon dioxide gives Plain Jane extra fizz. Me too. Although the gas is everywhere, it comes to Alaska inside a railroad tanker on a ship to be bottled locally.

Canning lines at Broken Tooth and Zip Kombucha are pretty much the same. My can traveled about 40 feet, guided by rails to the filling, capping, and labeling stations.

Right, Zip Kombucha’s canning line is operated by military service members learning the brewing trade through the SkillBridge internship program.

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

three weeks, depending on the mood of the SCOBY. The symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) is listed as an ingredient, but it’s also sort of a brewer’s assistant.

Like a sourdough starter, a SCOBY is a blob of microbes that digest sugar and excrete alcohol, which other microbes convert into acetic acid for that sour taste.

Each culture has its own character.

Janes explains, “It changes over time in its own right. You feed it different teas and different sugars. We’ve got ourselves set now to a pretty set culture of being able to produce it very consistently.”

After brewing, the yeast is filtered out and flavorings are added afterward.

As a ginger beer, my flavors are brewed from the start. Jipping mixes cold-press juices and cooks them at high heat, killing any microbes in me.

The opposite of a living kombucha.

Plain Jane and I follow similar paths on the canning line. An elevator raises a pallet of cans about 12 feet high, and a conveyor pushes them through a cleaning station. Blanks descend 66 | June 2022

along a rail where nozzles shoot in the drink, six cans at a time. The next station crimps the pop-top lid, and then an adhesive label peels off a spool and sticks to us as we round the corner, at a rate of forty-five cans per minute.

From here, the supply chain transports me to my shelf. But the chain also links backward.

The Secret of My Ingredients Most of my 12 ounces comes from Eklutna Glacier and Ship Creek, thanks to the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility (AWWU).

The rest of my ingredients, although a tiny fraction of my weight, make JGB unique.

I owe my sweetness to honeybees in Kenai. Jipping prefers local sources, so he’s used Alaska-grown honey for the last year.

Local sourcing is not so easy for my other flavorings: ginger, lemons, and habanero peppers. Jipping relies on DiTomaso’s, the produce supplier that delivers fresh fruits and vegetables to

grocery stores, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, and the military.

“We sell health, and we know that working hard to bring in the freshest possible products into this great state drives health benefits to our entire state,” says Dave Vajdos, general manager at DiTomaso’s. He’s been with the company since 1992, working every job from truck driving and street sales to buying.

“Logistics are what make or break a produce house in Alaska,” says Vajdos.

“We are about as far from the growing areas as we could possibly be and still be in the same country.” His buying department stays busy coordinating multiple orders simultaneously, timing delivery trucks to arrive at growers on the day produce is harvested. “We have to fight for every single day of shelf life for our customers,” he says.

Most foods arrive in Anchorage by ship on Sundays and Tuesdays, but Vajdos says twice a week is not enough for DiTomaso’s standard of freshness.

His company uses a mix of sea, land, and air routes.

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June 2022 | 67

T R A NSP O RTAT I O N “We pay more for over-the-road trucks coming up through Canada, but we save a day’s shelf life using this program,” Vajdos explains. Trucks carry lettuce, greens, peppers, squashes, berries, mushrooms, and other “volatile” items. Ships carry hardier produce like potatoes, onions, apples, oranges, melons, and pineapples. Air freight is for fresh herbs, sprouts, and special orders out of Los Angeles.

Beach Tribe’s habaneros, ginger, and lemons are grown in California.

Lemons and ginger ride the boat while habaneros travel the Alaska Highway courtesy of Produce Services & Logistics of Puyallup, Washington.

Jipping is interested in ginger from Hawaii, and DiTomaso’s is trying to make that happen. “Hawaiian ginger is traditionally hotter and full of flavor,”

Vajdos says. “This would be an airfreighted product with a heavier price tag, but with the ginger strength so much stronger in Hawaii, Mike thinks it may still fit his cost management, knowing he would need less of it per batch.”

Plain Jane’s recipe is, well, plainer.

Water, tea, and cane sugar. Zip Kombucha orders about 20 pounds of tea leaves twice a month via UPS

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

Averaging 1,500 gallons brewed each month, Zip Kombucha fills 155,000 16-ounce cans in a typical year. They are packed up so The Odom Corporation can deliver them to retailers.

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

ground from Fresh Roasted Coffee in Pennsylvania.

The ton-and-a-half of sugar comes in th e s a m e 10 - p o un d b a gs a nyo n e can buy from Costco.

Janes says he considered buying directly from the supplier in Texas, but he would have to order a 40-foot container full, and that ’s the same price as Costco retail, plus shipping costs.

Fermentation gives kombucha a natural fizz, and Zip adds more bubbles with 20-pound canisters of carbon dioxide (CO2). That’s where my carbonation comes from, too.

Although every person, animal, and SCOBY exhales CO2, the gas for carbonated beverages travels a long way. A railroad tank car filled with pressurized liquid CO2 is shipped from the Lower 48 to Whittier and then

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T R A NSP O RTAT I O N

The nickel’s worth of aluminum in my can is worth more than the same amount that must be smelted from raw ore. When my job is done, WestRock sends me to Kentucky to be recycled.

Carter Damaska | Alaska Business

tapped and bottled in Anchorage by AirGas, which also sells helium, oxygen, and welding fuels. The CO2 comes from industrial combustion, cleaned and filtered, and tested for purity. When I make people burp, the gas is essentially smokestack exhaust.

But I’m not just a drink. I’m also the can.

In a Way, Mostly Can “Our total cost into it… it is ridiculous, when it comes down to it,” says Janes.

“It’s about 60 percent packaging to about 40 percent [ingredients].”

Same for Jipping: “It’s crazy, man, the amount it costs me for packaging.”

At current prices, a 12-ounce can like me has about $0.05 of aluminum. For Plain Jane, who’s taller, it’s a couple pennies more. Zip Kombucha receives a 53-foot High Cube with 155,000 blank cans on twenty-two pallets, about a year’s supply.

It’s more than Jipping can afford. “For me to buy a CONEX full of blanks, that’s a great concept if you have money,” he says, “but when you’re running tight margins and you’re as small as I am, doing the scale that I am, all those things start popping up.”

When cans were in short supply last year, Jipping borrowed lef tovers from other local brewers.

The market has improved, so he buys pallets of blanks from suppliers in Canada or Jordan.

Zip buys cans from Ball Corporation, a major aluminum fabricator with factories worldwide. Ball sprays a super thin coating of epoxy inside and paints “Zip Kombucha” around the top of the 70 | June 2022

cans, but otherwise they arrive with a mirror shine.

Labels are printed on platter-sized spools. Zip buys 20,000 labels at a time from a printer in Seattle, but smaller batches of seasonal flavors have labels from Alaska Printing, right across Arctic Boulevard.

Beach Tribe labels are also printed in Seattle. Jipping says wrap-around stickers are more customizable for small batches than painted cans. For instance, one of his spools is a blue-sky design with empty space for a second sticker specific to whatever flavors he’s testing. For tried-and-true JGB, my blue-and-gold label was created

by Anchorage artist Mike Kirkpatrick of Screamin’ Yeti Designs.

That’s why I look so snazzy.

After the Store I exist to be consumed. Someday, a New Sagaya customer will buy me, and I will quench their thirst.

What happens next is private, ahem, but I don’t simply disappear. My water returns to AWWU pipes and flows to the Asplund Wastewater Treatment Facility near Point Woronzof. Together with everything else flushed there, I am clarified and bleached and discharged into Cook Inlet. Fats, oils, and grease skimmed from wastewater are burned, ending up in the atmosphere. Ash, grit, and other solid crud goes to the Anchorage Regional Landfill at Hiland Road, about one dump truck per day.

I hope my can doesn’t go to the landfill. My story doesn’t need to end.

WestRock recycles aluminum cans in Anchorage, squeezing them into

bales and sending them to the port. The same containers that brought lemons, ginger, and pallets of cans to Anchorage return to Tacoma, Washington mostly empty, except for recycled materials.

WestRock sells the cans to a processor in Kentucky, so the bales are sent by railroad to a factory where they’re melted down and turned into flat-roll aluminum. From there, Ball Corporation can turn the metal into cans again. And again, and again.

I might have been a can twenty times before. Hard to be sure.

However, the United States has a recycling rate of only 16 percent. Five cans out of every six go in the trash. I choke up just thinking about it. That’s about $700 million worth of aluminum buried in landfills every year.

Anita Nelson, executive director of Alaskans for Litter Prevention and Recycling, works every day to divert that material to productive use. “Maybe the larger quandary is how to get folks to make the switch of thinking of an item they are done with not as trash but as a commodity with value,” she says.

“That takes education, the inclination to recycle, and the opportunity to recycle in your community.”

The supply chain, it turns out, has loops. And it’s not a single chain.

Strands from Eklutna, Kenai, California, Seattle, and the Kingdom of Jordan converge to form me, a humble can of Jipping’s ginger beer.

Where my chain goes from there depends entirely on who consumes me.

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TOURISM

72 | June 2022

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Living on the Road

RVs grow in popularity as vacation options

By Vanessa Orr

Safe RV Travels

A

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fter two not-so-great travel years as the result of a worldwide pandemic, people are ready to hit the highway—and some of them plan to do it in style.

Traveling by RV (recreational vehicles, whether called motorhomes, campers, or caravans) is quickly growing in popularity, and for many people, it’s the perfect way to visit Alaska’s roadaccessible attractions.

“RVing is a great way to get out and enjoy Alaska; it’s nice because you don’t have to be on a schedule, and you can quickly change plans if the weather isn’t cooperating,” says Shanna Johnson of Safe RV Travels in south Anchorage. “Not to mention that you don’t have to worry about sleeping in a tent in bear country.”

According to the RV Industry Association, a 2021 survey revealed that 72 million Americans plan on taking a trip in an RV that they rent, own, or borrow—up from 61 million the previous year. Last year also proved to be a banner year for the RV industry, with record-breaking shipment numbers and unending demand for RV products.

While some of this demand can be credited to people wanting to get out and about after staying at home for so long to avoid COVID-19, there seems to be a cultural shift occurring as well.

“The pandemic has driven people to reevaluate their lives—and rightfully so,” says Bob Johnson, director of marketing at Great Alaskan Holidays, also in south Anchorage. “People are valuing their personal time more, and the work/life balance is tilting quite a bit more to personal time being the Alaska Business

top priority. It’s really an amazing shift; from a consumer perspective, it’s fascinating.”

As a result, many people are returning to what used to be the consummate vacation: the great American road trip.

“We’re seeing a lot more people wanting to get out and experience the world like people did when I was a kid. They’re setting down their mobile devices and walking out the door,” Bob Johnson says. “RVing, especially in Alaska, is a really attractive option because it gives travelers a sense of freedom. They can feel that pressure being lifted, and they’re getting a break from mundane routines—they are scratching that itch, so to speak.”

Move Over, Grandad While the stereotypical RV owner is gray-haired, retired, and has waited years to see the world, today’s Winnebago warrior skews a lot younger. According to a 2021 demographic profile by the industry’s Go RVing campaign, 11.2 million households now own RVs, split almost equally between those over and under the age of 55. In fact, 18-to-34year-olds now make up 22 percent of the market.

Roughly 9.6 million households state that they expect to buy an RV within the next five years, and among current RV users, 84 percent of Millennials and Gen Xers plan to buy another RV, with 78 percent preferring to buy a new model.

On the rental front, travelers are renting from both RV companies and peer-to-peer networks. Marketing to renters is changing almost as much as the industry itself.

June 2022 | 73

“If you’re out camping and something goes wrong, like the slideout wall won’t work, you can’t travel… Or if your furnace goes out and it’s a cold Alaskan summer, it can really ruin your experience.

We offer a mobile service that comes to your location to do whatever is needed to get you back out on the road.”

More than half of Great Alaskan Holidays’ renters were younger than retirement age in 2019, and an industry survey shows more than one-fifth of current RV owners are in the younger Millennial or Gen Z bracket.

Safe RV Travels

Shanna Johnson, Safe RV Travels

“From the Great Alaskan Holidays’ perspective, we’re seeing two things really stand out, the first of which is the digital transformation of the industry,” says Bob Johnson. “We rely more and more heavily on digital outreach as opposed to traditional advertising methods to more cost-effectively reach a global audience.”

He continues, “The second is the level of intuitive attention that we give our customer base… As RV organizations like us evolve, we need to realize that we’re not just renting a motorhome to a customer; we are 74 | June 2022

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selling an A-to-Z Alaskan experience.

And that experience starts at the very moment the customer decides that they want to go on vacation to them writing an online review after the trip is completed.”

According to Bob Johnson, customer outreach is critical to providing visitors with a seamless transition.

“The customer’s decision of who to do business with is 60 percent complete before you even know they’re looking at you,” he explains.

“You have to set the stage immediately about expectations: not just the reservation process itself but what’s required up front as opposed to followup requirements once they arrive.”

He notes that with most of the check-in process available online, Great Alaskan Holidays is able to get customers out the door and into an RV in as little as fifteen minutes. Once aboard, the company makes it easy for even a novice to learn how the motorhome works.

“We supply them with an orientation video that tells them everything they need to know about how to work everything in the motorhome and a hard copy of the same information,” he says. “If they need a third access point of information, they can use our customer service phone number and off-hours technical hotline.”

He adds, “We try to keep the entire process as painless for the customer as possible; the last thing we want is for the motorhome to be a burden to the overall experience.”

Great Alaskan Holidays’ customer base reflects this attention to detail.

While 20 to 30 percent are first-time RVers, Bob Johnson says the company has a very large group of return travelers who have vacationed with Great Alaskan Holidays for the past ten to fifteen years. Many of these customers also take advantage of its VIP program that offers perks for repeat customers who meet different milestones.

“In 2019, we saw our demographics in the lower age ranges increasing; most customers were between the ages of 30 and 65, with an average party size of 2.4 people,” he says. “The average rental time was 9.72 days, and we had customers come from fifty-six different countries around the world.” www.akbizmag.com

Keeping It Moving There’s nothing worse than having car trouble on vacation—except, perhaps, having an issue with the vehicle that is also your shelter.

That’s why RV sales, rental, and repair companies employ mobile crews to go where help is needed.

“If you’re out camping and something goes wrong, like the slide-out wall won’t work, you can’t travel,” says Safe RV Travels’ Shanna Johnson. “Or if your furnace goes out and it’s a cold Alaskan summer, it can really ruin your experience. We offer a mobile service that comes to your location to do whatever is needed to get you back out on the road.”

After a twenty-year career in healthcare, Shanna Johnson and her husband Forrest decided to make a career change based on their love of the RV life. Shanna recently finished training to become a certified RV inspector, and Forrest is certified in RV repair.

“My whole life I’ve been involved in RVing; my grandparents were in a motorhome club, and my parents had different types of campers while I was

Alaska Business

growing up,” Shanna Johnson says. “My husband and I randomly rent RVs, like Class As and Class Cs, to try out.” Class As are the heaviest type, sometimes built on a bus chassis; Class Cs are mid-size, larger than a Class B camper van and typically with a sleeping area over the cab.

The couple, who plan to live fulltime in an RV after their daughter graduates from high school, decided to start a business providing mobile inspection and repair services during vacation season so that they could travel the rest of the year.

“If you want to purchase an RV from a dealer, you want to make sure that it’s in good condition before you buy it,” Shanna Johnson says. “Or if you’re renting your RV out for the summer, it’s a good idea to get it inspected and to make sure that everything is working properly."

She adds, “It’s people’s entire vacation—their transportation as well as their lodging—so they don’t want issues while enjoying Alaska.”

As with any type of equipment with so many moving parts, things can go wrong.

June 2022 | 75

Great Alaskan Holidays Safe RV Travels

After a motorhome has been rented for three years, Great Alaskan Holidays retires it to the sales lot. That way, renters can rest easy knowing their shelter on wheels has minimal wear and tear.

76 | June 2022

“It’s a home going down the road; at some point, things are going to break,” Shanna Johnson says.

She advises RV owners and renters to check for propane leaks and to make sure that smoke detectors are working and not out of date. “It’s also not a good idea to drive down the road with the propane turned on,” Shanna Johnson suggests. “It’s not illegal to do so, but it’s a bad idea; it could be a safety hazard.

“Tires and brakes are extremely important, and you need to make sure that the air pressure is right and that the brakes are working well,” she adds, noting Alaska’s often curvy and hilly roads. “On towables, make sure that you have an emergency brake switch so that if the trailer comes away from the vehicle, the trailer brakes will activate and stop the trailer.”

She notes that battery maintenance is also important to keep all the appliances in the RV running well.

While some online RV rental companies require a rental inspection every ninety days, others do not, so renting online it’s important to ask if this has been done and confirm that everything is in good working order. In case there is a problem on the road, it’s important to know the contact number of mobile repair firms.

“The nice thing about mobile service is that you don’t have to haul your RV or trailer to a repair shop,” Shanna Johnson says, adding that Safe RV Travels charges a flat rate callout fee and charges by the hour for service. If the call is from outside a 30-mile radius, they charge a per-mile fee as well.

“The need here for service is huge, especially in the summer,” she adds.

“Every repair shop and dealership is busy, so we’re here to help. Vacation season is really short, so you don’t want to wait weeks or months to have your RV fixed.”

Great Alaskan Holidays contracts with roaming mechanics around the state that can travel to their customers when there’s a problem.

“We will even drive a replacement motorhome to the customer and transfer their stuff from one RV to the other so that they can get on their way,” says Bob Johnson. “We deal with it so that their vacation isn’t interrupted.”

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Bob Johnson adds that the company mitigates the possibility of mechanical difficulties by taking rental RVs out of their fleet when they reach three years old, graduating them into their sales fleet.

“Our rental customers never drive anything over three years old, which significantly reduces the possibility of anything going wrong,” he says.

“On the sales side, the customer is buying a motorhome that has had one owner for the life of the vehicle, and that has been well maintained and inspected after every single rental. Any bugs that might occur with a brand-new motorhome have been worked out before it graduates to the sales fleet, so it’s a very safe purchase.”

may like, as well as recommend vetted service providers.

“We recommend excursion companies like K2 Aviation and activities like the Phillips 26 Glacier Cruise; we even promote them on our website,” Bob Johnson says.

“There is no financial exchange between our companies; our intent is to promote excursions and activities that we know the customer will have a great time doing or we wouldn’t put it on our site.”

Bob Johnson expects to see more

growth in both the RV rental and sales industries over the next three to five years, based in part on lifestyle changes caused by COVID-19.

“We anticipate continued growth if for no other reason than that the pandemic has driven people to reevaluate their priorities and their need for family time, and to make appropriate adjustments so that they can live more fulfilled lives,” he says.

“And the chance to be out in nature is a significant part of what drives those decisions.”

Living the RV Life What should first-time RVers consider when getting ready to take the wheel?

Bob Johnson suggests doing research to find a reputable organization that is familiar not only with RVs but with the state itself.

“Refer to online reviews from reliable resources and definitely go with an organization that has some longevity behind them,” he says. “Renting a motorhome is different than renting a car and staying in a hotel. You are entrusting your vacation to a house on wheels. The last thing you want is to be broken down somewhere with no one to help you.” He adds, “Get involved with a reputable organization with a reliable track record, longevity, and integrity. That dramatically reduces the chances of having a bad experience.”

While Great Alaskan Holidays does not offer trip planning, they do have recommended itineraries on their website.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in our lobby in the summer talking to customers, and many of them don’t have an itinerary; they’re looking for suggestions from people who know the lay of the land,” Bob Johnson says. “They don’t want to gamble on an advertisement they saw at home; they’d rather talk to a local about how to have a true Alaskan experience.”

Because of this familiarity, local companies can also advise customers on different excursions or activities they www.akbizmag.com

2022 3-Year Outlook Luncheon August 3 at the Dena’ina Center Featuring the return of keynote speaker Roger Brooks, a renowned tourism, downtown, and community expert who will provide a Destination Assessment of Anchorage from a business, resident, and visitor perspective. Guests at the luncheon will be the first to hear the assessment findings supported by actionable recommendations on how we can make Anchorage an even better place to live, work, and play.

Investor tickets go on sale June 15, all others on July 1, visit AEDCweb.com for information Alaska Business

June 2022 | 77

ENGINEERING

Bespoke Boats

Marrying form and function on Alaska’s waterways

By Rachael Kvapil

78 | June 2022

B

oats are holes in the water that owners throw money into, the saying goes. That money pays not just for operating a vessel but for customizing it. When a stock model can’t get the job done, it’s time to call on the skills of a naval architect.

Boat customization isn’t a process to jump into lightly. Time and money are both major investments in a start-tofinish project. Any naval architect will happily work with a client to design and bid out a custom vessel; a really good one will tell you when customization isn’t absolutely necessary.

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“We take the time to talk with boat operators about their needs from the start,” says John Waterhouse, principal at Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG), a nationwide engineering firm with offices in Ketchikan. “If there is a stock model that we know about that can do the job, we are happy to point them in that direction.”

Waterhouse says understanding the goals of boat owners is key to delivering the best design. A few things influence how easy it is to determine these goals, such as the experience of the boat operator, the clarity of their vision, and the ability to communicate their needs.

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Elliott Bay Design Group developed the contract and detail design for the two Alaska-class ferries, Tazlina (pictured) and Hubbard, for the Alaska Marine Highway System. The 280-foot vessels include twin side casings with walk-on passenger access and drive-through vehicle loading and unloading.

Vigor

“Sometimes we expect the owner to know how to get to the result they desire,” says EBDG President Robert Ekse, “but often it’s just as much as a discovery for them as it is for us.

Selecting the right approach is really a process walking them through the different methods' possibilities.”

“When the conversation between us and the client works, it’s wonderful,” says Waterhouse. “The design creation and build are magic.”

More Than Racing Stripes

Elliott Bay Design Group designed the 4,500-passenger Ollis-class of ferries following the successful completion of its multi-phase preliminary design investigation of the Staten Island Ferry fleet. Naval architects relied more on design than technology to meet the ambitious goal of an 8-minute turnaround.

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80 | June 2022

Once the naval architect fully understands the purpose of a vessel, the design process begins. As with any customized project, this process ranges in complexity. The more specialized equipment and specific requirements for the vessel, the more complex the design. However, the experience of the naval architect also comes into play.

An architect who has designed custom boats for a variety of industries will have a better idea of what configuration of space, technology, and equipment could possibly work. They use previous designs as a reference point for clients with similar needs.

State and federal regulations have a powerful influence on design, and those regulations are often in flux. Alaska has a minimum set of requirements for all water vessels, such as display of information, life jackets and accessible storage, visual and electronic distress signals, fire extinguishers, ventilation, navigation, pollution, and sanitation. Though the US Coast Guard (USCG) regulations for recreational boats in District 17 (which encompasses Alaska) reflect the state requirements, commercial vessels operating within the district have additional USCG requirements based on vessel size, water temperatures, passenger load, and vessel purpose.

According to the USCG website, standards for design and construction of commercial vessels changed significantly between 2010 and 2018.

Federal regulation manuals encourage commercial ventures to work closely with a naval architect and USCG examiner when having new boats constructed or older boats converted to meet current standards.

The length of time for full customization of a new vessel depends Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Technology. One assignment required that he draw up his dream boat, which turned out to be comparable to commercial boats like the SeaSport or Orca. Early in his career, he realized that other people might be interested in building their own boat for a fraction of the cost while still having the ability to customize it.

Glacier Boats of Alaska

on the industry and the number of stakeholders involved. For instance, a project with one or two owner/ operators generally progresses faster than a government project with multiple stages of approval or a public process.

Once designs are approved, a bid package is assembled and a shipyard is selected. Waterhouse says on average small projects take two to three months to design and nine to twelve months to build, while larger commercial projects take six to nine months to design, two to three months to bid, and eighteen to twenty-four months to build. The exact amount of time depends greatly on scale and complexity.

Alternatives to Full Customization At a certain scale, customization is appropriate for amateur boat builders. Prepackaged plan sets and corresponding kits provide all the instruction to build a limited series of customized boats. Brian Dixon, owner and designer at Glacier Boats of Alaska in Anchorage, first developed the idea of creating plan sets while attending the Westlawn Institute of Marine

Glacier Boats of Alaska offers plans for two models of inshore/offshore powerboats: the Great Alaskan and the Great Alaskan Kodiak. The standard Great Alaskan is 25’ to 28’6” long by 8’5”

wide and designed for offshore use, cruising, and boat camping. The bow contains a queen-sized bed, and the pilothouse has room for appliances, galley, seating, dining, and heating. The larger Kodiak model is 27’ to 30’ long by 9’4” wide and equally as customizable.

Dixon says both models are seaworthy, beach-able, and can also operate in shallower water than most deep-V (heavy) fiberglass or aluminum types.

“Target waters when designing these boats were southeast Alaska and nearby islands, Kachemak Bay, Prince William Sound, and the Gulf of Alaska,” says Dixon. “These boats are now used all over the world in a variety of waters, including rivers and lakes.”

Dixon made the plans as selfexplanatory, educational, and complete as possible. The standard model, which serves as the basis for all variations, including the Kodiak, consists of two fully illustrated manuals and associated large format drawings. The first manual covers the basics of using epoxy, fiberglass, and wood to build a boat and how to stretch or shrink the hull length as desired. The second manual includes instructions for building the

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superstructure—the pilothouse and cuddy (or cabin)—and any variants. Kits also instruct builders how to customize pilothouse and cuddy size, style, or contents. Plan sets also have a “brief construction manual” with an illustrated bird’s eye view of the build sequence, which is often enough for experienced boat builders to follow.

“It’s hard to imagine any other set of boat plans that include more variation,” says Dixon.

In addition, Dixon provides instructional support via Facebook, YouTube, The Builder’s Forum, email, and phone. Amateur builders contact him regularly with questions or simply to discuss their ideas.

“I support builders in each of these venues,” says Dixon, “but they also obtain a very large amount of support, learning, and information from others who are currently working on or have completed their own vessel.”

After seventeen years, Dixon considers these plan sets as proven. Both designs were reviewed by a naval architect and mechanical engineer before they went online. This means he also knows the limits of his plan sets and addresses

those limitations clearly and firmly within the instructional text. He says the plan sets cannot be further altered to make the boat longer or wider than what is outlined. For instance, making the boat longer than suggested can result in moving the center of buoyancy aft more than the center of gravity can move aft, which can result in bow-down trim at rest and may lead to less-thanoptimal handling characteristics, such as piercing too deeply into oncoming waves, porpoising instabilities, or “chine walking” where the boat flops side to side.

“The upper limits are non-negotiable,” says Dixon. “If exceeded, it is not something that I can support. It places them in the world of experimental watercraft, and they’re on their own.”

Customized Vessels at Work The Great Alaskan model is fine for cruising, camping, fishing, and island hunting access, Dixon says, while the larger Kodiak model frequently serves as a charter or light commercial fishing boat.

EBDG’s custom vessels also have a wide range of recreational and

commercial use. As a global company, they have customized as many passenger, fishing, cargo, and research vessels as they have barges, ferries, workboats, and tugs. Ekse compares the variety of water vessels with that of wheeled vehicles.

“When the conversation between us and the client works, it’s wonderful… The design creation and build are magic.”

John Waterhouse, Principal Elliott Bay Design Group

“There’s a number of wheeled vehicles that you see every day, and you instantly recognize them as a car or a truck,” says Ekse, “and then there are

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different types of vehicles or custom farm equipment that are developed for a specific application that aren’t seen every day. The same is seen with boats and larger vessels.”

Designing for that specificity has led to some unique projects. Recently, Elliott Bay Design Group joined with Maritime Partners, e1 Marine, and multinational heavy equipment maker ABB to design and build the first long-range towboat that complies with the IMO 2030 reduced carbon emissions target. The 86-foot vessel is meant to push barges on the Mississippi River using electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

Instead of hydrogen gas, the engine uses e1 Marine’s patented reformer technology to convert methanol to hydrogen. The onboard conversion avoids fuel transfer and storage complications while still enabling a range of 550 miles, or about four days underway.

Other projects EBDG has worked on are more deceptively challenging.

For instance, creating a vessel for the Staten Island Ferry Service in New York to carry 4,500 passengers and allow

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Chuck Mazzola of Bend, Oregon built a 30-foot Kodiak Great Alaskan vessel from plans developed by Glacier Boats of Alaska.

The Kodiak plan set is an addendum to the Standard Great Alaskan and offers additional customization in addition to greater vessel length and width.

Glacier Boats of Alaska

for quick offboarding of materials and foot traffic required some creativity. The goal was to have the boat turn around in eight minutes, and Waterhouse says the solution lies in the design more than technology.

The Staten Island project cost around $250 million to build three Ollis-class ferries; however, EBDG has many other projects larger or smaller than that amount. Waterhouse says the price tag boils down to the client’s needs, financial resources, and the amount of time available.

At Glacier Boats of Alaska, Dixon says it’s much easier to directly compare a

Alaska Business

vessel built from his plan sets with offthe-shelf models. He says a builder could realistically build a Great Alaskan for somewhere between $35,000 and $100,000, whereas a used 27-foot SeaSport sells between $80,000 to $150,000. The benefit, according to Dixon, is that amateur builders invest their “sweat equity,” plus his design is cheaper to operate than an older offthe-shelf model, burning less than half the fuel.

Just as boat owners can customize the shape and size of their hole in the water, they also have some control over how much money they throw into it.

June 2022 | 83

FISHERIES

The Peril of Pink

Salmon under pressure from species

P

ink salmon are booming. That’s great for humpies, but perhaps not so great for every other species of salmon in Alaska. Indirect evidence suggests competition among species may have been compounded by the changing ocean climate, but the case is far from closed.

“There's a lot of evidence that abundant pink salmon in the North Pacific are having ecosystem-scale impacts that include changes in the growth rates of different salmon populations of different species from different places,” says NOAA scientist Nate Mantua, based on a review of the scientific literature, including the work of Gregory Ruggerone.

Ruggerone, former president of Natural Resources Consultants, has been researching the relationship between pink salmon and other species for about twenty years thanks to pinks' biennial life cycle.

“In most regions, they're highly abundant in odd-numbered years and less abundant in even-numbered years,” Ruggerone explains. “That biennial pattern, it's an incredible tool for testing the hypothesis that salmon compete with each other in the marine environment because climate and physical oceanography typically do not vary biennially, and most marine species do not have a two-year life cycle like pink salmon.”

The complicated life history and diversity of Pacific salmon species, which typically spend one or two winters in fresh water and two or three years in the ocean, can mask what Ruggerone calls the pink salmon effect.

84 | June 2022

By Isaac Stone Simonelli Pinks Versus Reds All species of salmon in the Pacific are generalist predators, leading to an overlap of diets. Pink salmon diets overlap the most with sockeye, also known as red salmon, though both also catch small fish and squid eaten by coho and chinook.

Ruggerone’s work points toward competition for ocean food resources being a factor in limited salmon returns of sockeye in some regions and smaller sizes of adult sockeye returning overall. Year after year, he has documented how the biennial pattern of pink salmon has, in general, an inverse relationship with returns of other species. In even-numbered years, when pink salmon returns are lower, other salmon species tend to grow faster and survive better.

“The adverse effect of numerous pink salmon on vital rates of other salmon species has the potential to be far-reaching because salmon migrate long distances,” he writes in a 2022 publication titled “Are There Too Many Salmon in the North Pacific Ocean?” The paper explores his tipping point hypothesis, which states that “an overabundance of salmon, combined with effects of recent marine heatwaves, may have been responsible for unexpectedly low returns of all five species of Pacific salmon across the North Pacific in 2020.”

Climate Plays Favorites Mantua, who is the leader of the salmon ecology team at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center and

specializes in climate science, says that there is a lot of merit in the theory that the North Pacific's carrying capacity for salmon—and other species that depend on the same food webs—has crested, based on the evidence presented by Ruggerone and the impacts of climate extremes in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. “We've had record-high ocean temperatures in a number of recent years that have come with widespread negative impacts on many different marine animals,” Mantua says.

Warmer water increases the metabolic rates of cold-water fish, such as salmon, which means they need to eat more food during warm years than they would in cold years to grow the same amount.

Compounding this issue in the Gulf of Alaska are marine heatwaves that reduce food production at a time in salmon’s lifecycle when they need to rapidly grow.

“There's evidence that those bad ocean conditions just from the climate and food web productivity side have been made worse in periods where you have really abundant pink salmon,” Mantua says.

The varying life cycles of salmon species mean that marine heatwaves affect them differently. Pink salmon have the most limited freshwater life, opting to quickly enter the marine environment, Mantua says.

“Their way of doing business is to overwhelm things with numbers and then grow really rapidly,” Mantua says.

“The ocean is a great place for very rapid growth, if you can find food, and also a

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Greg Ruggerone

competition and changing climate

really dangerous place for extreme loss to predation.”

The Bristol Bay Exception Pink salmon populations in the last thirty to forty years have been incredibly abundant compared to most of the 20th century, while other salmon populations have been struggling. The star exception to these trends is Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, which have seen record returns year after year.

“Bristol Bay sockeye are now in the sweet spot in terms of the warming of the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea,” Ruggerone says.

However, recent historic returns in Bristol Bay don’t refute indirect observations about the interactions of pink salmon on sockeye, Ruggerone says. He explains that the strong growth and survival rates of Bristol Bay salmon in their first year in the marine environment in Bristol Bay and Western Alaska, where there are relatively few pink salmon, allows them to compete with pink salmon during the second and third years in the ocean. During these times, Alaska sockeye and Asian pink salmon habitats overlap in the

subarctic North Pacific and the open waters of the central Bering Sea. “Ruggerone's work has shown how abundant pinks, largely Asian pink salmon from Russia, tend to come with much-reduced growth rates and size of adult ages for Bristol Bay sockeye salmon,” Mantua says. “Other work has shown that the abundance of pinks in the Gulf of Alaska looks to be impacting the productivity of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River [in British Columbia].”

Careful scale growth analysis done

by Ruggerone and colleagues shows reduced growth rates during those periods of shared habitat use, Mantua says. In years of increased pink salmon abundance, sockeye salmon are growing less than in years of low pink salmon abundance.

“I have no doubt that they impact Bristol Bay sockeye salmon, as we have described in a number of peer-reviewed journal articles,” Ruggerone says.

Some Doubt Ruggerone’s method of using the biennial trends of pink salmon offers a glimpse into the ocean environment

that is often referred to as a “black box” when it comes to understanding what happens to salmon during that period of their life cycle. While he is confident in the evidence teased out from the pattern, other salmon experts have yet to bite.

Katie Howard, the head of the recently established Salmon Ocean Ecology Program in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is less sure about the correlation between even- and odd-numbered years of pink salmon. Nonetheless, she says that Ruggerone’s and his colleagues’ work is incredibly important.

“He’s looked at so many salmon stocks all over North America, which is really important for setting the stage for further research,” Howard says, noting that her program’s goal is to build on that foundation and provide more clarity through direct observations. “For most salmon species, most of their life is occurring in the ocean and we just don't have that much information about what happens in the ocean with the salmon,” she says.

Without the rich data that scientists have on the freshwater lives of salmon,

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Scientists sort juvenile salmon for a marine survey in the Northern Bering Sea, operated in partnership between NOAAAlaska Fisheries Science Center and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

ADF&G

Howard says fundamental questions become hard to answer: What has the greatest effect on salmon mortality in the oceans? Should that change how salmon stocks are managed? What about changes in climate?

“Those kinds of questions are really hard when there's so little information and observations of salmon in the ocean,” Howard says. “It's really hard to tease apart what's happening with pink salmon from what's happening more broadly with the marine heatwaves… because all the things are happening at the same time.”

Howard says she’s worried that by remaining salmon-centric in their approach to understanding what’s happening to salmon in the high sea, scientists could be missing the big picture.

In a presentation to the Alaska Board of Fisheries Hatchery Committee, Howard stated that barriers to accessing scientific work in nonEnglish journals is one blind spot. She also suggested that other two-year patterns could, in part, explain the correlations currently blamed on pink salmon.

“That's part of the reason why we're trying to approach this question in some different ways,” Howard says.

Peeking Into the Black Box Howard is one of sixty international scientists taking part in the International Year of the Salmon. The program was developed to further the scientific understanding of the ocean phase of the salmon lifecycle to improve efforts to assess, forecast, and manage salmon.

Central to this is addressing if marine heatwaves affect the carrying capacity of the North Pacific ocean, explains Ed Farley, who manages the Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment Program with NOAA Fisheries in Juneau.

“I think we can at least address the central goal on that question,” says Farley, who spent the winter on the NOAA research vessel Bell M. Shimada as part of the 2022 Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition.

Collecting data during winter months was critical to the multi-year project.

It has rarely been done due to harsh weather, yet winter is one of several 86 | June 2022

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opportunities for salmon species and stocks to intermingle. A leading hypothesis is that fish that didn’t forage efficiently and grow during spring and summer may be more susceptible to mortality during winter.

That is yet another question in need of direct evidence rather than observed correlations.

Data collection for the International Year of the Salmon occurred in 2019, 2020, and 2022.

During that span, a marine heatwave peaked and waned, “So we're going to be able to see how fish are responding in terms of their shifting distributions,” Farley says.

Farley explains that further analysis of the data collected should help scientists make direct observations of the fitness level of fish between warm years and colder years. Unfortunately for researchers, and to their surprise, the 2022 survey caught far fewer pink salmon than they expected.

“We're not finding pink salmon where there are other salmon,” Howard says.

“So what does that mean, in terms of competition? We're still trying to figure that out.”

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Farley points out that research vessels weren’t able to go as far southwest of the Aleutian chain as they would have liked.

“There’s a large area there that is salmon habitat that wasn’t sampled, and that’s unfortunate,” he says.

The lack of pink salmon samples means that the project might shed light on many aspects of the lives of salmon when stocks and species are mixing in the high sea, but the role of the vast volumes of pinks might remain veiled.

“Whether or not that means pink salmon were competing or outcompeting is hard for us to say because we just didn’t catch that many of them,” Farley says.

Nonetheless, the pan-Pacific data collected should provide a baseline for many of the other questions scientists are attempting to answer.

Farley also remains optimistic about Alaska’s salmon fisheries, despite some of them shifting.

“Sometimes we get discussing these things and people think this is the end, you know. In my opinion, it's not the end,” Farley says.

Alaska Business

Adaptive Levers If pink salmon are outcompeting other species and adapting better to changing ocean conditions, there are economic implications for the fishing industry.

The first wholesale value of all species of salmon in Alaska was valued at about $1.7 billion in 2019. For the last four or five years, sockeye salmon have comprised 50 to 65 percent of the total value of Alaska salmon harvests, while pinks have made up only about 10 to 25 percent In 2019, 48 percent of salmon purchased were Alaska pink salmon, but on a value percentage, it was only 19 percent. The opposite was true of sockeye, which comprised 33 percent of the total volume but 65 percent of the total value, explains Dan Lesh, a seafood industry specialist at McKinley Research Group.

A significant part of the difference in value versus volume between the two species comes from a large portion of sockeye being sold as fillets or whole fish. In contrast, nearly 50 percent of pink salmon is

June 2022 | 87

Teams of scientists aboard R/V Bell M. Shimada collected many different measurements and tissue samples for later laboratory analysis, maximizing the amount of information that can be gained from the International Year of the Salmon 2022 pan-Pacific winter high seas expedition.

International Year of the Salmon

A survey catch of jellyfish and immature sockeye salmon during the International Year of the Salmon 2022 pan-Pacific winter high seas expedition.

International Year of the Salmon

88 | June 2022

canned, and nearly none of it is sold in the form of higher-market value whole fish or fillets. This has a lot to do with the marketability of the more classic “salmon” colored flesh of sockeye, which is known to be better for fillets and portioning.

“On the statewide level, especially when you look at the booming sockeye harvest in Bristol Bay, you can imagine we’re going to be okay,” Lesh says, before pointing out that those booming returns are only beneficial to fishermen and processors in that area.

When the data is broken down into smaller regions and individual gear types, it’s possible to see where people in the seafood industry are getting hit the hardest.

“The gill net fleets [in Southeast and Southcentral] are struggling, whereas the seine fleets are doing better because they can focus on those pinks,” Lesh says.

While a future in which pink salmon dominate Alaska waters is far from certain, Lesh sees the benefits in fishermen and processors starting to plan how they might adjust to such a change.

“My mind goes to some of the adaptive levers we could pull,” Lesh says. “We could focus on quality; we could develop markets.”

Traditionally, pink salmon has been a volume market, while the sockeye fishery has seen significant efforts over the last decade toward quality improvements. Some sockeye specialists have developed direct marketing models and subscription boxes—markets that demand premium quality.

“If you’re relying on pink salmon, you could see improvements in quality boosting the market price,” Lesh says. “I think there's some reason to think that would be successful in the market.”

While some scientists are more swayed than others about the possibility that pink salmon are compounding the effect of marine heatwaves, all of them agree that more research is necessary.

“We'll see what happens,” Ruggerone says.

“The ocean conditions are always dynamic.”

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INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS Three Bears Alaska The retail chain serving Alaska’s smaller towns is expanding, though exactly where is not yet clear. Three Bears Alaska announced more new stores in the next three years, thanks to a recapitalization deal with Seattle-based Westward Partners.

Three Bears, originally based in Tok, operates nine stores in Alaska—from Ninilchik to Healy—and one in Butte, Montana. threebearsalaska.com

ACDA

recipient of a 2022 Peabody Award for Digital and Interactive Storytelling.

The awards for excellence in broadcast storytelling expanded last year to include achievements in interactive media. The inaugural class includes “legacy” awards for past years, including the 2014 release Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna). The video game, based on a traditional Iñupiaq story about a young person who fights a great blizzard, was developed by CITC’s for-profit subsidiary, Upper One Games, in cooperation with gaming company E-Line Media. Revenue from Never Alone helps fund CITC’s nonprofit programs. citci.org

ANTHC

More housing returns to Anchorage’s original townsite with the construction of a five-floor apartment building in the heart of downtown. A groundbreaking ceremony in March marked the start of construction on the Block 96 Flats project at 8th Avenue and K Street. The Anchorage Community Development Authority (ACDA) owns the land and formed a partnership with Debenham Properties, which is building the 48-unit apartment complex. That section of downtown, just north of the Delaney Park Strip, has not had any new market-rate (that is, nonsubsidized) housing since the ‘80s.

Block 96 Flats has a price tag of $11.6 million. acda.net/projects

CITC A video game developed by Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) is a

The omnibus federal spending bill contains huge earmarks for Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). Out of Senator Lisa Murkowski’s forty special requests, the largest single item is $27.7 million for ANTHC to expand the emergency department at Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. The consortium also gets a combined $37.5 million to provide water and wastewater service in six rural villages. Another $27 million earmark (not for ANTHC) pays for a 15-mile road out of Kotzebue to the site of a possible deep-water port. anthc.org

Huna Totem | Turnagain Marine The Alaska Railroad Corporation board of directors approved a lease of approximately 20 acres in Whittier for the city to develop a cruise ship terminal. Whittier is partnering with Turnagain Marine and Huna

Totem Corporation on the “Head of the Bay” project: a dock for two large cruise ships and a terminal with shops and other places for passengers to go—a little like Huna Totem’s Icy Strait Point in Hoonah.

Whittier city manager Jim Hunt anticipates $1 million to $3 million in annual tourist revenue once the project opens in 2024. hunatotem.com | turnagain.build

Alaska Air Cargo Alaska Air Cargo is adding two Boeing 737-800 aircraft to its dedicated freighter fleet serving the company’s namesake state. These additions increase the freighter fleet from three to five aircraft. Adam Drouhard, managing director for Alaska Air Cargo, says, “The -800 aircraft provides more load space than our current -700 freighters, essentially doubling Air Cargo’s total freighter lift capacity.” The converted aircraft will come from Alaska Airlines existing passenger fleet. The planes are being converted from their passenger configuration. They’re projected to re-enter service as freighters in 2023. alaskacargo.com

Northrim Bank A new loan production office in Nome opens in the Bering Straits Native Corporation building on Front Street. Joe Schierhorn, the chairman and CEO of Northrim Bank, says he is pleased to expand into Nome to respond to the demand for services in the Norton Sound region. The office provides loan applications and lending information. Northrim hired the director of the Nome Convention and Visitor Bureau, Drew McCann, to manage the branch. northrim.com

ECONOMIC INDIC ATOR S ANS Crude Oil Production 504,219 barrels 0.5% change from previous month

ANS West Coast Crude Oil Prices $111.95 per barrel 6.5% change from previous month

Statewide Employment 361,800 Labor Force 5.0% Unemployment

4/28/22 Source: Alaska Department of Natural Resources

4/29/22 Source: Alaska Department of Natural Resources

3/1/22. Adjusted seasonally.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

90 | June 2022

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RIGHT MOVES Matson  With the retirement of Bal Dreyfus from Matson, effective July 1, the shipping company named Vic Angoco to succeed him Angoco as Senior Vice President, Alaska. Currently responsible for Matson’s Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia, and South Pacific operations as senior vice president, Pacific, Angoco joined Matson in 1996 as operations manager on Guam and quickly rose through the ranks in sales, customer service, and operations management positions. He was promoted to his current position in 2010.  Matson also promoted the director of Alaska terminal operations, Jennifer Tungul, to Vice President, Operations for Alaska. In her new Tungul position, Tungul has primary management responsibility for Matson’s terminal operations in Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor. Tungul joined Matson’s Alaska operations in 2002 and has served in a series of finance and operations leadership roles, including terminal manager in Dutch Harbor. She was promoted to general manager for Dutch Harbor in 2019 and to her current position later that same year.

Kodiak Area Native Association  Mike Pfeffer can take the “interim” away from the CEO title he’s held at Kodiak Area Native Association (KANA) for the last year.

The nonprofit healthcare affiliate of Koniag regional corporation chose Pfeffer for the

position after a nationwide search. Prior to becoming interim CEO last year, Pfeffer served as chief operating officer and chief financial Pfeffer officer during his sixteen years with KANA. Pfeffer earned a master’s degree in business administration from UAS and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Colorado Technical University.

Alaska Communications  A former Alaska Communications manager returns to the Anchoragebased telecom as Chief Operating Officer. Sandy Knechtel Knechtel most recently served as area manager for Alaska and Hawaii for Gartner, a global research and advisory company. Prior to Gartner, Knechtel served in various management roles for Alaska Communications, spanning sales operations, workforce development, and marketing and analytics. Knechtel has an MBA in marketing and strategy from Indiana University Bloomington. He also has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Western University.

McKinley Management Two subsidiaries of McKinley Management promoted new directors.  McKinley Research Group named Katie Berry as its Berry Director of Economics and Research. Berry has been with the firm for five years. Berry holds a master's degree in economics and finance from

the University of Wyoming. She was raised in Anchorage and returned to the state after working with Union Pacific Railroad.

She is especially interested in issues that affect Alaska, such as transportation, infrastructure, public health, tourism, and natural resources.  McKinley Capital Management made Martino Boffa its Director of Sustainability, Portfolio Manager. Boffa joined Boffa McKinley Capital in 2009 as director of alternative investments, portfolio manager. He has almost thirty years of investment industry experience.

Prior to McKinley, Boffa worked as the senior director of arbitrage strategies with Credit Suisse and managed a market neutral investment portfolio. Prior to that, he worked at Société Générale where he was managing director of hedge fund sales, specializing in European equities.

United Way of Anchorage  A twenty-year veteran of Alaska nonprofits is joining United Way of Anchorage’s senior executive leadership team. As Senior Vice President, Morse Rachel Morse works to align United Way’s different sections— fundraising, community advancement, and marketing and communications—into a more unified, complementary, and effective force. She also works closely with donors, volunteers, and partner organizations. Morse holds master’s degrees in business administration from UAA and in forestry and natural resources from Purdue University. For the last four

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years she has been a consultant for The Foraker Group. She previously worked for UAA, RurAlCAP, and the Bird Treatment and Learning Center.

DCI Engineers  The Anchorage office of civil and structural engineering firm DCI Engineers has a new Associate Principal.

John Oldfield received the Oldfield promotion, adding to his portfolio of commercial buildings of all construction types. Oldfield’s past engineering work includes the Homer Police Station, KANA Marketplace in Kodiak, and the Medline warehouse in Anchorage.

He also co-chairs the in-house steel and aluminum technical committee.

Coffman Engineers  A licensed chemical engineer at Coffman Engineers in Anchorage has earned his Alaska Professional Engineering (PE) license in Krueger mechanical engineering.

Clayton Krueger graduated from Montana State University in Bozeman with degrees in both Chemical and Biological Engineering. He joined Coffman in 2015 as a process engineer working in the oil and gas industry. Krueger currently serves as a facility engineer. Coffman principal mechanical engineer Trevor Buron says, “Clayton’s experience both as a process and mechanical engineer brings great value to our clients as he’s able to draw from the two disciplines and provide a unique perspective and skillset to a variety of roles and projects.”

Municipality of Anchorage  The Anchorage Assembly unanimously

confirmed Uluao “Junior” Aumavae as the Municipality of Anchorage’s Chief Equity Officer. He becomes the highest serving government Aumavae official of Polynesian descent in Anchorage history. The Assembly created the position last year to ensure that municipal hiring and contracting is fair and represents diverse perspectives.

UAS UAS made a couple of administrative hires.  A nationwide search ended up giving the job of Provost and Dean of Research and Haavig Sponsored Programs to Dr. Maren Haavig, who held the position on an interim basis since July 2020. As Provost, Haavig collaborates with faculty to support the teaching, research, and service missions of UAS. Haavig, who was born and raised in Sitka, earned her doctor of business administration degree with an emphasis in accounting from Walden University. She also holds a master of business administration and bachelor of business administration degrees from UAS as well as a bachelor of arts with an interdisciplinary concentration from Western Washington University, Fairhaven College. She is an active Certified Public Accountant in Alaska.  Another UAS alumna returns as Alaska Native Student Success Specialist.

Dannielle Carlson graduated from UAS in 2017 with a Carlson bachelor of liberal arts in social science and communications. She has been a rural admissions counselor for UAS. In her new position, Carlson, who describes herself as Unangax from Sand Point, engages with students, counselors

and advisors, and communities to attract and retain Alaska Native students.

US Army Corps of Engineers  Sara Longan assumed duties as the Deputy Chief of the Regulatory Division for the US Army Corps of Engineers–Alaska Longan District in January. In her new position, Longan administers and enforces the Corps’ regulatory program in Alaska. Originally from California, Longan earned a doctorate in epidemiology and public health as well as a master’s degree in environmental toxicology and a bachelor’s degree in pre-veterinary medicine at Oklahoma State University. Prior to joining the Alaska District, she was the deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in charge of the Division of Oil and Gas, Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, Office of Project Management and Permitting, and Trust Land Office.

NOAA Fisheries  For the first time in two decades, the Alaska region of NOAA Fisheries has a new boss. Jon Kurland becomes Regional Administrator, Kurland replacing Jim Balsiger, who led the agency in Alaska since 2002.

Kurland has been with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration since 1990, serving as assistant regional administrator for protected resources since 2012. Kurland earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Hamilton College and a master’s degree in marine affairs from the University of Rhode Island.

He resides in Juneau, where the NOAA Fisheries regional office is located.

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ALASKA TRENDS

V

ehicles are a home away from home—or rather a home between home and anywhere else. They are liminal spaces, neither origin nor destination, and only when in motion do they fulfill their teleological potential. Vehicles also have engines that go VROOM! In this edition of Alaska Trends, we put some numbers on the impact of vehicles, particularly land vehicles.

To start with, how many roads are there? The Alaska Department of

Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) classifies pavement and its maintenance jurisdiction; all but 18.6 miles of the 2,019 miles of interstate-grade highways and principal arterials are the state’s direct responsibility.

DOT&PF also tracks usage of roads in terms of millions of vehicle miles, which doesn’t exactly parallel the population registered with the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles. That figure seems to reveal the long shadow of

the statewide economic recession, whereas miles traveled reflects the sudden stay at home in 2020. The fuel consumption trend is flatter, perhaps thanks to greater efficiency per mile. The US Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center tracks carbon emissions, with some surprising results for gasoline-hybrid cars versus plug-in hybrids that draw grid electricity.

Let’s fasten seatbelts and find out what’s under the hood.

ANNUAL EMISSIONS PER VEHICLE In pounds of CO2 equivalent afdc.energy.gov/states/ak

ALL-ELECTRIC = 4,335

PLUG-IN HYBRID = 6,034

MILES TRAVELED STATEWIDE

GAS HYBRID = 6,258

GAS ONLY = 11,435

ALASKA HAS 17,681 MILES OF ROADS

6,000M vehicle-miles

5,500M

1,080 Highway miles

11,745 Local street miles

5,000M

939 632 1,622 1,663

4,500M

4,000M

Principal arterial miles Minor arterial miles Major street miles Minor street miles

dot.alaska.gov/stwdplng/transdata/traffic_WIM.shtml

3,500M

3,000M

2,500M

2,000M

1,500M

2/3 of Battery

1,000M

Electric Vehicles in Anchorage are Teslas chugachelectric.com/energy-solutions /electric-vehicles

500M

0

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

dot.alaska.gov/stwdplng/transdata/traffic.shtml

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Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

DMV REGISTERED VEHICLES Passenger

Motorcycle

Commercial Truck

Commercial Trailer

Trailer

Pickup

Bus

Snowmachine

D

D

G

G

afdc.energy.gov/states/ak

1,000,000

900,000

800,000

G

Alaska produced 208M GALLONS of DIESEL & 273M GALLONS of GASOLINE in 2020

700,000

600,000

500,000

afdc.energy.gov/states/ak

400,000

300,000

200,000

100,000

0

There are 1.5 snowmachines for every motorcycle in Alaska.

2009

2010

2011

2012

FAIRBANKS is home to the Northernmost Flash Charge charging station

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

afdc.energy.gov/states/ak

GALLONS OF GASOLINE EQUIVALENT USED ANNUALLY Diesel Gasoline

plugshare.com

Natural Gas 400M

300M

200M

TOTAL COVERAGE

100M

It would take more than 6M CARS, fender to fender, to cover all of Alaska's roads.

0

www.akbizmag.com

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 95

AT A GLANCE What book is currently on your nightstand?

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer.

What charity or cause are you passionate about?

United Way, Smithsonian [served on the national board], The Alaska Community Foundation.

If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?

I’ve always been interested in zebras.

What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Hmm. Married my husband [she laughs].

© Jeremy Cubas

What’s your greatest extravagance?

Buying a vineyard.

96 | June 2022

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

OFF THE CUFF

Betsy Lawer A

banker must be careful where she invests her own money to avoid competing with

her customers. Therefore, Betsy Lawer put her wealth in Napa Valley grapes. Her two vineyards in Calistoga, California, operate in her absence most of the year, though. Her annual vacation time is capped at six weeks.

AB: Dead or alive, who would you like to see perform live in concert?

Lawer: Frank Sinatra.

AB: Other than your current career, if you were a kid today, what would your dream job be?

Lawer: High school principal.

She should talk to her boss about that.

Lawer has to “walk the walk,” she says.

As a member of the Cuddy family, she

AB: What’s your best attribute and worst attribute?

Lawer: My best attribute is I can put together a strategic vision, and my worst attribute is wanting to accomplish it too quickly.

followed her father and brother as President of First National Bank Alaska in 2013. She also followed her mother and grandmother

AB: What does it take to be successful in what you do?

Lawer: Having fun at it. If you don’t have fun at what you’re doing, you’re just punching the clock. If you have fun at what you’re doing, you enjoy it and you expand it and you do a better job at it.

into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame.

Lawer could easily retire to her vineyards, or as long as she’s working as CEO and board chair and president, simply coast on the can’t-lose proposition of her hundredyear-old powerhouse bank. Instead, Lawer is venturing into the uncertain territory of

AB: What is your favorite way to exercise?

Lawer: When I was younger it was horseback riding. Now it’s walking around vineyard blocks.

food service, remodeling a 1912 building in Calistoga into a restaurant. She’s sure the same mission statement behind the bank will work there: take care of your employees, customers, and community, and if you do that, you’ll be successful.

Alaska Business: What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?

Betsy Lawer: Have a glass of ice water, put my feet up, and watch a non-challenging sitcom… It just disconnects me from anything else, and after I’ve watched an hour of whatever the sitcom is (some of them aren’t interesting), then I’m ready to move on. www.akbizmag.com

AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?

Lawer: I’m learning about restaurants. Hadn’t realized I was going to be. I would think at my age that I wouldn’t have to keep running up these learning curves, but gosh I keep doing it to myself.

AB: What do you do in your free time?

Lawer: I stomp grapes.

Alaska Business

June 2022 | 97

ADVERTISERS INDEX 3-Tier Alaska............................................. 81 3tieralska.com/tpeci.com AEDC - Anchorage Economic Development............................................ 77 aedcweb.com

cookinlet tug.com Craig Taylor Equipment............................ 89 craigtaylorequipment.com Credit Union 1........................................... 19 cu1.org

Airport Equipment Rentals....................... 99 airpor tequipmentrentals.com

Davis Constructors & Engineers Inc........ 82 davisconstructors.com

Alaska Air Cargo - Alaska Airlines............... 3 alaskacargo.com

Denali Materials........................................ 35 denalimaterials.com

Alaska Dreams Inc.................................... 50

DesertAir Alaska.......................................... 9 deser tairalaska.com

Alaska Mergers & Acquisitions, LLC......... 82 Alaska Pacific University............................11 alaskapacific.edu Alaska Procurement Technical Assistance Center....................................................... 25 ptacalaska.org Alaska Railroad.......................................... 49 akrr.com Alaska School Activities Association........ 17 asaa.org Alaska Traffic Company............................ 47 alaskatraffic.com ASRC Construction................................... 31 asrcconstruction.com AT&T.............................................................7 at t.com Carlile Transportation Systems................ 53 carlile.biz Catalyst Marine Engineering.................... 79 catalyst-marine.com Central Environmental Inc....................... 85 cei-alaska.com Conam Construction Co.......................... 25 conamco.com Conrad-Houston Insurance Agency....... 30 chialaska.com Construction Machinery Industrial............ 2 cmiak.com Cook Inlet Tug & Barge Inc...................... 49

First National Bank Alaska.......................... 5 fnbalaska.com Great Originals Inc................................... 29 greatoriginals.com HC Contractors........................................ 12 hccontractors.net Kiewit Infrastructure West Co.................. 23 kiewit.com Lynden...............................................27,100 lynden.com Material Flow & Conveyor Systems, Inc.............................................. 55 materialflow.com Matson Inc.......................................... 44,45 matson.com MICROCOM.............................................. 18 microcom.tv New Horizons Telecom, Inc..................... 83 nhtiusa.com Northern Air Cargo..............................92,93 nac.aero Odyssey Logistics & Technology Corp.... 37 odysseylogistics.com

Personnel Plus Employment Agency....... 30 perplus.com PND Engineers Inc.................................... 43 pendengineers.com Ravn Alaska............................................... 39 ravnalaska.com Resolve Marine......................................... 87 resolvemarine.com RESPEC..................................................... 68 respec.com Samson Tug & Barge................................ 35 Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.................. 61 schwabe.com/locations-anchorage-alaska Seatac Marine Service.............................. 57 seatacmarine.com Span Alaska Transportation LLC............... 63 spanalaska.com Stellar Designs Inc.....................................11 stellar-designs.com T. Rowe Price............................................ 33 alaska529plan.com Teamsters Local 959................................. 69 akteamsters.com TOTE Maritime Alaska LLC....................... 59 totemaritime.com Turnagain Marine Construction............... 75 turnagain.build/ United Way of Anchorage........................ 15 liveunitedanc.org Usibelli Coal Mine..................................... 67 usibelli.com

Oxford Assaying & Refining Inc................ 71 oxfordmetals.com

Vitus Energy.............................................. 13 vitus-energy.com

Pacific Pile & Marine................................. 91 pacificpile.com

Weaver Brothers Inc................................. 51 wbialaska.com

Parker, Smith & Feek................................. 21 psfinc.com

West-Mark Service Center........................ 56 west-mark.com

+ Careers Find Your Next Great Hire Post your job where the industry’s most qualified professionals go to advance their careers.

98 | June 2022

Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Anchorage 907.522.6466 Delta Junction 907.895.9898

The Rental Zone 907.474.2000

Fairbanks 907.456.2000

Prudhoe Bay 907.659.2000

Kenai 907.335.5466

www.airportequipmentrentals.com