Alaska Business August 2022

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10 FINANCE Locking the Digital Vault Cyber security to protect banking customers By Tracy Barbour 16 TOURISM Trial by Iron Juneau hosts Alaska's first Ironman triathlon By Amy Newman 70 TELECOM & TECH Three Little Numbers A telecommunications lifeline for suicide prevention By Scott Rhode 82 OIL & GAS Say G’Day to 88 Energy Australian firm explores the North Slope, but not ANWR By Scott Rhode QUICK READS 22 CONSTRUCTION Concretum Aeternus How to keep concrete forever solid By Rachael Kvapil DOT&PF|GiesselRichard 76 MINING Living Up to Its Name How Hecla Mining keeps Greens Creek green By Alexandra Kay Hecla 4 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com AUGUST 2022 | VOLUME 38 | NUMBER 8 | AKBIZMAG.COM CONTENTS FEATURES 8 FROM THE EDITOR 86 SAFETY CORNER 90 INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS 92 RIGHT MOVES 94 ALASKA TRENDS 96 OFF THE CUFF

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By Tasha

30 THE BIG PICTURE Large-scale graphic design for businesses and public spaces By Vanessa Orr WorlCrystal 42 A DEEP DIVE Photo essay 6 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com 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. To order back issues ($9.99 each including postage) visit simplecirc.com/back_issues/alaska-business. AUGUST 2022 | VOLUME 38 | NUMBER 8 | AKBIZMAG.COM CONTENTS SPECIAL SECTION: INDUSTRIAL SUPPORT SERVICES

64 WORK AWAY FROM WORK Modular buildings suppliers put roofs over remote sites

ABOUT THE COVER

Anderson 50 SUSTAINABILITYFORWARDING What design firms can do By Steve Edwards 58 SECTOR CROSSOVER Support services that blur industry boundaries

Illustration by Crystal Worl | Photography by Kerry Tasker | Composition by Monica Sterchi-Lowman

The figures are as old as the Tlingit system of formline design, dating back thousands of years. The colors are new: digital pigments shaded in ways that traditional artists could only see in the sky, not on their painted cedar or woven blankets. Juneau artist Crystal Worl blends old and new together—but not just for art’sThissake.month’s cover article, “The Big Picture,” shows how Worl, her brother Rico, and other graphic artists apply their creativity to public-facing projects. For instance, Worl’s “healing hand” design makes Capital City Fire & Rescue ambulances doubly eye-catching.Whileher grandmother, Sealaska Heritage Institute President Rosita Worl, promotes art to preserve indigenous culture, Crystal Worl’s expressive designs also fall under the category of Industrial Support Services (for purposes of this magazine). She is an aesthetic engineer, lending her talents to organizations in need of visual flair.

38 MOUNTAIN TOPS TO OCEAN FLOORS Safe practices belong in every toolbox

By Katie Pesznecker

By Vanessa Orr

Whether it’s seafood out, or building supplies in, Alaska Air Cargo is dedicated to the freight needs of Alaska commerce. As the largest scheduled cargo carrier in Alaska,* we’re committed to reliable year-round service. Supporting the industries of 20 Alaska communities.

For more information or to book your shipment online, go to alaskacargo.com. Or call us at 1-800-225-2752. *Some routes or destinations may operate seasonally.

Business class travel in Alaska.

Senior Account Manager Janis J. Plume janis@akbizmag.com907-257-2917

Photo Contributor Kerry Tasker

Tasha ManagingAndersonEditor, Alaska Business

For example, this month has a focus on safety. When we looked at who to invite to participate in Off the Cuff; when we discussed what companies to potentially feature via photography; and when we considered sources and topics for the rest of our content, we asked ourselves if there was a connection to safety. There wasn’t for every story, and that’s fine: the point is to ask the question, not to force an angle that doesn’t make sense.

Editor/Staff Writer Scott Rhode srhode@akbizmag.com907-257-2902

For 2023, we’re going to include focuses again, and we’re deliberately going to update and change them. There was an obvious connection in our June issue between our transportation special section and a focus on the Pacific Northwest, but it would also be interesting to have an Arctic, labor, or technology focus in June. In particular, we are excited to move the regions: for 2022, our Alaska Native special section will be complemented by a focus on the Interior, but as Alaska Native entities have statewide operations, it would definitely be beneficial to guide our thinking to the Southeast, Western Alaska, or the Arctic.

t may be surprising to some how early we plan our editorial calendar. We’re already hard at work on the 2023 calendar, which will be finalized by the time this letter is published. Guiding us are lessons learned from our 2022 planning process, in which we moved away from writing specific headlines a year out, opting instead to identify over-arching themes in which we could find tighter angles closer to publication.

Managing Editor Tasha Anderson tanderson@akbizmag.com907-257-2907

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Art Director Monica Sterchi-Lowman design@akbizmag.com907-257-2916

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President Billie Martin

Editorial Assistant Emily Olsen emily@akbizmag.com907-257-2914

Senior Account Manager Christine Merki cmerki@akbizmag.com907-257-2911

This month’s issue features the Industrial Support Services special section, paired with the focus on safety, and I feel it’s a particularly fitting combination. Many support service providers offer specific safety services, from security to emergency response to environmental consulting and cleanup. But even for those companies that don’t sell safety services, safety is top of mind.

VP Sales & Marketing Charles Bell cbell@akbizmag.com907-257-2909

We also added a “focus” to almost every month. Some months focus on a particular region, others on a specific topic. The idea of the focus isn’t one feature story or a special section but instead how we can apply that focus throughout the issue, where appropriate.

FROM THE EDITOR akbizmagAKBusinessMonthalaska-business-monthlyAKBusinessMonth VOLUME 38, #8

Full-Charge Bookkeeper James Barnhill accounts@akbizmag.com907-257-2901

I’m particularly excited that we are launching a new column this month, which will run bimonthly for the next year: Sean Dewalt is writing the Safety Corner, in which he explores risk mitigation and safety topics. We’re focused on safety this month, but like all of the exceptional companies we talk to, we’re happy to keep the conversation ongoing.

Website Manager Taylor Sanders webmanager@akbizmag.com

It may sound cliché, but we love contacting a range of companies in Alaska and hearing their outright enthusiasm to celebrate their safety programs, culture, and records. A growing number of companies have reported to us an entire year—or longer—of zero lost-time incidents.

hen it comes to data security, people can be the weakest link. They can also be the strongest and best defense against cyberattacks—if they know how to respond to potential threats.

Cyber security to protect banking customers

By Tracy Barbour

10 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com FINANCE

Locking the Digital Vault

A thriving fraud industry has developed around the misuse of consumers’ personal information, often mined from social media, harvested through email schemes, or stolen using malicious software. The ill-gotten data is often sold on the dark web marketplace, where a Social Security number can go for $2—or more if it comes with a name and date of birth— and a person’s credit card information can fetch up to $35. Hackers and organized crime syndicates purchase the information for their own nefarious purposes or resell it to end users who commit various cybercrimes.

W

In Alaska, most security breaches involve extortion, government

A significant threat that Nuvision frequently encounters is credential stuffing. “Credential stuffing is a cybersecurity attack where a hacker has purchased a list of stolen user credentials from other data breaches and then uses bots to automatically target online banking platforms to see if any of the stolen credentials match a user’s credentials at the financial institution,” Bennett explains. “This is why it is so important to use different user credentials for your online banking than from any other online

Today most banks and credit unions incorporate multiple layers of security, says Keith Bennett, senior vice president of information technology at Nuvision Credit Union, which has ten branches in Alaska and nearly thirty branches in its five-state network. Hackers know this, so they tend to focus most of their attention on obtaining individual user credentials through phishing scams that attempt to trick people into divulging their personal information.

A Multi-Layered Approach

However,account.”Bennett adds, “If a member has their personal login credentials compromised and someone does manage to gain access to a member’s account, we do have measures in place that flag suspicious login access and suspicious transaction activity. Suspicious transaction activity is reviewed before any money is authorized to leave the credit union.”

Erika Smith Wells Fargo Alaska

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impersonation, phishing, personal data breach, and identity theft. Proactive education is imperative, according to Erika Smith, Wells Fargo Alaska’s regional banking district senior manager. “We spend time educating our employees so that they are empowered to have robust conversations with our customers,” says Smith, who oversees ten branches from Soldotna. “Our customers are asking us to help them transition to digital platforms, but we need to create awareness with them about what we’re doing to protect them to give them peace of mind.”

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MFA adds elements, such as text message, email, or biometric (finger prints, face, or voice) tokens, so the user must complete more than one authentication process to verify their identity. Ninety-nine percent of account compromises can be blocked with MFA, according to Microsoft. A

recent joint advisory issued by the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) promotes MFA as one of the most important cybersecurity practices. “Every organization should enforce MFA for all employees and customers, and every user should sign up for MFA when available,” the advisory says.

hackers attempting to access online and mobile banking accounts using usernames and passwords from other data breaches. “Our two-factor authentication, web application firewalls, and credential stuffing protections protect the member from these attacks, but we recommend that customers have separate, long passwords for each financial institution and email account. We also recommend turning on MFA [multifactor authentication] wherever possible,” Rupp says.

Multifactor Authentication and Encryption

Wells Fargo applies MFA to authenticate customers’ identity when they sign into their account or use certain services, such as mobile wallet. Customers can opt to sign in using their face ID and thumbprint instead of a username and password. They also can have the bank use voice verification when they call to inquire about their account.Inaddition to these safety mechanisms, Wells Fargo restricts the number of signon attempts and limits the length of banking sessions.

Nuvision’s strategy includes leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning with nextgeneration firewalls, endpoint detection and response, network monitoring and detection, web application filtering, and credential stuffing protection.

Nuvision’s security program also includes using traditional email and internet filtering, which can prevent sensitive data from leaving the organization, and one-time passcodes on high-risk transaction types. Several times a month the credit union sees

Travis Rupp Nuvision Credit Union

Keith Bennett Nuvision Credit Union

“In addition, Nuvision has a very aggressive vulnerability management system, constantly scanning for vulnerabilities and mitigating them as soon as possible,” says Travis Rupp, vice president of network infrastructure and data security.

“Since 2016, Nuvision has received the ‘Network of Excellence’ award from Digital Defense Inc. This award is only given to the top 2 percent of their 1,800-plus clients’ vulnerability management program.”

“Our systems automatically sign customers off after their online and mobile banking activities to reduce the risk of customers’ information being accessed,” Smith says.

remediate exploitable vulnerabilities, particularly ‘zero-day’ flaws where attackers are already using the vulnerability before the firm responsible for patching is aware it exists,” he says. “Internal multifactor authentication ensures administrator credentials are

Mike Mason FNBA

According to Mason, the bank’s local experts closely monitor and quickly respond to advisories sent by the CISA and other threat intelligence sources. “It is essential to promptly

First National Bank Alaska (FNBA), which operates twenty-eight locations in nineteen communities throughout Alaska, also has a multi-layered network security strategy. The bank stays current with system patching, an ongoing process to test and install patches to keep computer software and network hardware up to date, according to Mike Mason, information security officer and senior product manager at FNBA.

Denali State Bank, which has about 11,000 customers and five branches

Additional Security Measures

Denali State Bank does not require MFA for its mobile and electronic banking customers, but it is looking into the possibility, Lundgren says. The bank frequently uses other enhanced data security measures. With wire transfers, for example, the bank often will require a person-to-person phone call. “We have software that will identify transactions that are unusual

in Alaska, also utilizes multiple security layers. The Fairbanks-based community bank has employed MFA for some of its cash management and other commercial services. These customers must enter their user ID and password, along with one additional component: a token. “We have a token [an image preselected by the customer] that we will send you to make sure you recognize it to, hopefully, prevent you from signing into a fraudulent website,” says President and CEO Steve Lundgren. “A few years ago, it was odd that somebody would… text a code to a reliable number and have the customer type in the code to access their account,” he says. “It’s much more standard now. I expect that multifactor authentication will become theCurrently,norm.”

Wells Fargo also encrypts online and mobile sessions and only supports the use of browsers that adhere to strong encryption standards. The bank also monitors accounts 24/7 for abnormal transactions. If a transaction falls outside the normal size or pattern, customers may receive an email, text, or phone call. “We’ve saved customers a lot of money by proactively reaching out to them,” Smith says.

secure.”FNBA uses vigorous technical and procedural sets of controls to mitigate anticipated risks, according to Mason. “Employees, vendors, and contractors only have the minimum level of access required to perform their work,” Mason says. “In addition, dual controls and appropriate separation of duties help ensure no employee can control transactions from their point of origin to their final disposition, including reviewing their own work. Finally, strong change management controls are in place to vet, approve, and review all system modifications.”

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the scheme. “Individuals and businesses should be wary of any request for urgency or secrecy and be highly suspicious of any request for payment transmitted by email, especially if the email includes a payment instruction change with new account information,” Mason says. “Individuals should be wary of offers that seem ‘too good to be true’ and safeguard their bank account information from others.”

“Individuals and businesses should be wary of any request for urgency or secrecy and be highly suspicious of any request for payment transmitted by email, especially if the email includes a payment instruction change with new account

If seniors—or any other customers— think their information has been compromised, they should change account numbers, phone numbers, and credit/debit card numbers to better protect themselves against fraudsters. They should notify their bank right away about any fraud schemes they have fallen victim to and can also submit reports to the Federal Trade Commission at consumer.ftc.gov and the FBI at ic3.gov.

As another precautionary measure, Denali focuses on protecting customers from unauthorized credit card use. If the bank notices fraudulent activity or is notified about an external data breach, it proactively closes that card and reissues another one. Denali also scrutinizes requests to modify a credit card holder’s contact information, particularly a phone number. When this happens, the bank will reach out to confirm that the actual cardholder requested the change. “A bad actor, for example, could call to change the phone number and then later may call in to make a transaction,” Lundgren explains. “But if we’re calling the bad actor to verify the transaction and the phone number has been changed, that kind of defeats the purpose.”

Mike Mason Information Security Officer

others.”informationtheirtrue’seembeIndividualsinformation…shouldwaryofoffersthat‘toogoodtobeandsafeguardbankaccountfrom

“The challenges we face today are not the same challenges we faced six or twelve months ago—and they won’t be the same ones six months from now,” Lundgren says. “We are committed as a bank to staying on top of cybersecurity challenges and risks. We will continue to monitor and change to protect our customers’ data and security.”

First National Bank Alaska 14 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

for a particular customer, such as a high frequency of transactions, a certain geographic location, or a certain dollar amount. Then based on what that notice is, we will follow up,” Lundgren explains. “We will call a reliable phone number for that customer and have a personal conversation.”

As part of its multi-faceted security, Denali State Bank maintains an extensive firewall to counter new threats.

Scammers consider older individuals to be soft targets, whether that’s due to declining mental faculties, unfamiliarity with technology, or the confidence that comes with age. Wells Fargo’s special report, Protecting Those You Love, indicates that 1 in 7 older Americans say they have fallen victim to elder financial abuse and exploitation; an estimated $2.9 billion to $36.5 billion is lost every year to financial exploitation of older adults; and in up to 90 percent of elder financial exploitation cases, the abuser is a family member or trusted person.

Thanks to a pilot program launched in March, Wells Fargo’s older customers can receive notifications about potential fraud. “It’s one of the first of its kind to proactively detect elder abuse and financial scams and intervene to prevent further losses,” Smith says. “This pilot relies on proactive detection strategies, including analyzing anomalous banking activities and common signs of abuse with customers 65 and older.”

But addressing human-related risk requires a different approach. Denali, like other institutions, educates employees to strengthen its security posture. The biggest incoming threat is through emails—particularly phishing and business email compromise. “We train our employees not to ever click on anything, and we test our employees,” Lundgren says. “We try to bait them into clicking so we can evaluate their response to suspicious emails. The human factor is a big vulnerability, so we are very thoughtful about how we train our people to defend against that.” Sometimes, though, it’s customers who open the door to cyberattacks, Lundgren says. They might inadvertently reveal their password or click on a link that installs a keylogger or some other malware.

FNBA’s Mason suspects the most likely reason for a fraud loss is not a weakness in technology or security but human error. Fraudsters perform swindles that work best if the victim is unaware of

Equipping Customers to Minimize Vulnerabilities

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Build againstresistancecyberattacks

Those three words encapsulate the Ironman triathlon, considered one of the most grueling single-day sports events in the world. The “epic race” tests the endurance of competitors, who attempt to complete a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon, usually within a 17-hour time

16 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com TOURISM

The event is the first of three full Ironman triathlons to be held in Juneau over the next three years.

“The discussions centered around: Is it going to be feasible? How is this going to look for housing, the course routes, [and] security? What is the impact going to be on businesses and residents?” Tetley says of the conversations, which occurred over nine months. “And they decided it was actually going to be a greatThoughthing.”Juneau is not the smallest city to ever host a full Ironman, officials were cognizant of making sure the event didn’t overwhelm residents and businesses. The field size was kept strategically smaller; Ironman doesn’t release an exact participant count before race day, but Tetley says Travel Juneau expects visitor numbers similar

Andy Reece, Triathlete

Onlimit.August

“I think this is going to be a huge, positive impact on the community,” says Kara Tetley, destination marketing manager for Travel Juneau. “I think that being able to showcase Alaska is very, very cool for our community.”

wim. Bike. Run.

Race directors keep that in mind when scouting race locations, and Juneau fits the bill. Ironman officials considered various Alaska locations as potential host sites, but Christen says Juneau captured his attention.

“Our intentions are to be in places for long periods of time, so we secure our relationships [with host cities] at three-year increments,” says Ironman Regional Director Dave Christen. “It’s hugely exciting. This is an opportunity for people to do something they’ve never done before.”

Trial by Iron

Juneau hosts Alaska's first Ironman triathlon

Race to the Capital

Christen reached out to Travel Juneau to gauge its interest in serving as an event partner. His initial pitch, sent via email, had them feeling more than a bit“Vickiskeptical.Logan, our convention sales manager, thought, ‘Is this real?’” Tetley says with a laugh. “We don’t get a lot of theseWhenthings.”they realized Christen was serious, Travel Juneau connected Christen with local officials, including the CBJ, Juneau Police Department, Capital City Fire/Rescue, and the US Coast Guard, to begin conversations about whether Juneau could accommodate not just the race but the large influx of visitors during the peak of cruise ship season.

“Having an Ironman in Juneau was an incentive to visit… It’s a fun opportunity to see someplace new.”

S

By Amy Newman

“Juneau just kept coming back to me on a couple of fronts,” he says. “It’s the state capital. It’s a temperate rainforest. It has all the pieces that make Juneau special as a cruise ship destination. Once we got an eye on Juneau with what we thought would be possible there, we thought that was the right fit right off the bat.”

Christen says athletes choose an event that will provide “a premier experience. They want to take their time, their energy, their family, and they want to create a memory.”

In 2022, fifty-one full Ironman triathlons are taking place around the world. When deciding where to race,

7, the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) is hosting hundreds of competitors in Alaska’s first-ever fulldistance Ironman triathlon.

AUKE LAKE

“I thought it was going to be harder to get some things,” he says.

Business MENDENHALL

Carter Damaska Alaska LOOP RD

“Swim, bike, run is the core of what we do, so the competition side was quite easy,” Christen says. “The biggest challenge we faced is the equipment we had to get. For us to find forklifts and rental cars and those kinds of things that we needed, that was the challenge.”

to Celebration, the biennial festival of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures held in June. The course route was designed to avoid downtown tourist traffic and Mendenhall Glacier. Thunder Mountain High School in Mendenhall Valley is the site of Ironman Village, which serves as athlete central leading up to the race.

The triathlon starts with a swim at Auke Lake before competitors transition to the 112-mile bike ride, which is two loops along Glacier Highway. The 26.2mile marathon takes competitors along Glacier Highway, Montana Creek Road, and portions of Mendenhall Loop Road, away from the glacier.

|

Ironing Things Out

The frigid water of Auke Lake, seen from Glacier Highway, where Ironman competitors start the day with a 2.4-mile swim, ending at the UAS campus.

GLACIERHWY

Housing the athletes and their families was another initial concern, especially given that they would be competing for bed space with independent travelers.

“Juneau has 1,200 hotel and regular bed and breakfast rooms,” says Craig Dahl, executive director of the Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce. “Add

IRONMAN www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 17

“We worked with CBJ to figure out what would be possible,” Christen says. “I think we picked the right number [of participants]. We’ve got an event that will basically stay away from all the cruise traffic and all of the cruise activities. Really, it was only going to work one way in Juneau, and if it wasn’t going to work, we would’ve figured that out right Designingaway.”the Ironman course was easy. The real challenge, like most things in Alaska, was making sure they had all the parts necessary to make it happen.

Race officials experienced firsthand Alaska’s reliance on the barge system for getting goods delivered, but Christen says thanks to connections Travel Juneau helped facilitate with local vendors and some modifications to normal business practices, even that wasn’t as big an obstacle as he anticipated.

Tetley says that while Travel Juneau will know more about the actual economic impact once the season is over, its conservative estimate is that Ironman will inject $4 million into Juneau’sChristeneconomy.putsthat estimate even higher. He says a regular, large-scale Ironman can bring anywhere from $10 million to $15 million. Even when scaled back for Juneau’s smaller field,

Auke Bay

A Multi-Million-Dollar Boost

Part of the challenge too, she says, was the excitement of competitors unaccustomed to doing things on Alaska time.

Jess Keeler, who owns Auke Lake Bed and Breakfast with her husband, experienced the demand immediately.

“We were booked up in less than 24 hours [after] the announcement,” she says. “I have had some cancellations, but they were rebooked before I could even call anyone back on my waitlist. We even rented our own house out, and now we need to figure out where to stay. All good problems to have.”

“I think the challenge was the competitors, they kind of wanted a lot of this done right away, and in Juneau, we move a little slow,” she says. “But from what we’ve found, everything is rolling pretty smoothly at this point.”

As a community whose economy relies heavily on the travel industry, the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a blow to Juneau. Cruise ship dockings were at zero in 2020 and only 10 percent of normal in 2021, according to data from the Southeast Conference. Statewide, the Alaska Travel Industry Association reports that air travel to Alaska dropped 58 percent from 2019 to The2020.Ironman, then, provides a welcome boost to the capital city.

Favorite Channel

The second stage, the biking leg, starts at the UAS campus and turns around at the northern end of the Juneau road system, two laps adding up to 112 miles.

to that the spouses who travel and a very large media entourage, [and] the number of people coming to the event quickly grows. The supply of rooms doesn’t meet the demand.”

IRONMAN 18 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Tetley says Ironman officials reassured Travel Juneau that residents of host communities are typically excited to pitch in and help house competitors, whether that’s opening their homes or, like Keeler, renting their home and finding alternate accommodations for the duration of the event.

7 GLACIERHWY

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 19

“We don’t ever want to be seen as a group that pops in with circus tents and then pops out,” Christen says. “We want to become a thread in the fabric that is Juneau.”

For instance, Cycle Alaska is serving as tech support for the race. Co-owner John McConnochie says the event “is going to be a huge boost [for the store] in a lot of different ways.”

The race itself isn’t the only source of revenue. Christen says the typical Ironman athlete is in town for four and a half days, and many bring their family to make it a vacation. For the Juneau race, he says officials are hearing that many competitors are planning to stay even longer, with some extending their visit beyond Juneau.

“The piece that’s interesting about Juneau is that people will extend their stay, they might even pop outside of Juneau,” Christen says. “This economic impact will hit not just Juneau, but the state in different ways. People will use this opportunity to go see different parts of the state.”

Cycle Alaska is tuning up bikes, both in-store and at Ironman Village, he says, at racers’ expense. They are also assembling and disassembling bikes and selling jerseys, caps, jackets, and other“Theitems.day

Ironman makes a point of working with local vendors and suppliers to ensure that as much revenue as possible remains in the host community.

“We were booked up in less than 24 hours [after] the announcement… We even rented our own house out, and now we need to figure out where to stay. All good problems to have.”

Jess Keeler, Co-Owner, Auke Lake Bed and Breakfast

he expects revenue in the range of $9 million to $10 million in each of the three years. And, unlike other host cities, he figures the city will “recoup all the economic impact. People can’t spend money anywhere else” because Juneau is geographically isolated.

of the event, we’ll have a couple of people at the transition, and we’ll have three vehicles that will be on the road,” McConnochie says. “We’re going to have vehicles out with technicians, supplies, inner tubes, tires, chains, so we can do basic repairs.” Those costs, he says, are invoiced directly to Ironman.

On the event side, there are operational costs, like permits and rental space, as well as costs to rent tents, porta-potties, and other equipment. Local restaurants and caterers provide food and other vendors provide racerelated services.

MendenhallLoopRdGLACIERHWYMONTANACREEKRD MENDENHALL LOOP RD AUKE LAKE Auke Bay Mendenhall Lake MENDENHALLLOOPRD KAXDIGOOWUHEENDEITRAIL University of Alaska Southeast From the staging area at Thunder Mountain High School, the marathon-length running leg follows part of Glacier Highway, passing by the starting area for the swimming stage in Auke Lake.

Carter

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For Adrien Busekist, who is coming from Louisiana with her husband and two children, Juneau serves as a springboard to the rest of Alaska. “This race really only got scheduled because [my husband] knows a surefire way to get me to travel somewhere is to book a race,” she says. “My husband is plotting the itinerary and looking at the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas. He wants to see Denali. We want our kids to see a glacier before they no longer exist. But I’m unclear on what else.”

Discussions in the Ironman Alaska Facebook group bear that out.

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“Having an Ironman in Juneau was an incentive to visit,” he says. “It’s a fun opportunity to see someplace new.”

Alex Overmiller also plans to travel across the state. Formerly stationed at Eielson Air Force Base, Overmiller, his wife, and two children are driving

from North Carolina and exploring mainland Alaska before arriving in Juneau, where his parents are meeting them.

“We plan on driving up through Canada via the Alcan [and] will visit friends in Fairbanks and Anchorage prior to the race,” he says. “We will also likely make a trip down to Valdez for some fishing. We will take the ferry from Haines to Juneau for the race, and then ferry back out to Haines before driving back to Anchorage to end our Ironmantrip.”also awards grants to local nonprofits through its Ironman Foundation and is incorporating Alaska Native culture into the event, something Christen says happened organically.“We’vehad the Sealaska Heritage Institute working alongside us to tell their story alongside our story,” he says. “Artist Crystal Worl [of Trickster Company] designed our logo. We have these tie-ins that made it special and beautiful and trulyThat,Juneau.”hesays, is what makes Ironman Alaska so unique.

“I call it a race-cation,” says Andy Reece of Orlando, Florida, who made plans to spend a week before and after the race in Juneau with his two children. This is Reece’s thirty-second Ironman and his kids, who are both adults now, often accompany him.

How to keep concrete forever solid

oncrete is the foundation of modern civilization. This ancient construction material is as much a part of the modern urban landscape as wood, brick, steel, and asphalt. Its ingredients are simple: water, cement, aggregate (sand and gravel), and air. However, strength and durability depend on the mixdesign as much as proper application and curing. Done correctly, concrete structures can last a lifetime or, in the case of the Roman Pantheon and Colosseum, outlast the culture that built them. Despite its staying power, manufacturers and mix-designers are always looking for ways to improve

ConcretumAeternus

C

22 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com CONSTRUCTION

By Rachael Kvapil

Given that concrete is composed of few ingredients, manufacturing it should be simple, yet mix designs vary depending on their application. According to the Portland Cement Association (based in Skokie, Illinois; portland cement is named for an English island), a typical concrete mixture starts with 10 to 15 percent cement and 15 to 20 percent water that creates a paste that coats 60 to 75 percent aggregate.

Around 5 to 8 percent entrained air (purposely created air bubbles) is

Manufacturing Concrete

& Public

“Durability is a lot more important than strength… At times people will focus on enhancing the strength of concrete by adding more cement, which creates more shrinkage that eventually reduces the longevity of the final product.”

Richard Giessel, Quality Assurance Engineer, Alaska Department of Transportation Facilities

concrete for enhanced performance and environmental sustainability.

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Concrete is frequently used for bridge construction because it has fewer future inspection and maintenance requirements than steel and materials often can be sourced locally. Contractors used precast concrete and reinforced steel to complete the Gravina pedestrian bridge.

Davis Block & Concrete supplies precast items, landscape pavers, retaining walls, masonry units, and bulk bags of materials blended to

Along with technology, Davis says materials testing protocols have increased, particularly with state and federal projects. Different testing

booms. While still wet, the concrete must be compacted before it can be cured, often with additional chemicals, andConcretefinished. is used in many ways in commercial and residential construction projects. As building material, concrete is used for foundations, superstructures, columns, driveways, floor construction, and exterior surfaces. For infrastructure, concrete is used to build bridges, dams, wastewater treatment facilities, traffic guides/barriers, sidewalks and curbs, and parking lots/structures. Concrete roads and highways are rarely found in Alaska, though they are more common in the Lower 48.

specification. Davis says his company relies on experience and technology to assist clients with their ready-mix concrete services. In addition to a computerized batching system, it also provides concrete pump trucking services for quicker, less labor-intensive pours at a job site. The company also developed a Remote Concrete Division with an in-house trucking fleet, a mobile concrete batch plant, and materials storage that can be set up at job sites much farther away from the home office in

added during the mixing process to make concrete more workable during placement and increase its durability when hardened in climates with high freeze-thaw cycles.

Scott Davis, president of Davis Block & Concrete (one of approximately twenty concrete manufacturers in Alaska), explains there are five steps to the concrete manufacturing process. The first involves batching, where materials are measured for the concrete mix. Once the materials are measured, they’re mixed to the desired level of consistency. Depending on the project, concrete can be mixed by hand, by stationary mixer, or during transport. Once mixed, concrete is transported and placed using a variety of methods that range from manual application to large pump trucks equipped with

Richard Giessel | DOT&PF

“TechnologyKenai. has played a role in increasing portability, mix accuracy, and application,” says Davis.

24 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

coal. As a pozzolan, fly ash contains aluminous and siliceous material that forms cement in the presence of water. Mixed with lime and water, the compound is similar to portland cement. When used in concrete, fly ash improves its ability to resist water infiltration and its strength while making it easier to pump.

Giessel says aside from increased strength, there are many reasons to incorporate fly ash. Since it reduces CO2 emissions and uses a lower water/ cement ratio for similar slumps, fly ash

methods are used to measure the air, slump, and unit weight prior to application, as well as strength after it has

Room for Improvement

Giesselapplication.says the general approach to concrete changed little between the time of ancient Rome until the ‘30s, when one of the most significant innovations in concrete technology occurred. Engineers had noted that certain concrete pavements better withstood freeze and thaw cycles than others. After investigation, they discovered that the most durable pavements were less dense, and the cement came from a mill that used beef tallow as a grinding aid. The tallow acted as an air-entrained admixture, creating tiny air bubbles that gave the concrete more room for expansion and contraction and was therefore less susceptible to cracking from freeze/ thaw. Until the mid-’90s, the most-used air-entrained admixture was neutralized wood resin. Now manufacturers lean toward synthetic detergents like salts of organic acid and sulfonated hydrocarbons, which have improved stability since the ‘30s.

Givendried.the competitive nature of the industry, Davis says manufacturers generally don’t share how much concrete they typically produce in a year, but he did reference a single large project for which Davis completed up to 40,000 cubic yards in one year.

More recently, Giessel says engineers are looking at the benefits of using fly ash in concrete. Fly ash is a fine powder that is a byproduct of burning pulverized

is considered environmentally friendly. It is cold weather resistant, which is extremely important in Alaska; has a high workability; is considered a nonshrink material; and produces dense concrete with a smooth surface and sharpTheredetail.are drawbacks, though. Fly ash concrete has a longer setting and curing time, which means slower strength gain; it has seasonal limitations as to when it can be poured; and it’s more difficult to control the color variability. Despite this, Giessel says fly ash

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 25

Richard Giessel is the quality assurance engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF); his mission is to eliminate defects in state roads, bridges, ferry terminals, airfields, and buildings by improving design and construction methods. He also cochairs the Alaska Concrete Alliance, a collaborative effort between contractors and the DOT&PF to increase both the quality of concrete products and the understanding of practitioners statewide. The alliance does this by sharing industry news and discussing improved design mixes, technologies, and methods of

concrete may provide the durability and strength that increases the longevity of finished“Durabilityproducts.isa lot more important than strength,” says Giessel. “At times people will focus on enhancing the strength of concrete by adding more cement, which creates more shrinkage that eventually reduces the longevity of the final product. Durability is not an easy problem

curing methodologies exist depending on the finished product. Steam curing this bridge girder overnight at an AGGPRO Production facility resulted in a finished product with the strength of 7,000 psi. Richard Giessel | DOT&PF MATERIAL FLOW AND CONVEYOR SYSTEMS INC. Toll Free 877-868-3569 Phone 907-868-4725 Fax

Several 907-868-4726

clauses for the methods of construction and impose restrictions on the compositional parameters of concrete mix. For instance, a specified minimum amount of cement content, requiring the use of brands or sources of materials, or restrictions on adjustments to mix proportions as needed.

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to address with the prescriptive specifications we use now.”

As quality control standards evolve, many in the engineering community are advocating for

The Alaska Concrete Alliance is currently discussing the difference between prescriptive-based and performance-based concrete specifications. Engineers wrote prescriptive-based specifications decades ago when quality control standards were just being developed. Prescriptive specifications include

“It’s something I hope we can get changed,” says Giessel.

Workmanship Matters

He explains that finishing concrete is more than just waiting for it to dry once it’s poured. Cement masons smooth and compact it and then apply curing compounds to prevent moisture loss while the concrete is gaining strength. There are many ways to place and finish concrete depending on the desired look. In addition to hand trowel, broom, and exposed aggregate, cement masons can make concrete look like any natural material, such as slate, brick, wood, or stone. They can also color, stain, polish, and stencil concrete or apply decorative and commercial toppings of epoxy, acrylic, or polymerbased floor installations.

a move to performance-based concrete specifications. Performance specifications don’t rely on parameters like components or proportion of the mixture. Instead, they are based on performance indicators like strength, permeability, shrinkage, sulfate resistance, et cetera. Indicators are measured by standard test methods with defined acceptance criteria.

“Concrete construction is something everyone thinks they can do until they get to the actual job site,” says Scott.

Scott says the 135 members in Local 528 Alaska work on hundreds of projects every year statewide. Most of them are public infrastructure projects like curb and gutter, building foundations, airport taxiways, and concrete utility facilities. Like Giessel, Scott sees future mix designs and admixture chemicals resulting in more environmentally friendly concrete.

Design mix is only one factor that affects the longevity of a finished concrete product, Giessel says. Workmanship is at least 15 percent of the equation. Nick Scott, Alaska business agent for Cement Masons & Plasterers Local Union 528, says it takes at least four years to complete the 288 hours of classroom and skill development and 4,000 hours of on-the-job training in the union’s apprenticeship program. By the definition of the program, “Cement masons are responsible for all concrete construction, including pouring and finishing of slabs, steps, wall tops,

“You only have so much time to complete the surfacing texture and detail,” says Scott. “I tell people concrete will not wait for you. In the event you don’t finish it in time, it ends up costing a lot to try to resurface it and could end up being a liability.”

curbs and gutters, sidewalks, paving, and other concrete construction. They also handle epoxy, polymer, and other plastic materials for topping repair and injection. Cement masons are responsible for all preparation and repairing of concrete. They also set forms and screed pins for slabs, steps, curbs and gutters, and paving.”

“You’ll always need some element of manual labor to finish concrete,” says Scott. “It’s not a job that’s going to be lost to a computer.”

How concrete is poured is also changing in ways that ancient Romans could never have imagined. Computerdriven 3D printers can squirt concrete into precise shapes, even at the scale of whole buildings. However, Scott believes the size and amount of equipment needed limits the feasibility of 3D printing concrete.

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Industrial Support Services 28 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

the future; more concretely, “The Big Picture” paints a picture of what it’s like to design and create art on a large scale and unconventional canvases.

All companies operating with an eye on sustainability is a lovely vision for

I

EASY, CATERINGTASTY

AlaskaMarineResolve

across every sector—they are especially well suited to solve many challenges that projects encounter in Alaska.

ndustrial Support Services is a big topic, and it’s exciting to take a different approach to the special section each year. One opportunity that such a broad topic presents is to feature companies and services that don’t fit neatly into one region or industry. “Sector Crossover” looks at several organizations that defy industry classification and instead provide a suite of services to suit their clients. Similarly, “Work Away from Work” explores the plethora of uses for modular buildings

Guest author Steve Edwards is a senior public relations specialist for Stantec, a global company that exemplifies the idea of support services. In “Forwarding Sustainability” he provides a broad overview of how any company, in any industry, can initiate sustainable practices.

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And for those who are fans of literal pictures, we are thrilled to present “A Deep Dive,” an essay of images generously provided by Global Diving & Salvage (a provider of marine construction, commercial diving, casualty response, and environmental services) that shows off many of their marine activities in the state.

WorlCrystalThe Big Picture

By Vanessa Orr

Large-scale graphic design for businesses and public spaces

30 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

“The client gave us a blank slate, including coming up with a name as well as the brand identity, livery, and marketing; it was an awesome opportunity,” says Huot, “but we needed to take great care in the design, with an understanding of the cultural significance of Alaska and its indigenous people as well as what people in Asia think of various colors and symbols.”

Crystal Worl

“This very abstract graphic speaks to air movement and ascension,” says Huot. “We wanted to keep it quite abstract so that people looking at it could make their own judgements.”

W

Crystal Worl and her brother, Rico, are working together on a project at the Juneau International Airport that represents the variety of animal life in Southeast.

A Curved Canvas

The livery design also had to look correct when painted on a 155-foot canvas of aircraft aluminum. “Unlike a magazine ad, you’re working on a large, cylindrically shaped object, and you have to understand the dimensionality of an aircraft,” Huot says. “You need to appreciate how lines and stripes and colors will sit on a curved shape and different types of metal. It is an exceptional backdrop.”

Rejoy Armamento, a FilipinaAmerican artist in Anchorage, has worked on murals for the Anchorage Museum, for businesses ranging from Surf Laundry to Waffles and Whatnot, and for public art pieces including the Chester Creek Trail underpass.

hen designing on a grand scale, there are a lot of factors to consider, ranging from the amount of work required to the “canvas” itself and the reactions of the many people who are going to see the mural, project, or installation.

From his office in New York City, Huot created a graphic identity for what promises to become a new fixture in Alaska. Northern Pacific Airways, a sister company of Ravn Alaska, started assembling its fleet of Boeing 757 jets earlier this year, and each one needed a new paint job. It was up to Huot to design the livery that would set Northern Pacific apart from all other airlines.

The design itself is black and white, which Huot says speaks to Alaska’s natural elements including snow, mountains, rocks, and ice. A line motif races across the fin of the tail.

The livery also makes a statement about the nature of the company. “Even though Northern Pacific is a low-cost carrier, we wanted it to be simple and elegant to let people know that they would still get a premium experience,” he adds. “This is especially important from an Asian perspective, as those customers take a slightly more conservative view when looking at their options.”

Once Forward Media was ready to show the client, Huot’s team had a CAD (computer-aided design) mockup of an airplane featuring the design.

Wall Things Considered

“The beautiful thing about public art is that it is shared with everyone,” explains Crystal Worl, who co-owns indigenous design firm Trickster Company along with her brother, Rico. “You’re not creating one painting that will be sold to one individual for just that person to see but something that everyone can enjoy.”

“When you think of designing for the general public, you have to imagine all of the people who are going to see it,” says Edmond Huot, chief creative officer of Forward Media. “That means being aware of cultural sensitivities, colors, symbology, and icons, among other things. Regardless of what you might like subjectively, your design needs to resonate with the audience.”

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 31 SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

“The mockup needs to look so realistic that it blows the client away, and fortunately they all loved it,” says Huot. He adds that he still gets excited seeing his concepts come to fruition: “There’s nothing like walking into a hangar nervously to see the first plane painted; it’s just awe inspiring.”

32 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

Even before Northern Pacific Airways acquired its first 757 jet this year, Edmond Huot not only designed livery–the graphical uniform for fleet vehicles–but rendered images showing how the ghostly “N” logotype and black-and-white color scheme would appear in flight.

Forward Media | Northern Pacific Airways

Outdoor projects sometimes change with the seasons. “One wall I was working on during a rainy summer grew moss, and I had to clean that out,” she Armamentosays. uses different methods to transfer a design to a wall, including a doodle grid, projection, or even drawing freehand. She draws with chalk or pencil, and once the sketch is complete, she labels it with colors and other information and paints it with top-quality acrylic house paint.

“What I love about what I do is that it’s different for every project,” she says. “There’s a lot of thinking on the spot— you’ll visit a space you’ve only seen in pictures and see that there are holes in the walls or outlets or that the ground isn’t even. You have to work within the structure and the dimensions you’re given and work around obstacles or even the wall material.”

Worl says that it helped that she was able to reach out to the community for assistance and input and that she values the collaboration that comes with such a momentous project.

While she enjoys the challenge of working on such a large canvas, she says what’s more important is the message in the design.

“It’s pretty much large-scale paint-bynumbers, in a way,” she says.

The wall of Juneau’s public library, overlooking the cruise ship passenger dock, became a canvas for one of the capital city’s largest public art works. The portrait of Alaskan civil rights hero Elizabeth Peratrovich was installed last fall, spanning 25 feet wide and towering 60 feet tall. Few artists have experience with projects that size, but now Crystal Worl

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“What’s amazing about this sort of medium is that it can reflect the voice of the community or even the voices of people visiting,” she says. “That’s why it’s so important to have representation and diversity in the artwork—to have more voices. If you see my work, that’s my goal and my bottom line; to push marginalized people’s voices that have not been heard into the forefront and to celebrate different people’s joys.”

Tall Order

“I engage with various community members depending on the theme of the work,” she says of her process. “For the Elizabeth Peratrovich mural, for example, I was very involved with my fellow clan members of the Lukaax.ádi [Raven/Sockeye Clan] as well as the greater Juneau community. It was one of the most rewarding parts of doing thisWorlproject.”scanned her sketches into Adobe Illustrator and hired a company in Philadelphia to print the design on mural cloth. “With the help of five apprentices, we then painted each panel, section by section, to make

“I’ddoes.never done anything of this scale, so there was a lot of ‘new’ for me,” says Worl, who also served as the project manager. “It took three years; it was postponed because of COVID, and then we were delayed by a storm in Texas where the paint and adhesive were manufactured. The elements were against me, but I was persistent.”

that represent our identity as Tlingit people,” she explains.

Ted Kim began doing larger-scale work for an art show at the Middle Way Café in midtown Anchorage, where his 4-foot by 8-foot panels—meant to fill the massive space—became the stars of the show. “People really liked them, and I got a lot of feedback, so I started doing more 4-by-8 panels, and then private commissions for large panels,” heKimexplains.has worked on murals for The Launch Company’s warehouse in Anchorage, the Anchorage Museum, Anchorage City Hall, and the Snow City Café, among others.

Through works such as this mural at the Anchorage Museum’s SEED Lab, Rejoy Armamento sees opportunity to represent the voices and joys of marginalized people.

“Crying was just part of the process,” she says. “The mural holds my blood, sweat, and tears, and I’m just super proud of getting it done.”

He adds, “It gets tricky sometimes, but so far, I’ve figured out ways to get aroundWorkingobstacles.”intheSEED Lab [Solutions for Energy and Equity through Design] for the Anchorage Museum, for example, Kim had to figure out how to work on a

“They all asked me to do murals, so I jumped in; the rest is history,” he says. “Since then, I’ve worked on so many mural projects, I rarely draw on paper anymore.”

Worl is currently working on a mural in Anchorage that will feature the diversity of its many cultures, and she and her brother are also working on a project at the Juneau International Airport that represents the variety of animal life in Southeast.

“Large spaces tend to offer a completely different layout than what I’m drawing,” he says. “Mural spaces also tend to be in all kinds of odd structures, like a room with a big beam going down the middle of it. It does affect what I draw, so I’m always trying to figure out how my art and techniques, and the things I’m used to doing, can be applied to such a large space.”

“Rico is a genius when it comes to technology, computers, and graphic design, so he’s helping me take it to the next level with a vector design that looked like the texture of a painting,” she adds.

“It’s a very cool way of storytelling; visitors will walk through the landscape seeing the animals and sea life that I’ve observed on my hunting and fishing expeditions with my family, and animals

Kim appreciates the difficulty of translating his art, which is very detailed, to much larger spaces.

To apply the sealant, the weather in Juneau needed to stay dry and above 50°F, which added to Worl’s stress.

a mixed media mural, and then a new crew of apprentices glued each square of mural cloth to the wall,” Worl explains. “It was a very messy process, but I learned to operate a lift, and that was super cool.”

Wall Over Town

Rejoy Armamento

34 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

“When you see something like that on the walls of a business, it makes you appreciate that they’ve paid so much attention to detail and it shows their personality, too. It can also make you feel a certain way—whether that’s fun or elegant.”

“Painting is new to me, and it’s a much slower process,” he said. “I feel like I can draw on a large scale just as fast as I can on a piece of paper.

“Doing these larger pieces is also more physically challenging—you’re on ladders, going up and down, getting in awkward positions,” he says. “When I do murals, I don’t get much sleep—I go as long as I can straight through. When a mural is done and I’m looking at it, sometimes I can’t believe I’ve just done that. I’m almost not there for the process of it.”

The Benefits of Going Big Businesses, as well as public entities, have begun embracing large scale

Whileitself.”Kim is used to drawing quickly on a large scale, painting bigger pieces increases the level of difficulty.

READY

wall that wasn’t flat as well as find a way around a protruding heater.

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“It was really fun to draw right over it all,” he says. “The different angles mixed with the intricacy of my style made it really playful, and it was fun to see my art covering everything. All of the little obstacles actually add to the piece

Rejoy Armamento

“It differentiates a business’ branding from everyone else,” says Armamento. “When you see something like that on the walls of a business, it makes you appreciate that they’ve paid so much attention to detail and it shows their personality, too. It can also make you feel a certain way—whether that’s fun or Commissioningelegant.” such works has another benefit. “Businesses who hire local artists are also supporting the community,” Armamento adds. “It goes full circle; you’re involving the artist and the people who live there in your business. For an artist it’s good, because it’s a way to market their work. The relationship is reciprocal.”

design as a way to make a statement.

Tim Kim

Kim, who usually works in black and white, recently worked on a mural for Birchwood ABC Elementary school, which gave him a chance to expand his aesthetic.“Theywanted color, so I incorporated paint in very minimal colors,” he says. “It was exciting to jump into different ideas and approaches. After I did that, Alaska Pacific University asked me to do a mural in their cafeteria. They wanted color, too, so I did something similar to what I’d done at Birchwood.”

While some clients know exactly what they want, others may rely on the artist to figure out what will fit a space

Even as these designs showcase an artists’ talents, they may also reveal more of the artists themselves.

“When you do art like this, you put yourself out there; you become very vulnerable because now you’re a public person and people see your art from all over,” says Worl. “There’s risk in being this exposed, and for me, being a person who normally hides in the studio, this is both uncomfortable and exciting.

An obstacle becomes an opportunity, as Ted Kim incorporates a light fixture at Covenant House into his recurring motifs of a radiating sun and lush foliage, also seen below in an atypical color mural for Birchwood ABC Elementary, home of the colts.

“Thebest.goal is to create something that fits their vision; they have an end goal, but they need me to realize it,” says Armamento. “It boils down to creating a lot of visuals, having a lot of communication, and making sure we’re on the same page.”

“I try to channel that fear as excitement,” she adds. “These projects have brought me the blessing of getting to meet people from all over and all walks of life.”

36 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

www.CraigTaylorEquipment www.PeterbiltAlaska.com

any projects and processes have a naturally high potential for injury or damage, but that doesn’t mean an accident is unavoidable. On the contrary, companies around Alaska demonstrate daily that, with the right attitude toward safety, risky jobs can be carried out with a positive outcome for all involved.

By Tasha Anderson

Each site stores approximately 8,600 gallons of diesel fuel on the premises to run the stations and keep the network operating. Helicopters haul out fuel bladders with a capacity of 500 gallons that are filled to about 400 gallons, Merchant says, so each site requires several trips, the exact number depending on power use at the site.

It's clearly an operation with significant potential risks.

M

“The number one benefit [of hauling internally], obviously, is the safety,” says Merchant. “You have the [internal] tank and then the double wall bladder, so there’s no way it’s going to fall out or spill, and everything is protected in there.” Additionally, the helicopter can now travel at a normal cruising speed, 100 miles per hour or so, instead of about half that, which reduces the amount of time the fuel is in the air.

GCI

Over its more than forty-year history, GCI has invested more than $4 billion in Alaska, including its massive Terrestrial for Every Rural Region in Alaska (TERRA) network, which serves approximately 45,000 Alaskans in eighty-four rural communities.

OceanMountainTopstoFloors

Beyond the actual skills needed to get diesel out of the helicopter and

AlaskaMarineResolve 38 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

Merchant says that a group of GCI employees who worked on the construction and installation of the TERRA network transitioned to the Rural Operations department at its completion, “and they have done an excellent job in training up new hires and bringing new people on.”

Safe practices belong in every toolbox

Nearly two dozen of the network’s most-remote towers require refueling on an annual basis. “There’s no real access via roads, so we use helicopters to fly our fuel to the site,” explains GCI Senior Manager of Rural Network Operations & Maintenance Earl Merchant.

GCI has been refueling the TERRA towers for more than a decade, and the actual process has been refined over the years. For example, early refueling required the fuel bladders

to be suspended by a 100-foot line underneath the helicopter. In intervening years, GCI partner Bering Air commissioned a Huey helicopter capable of hauling the fuel within the helicopter instead of dangled below.

While some of the stations are within 5 to 6 miles of a nearby community, some are more than 55 or 60 miles away. Additionally, while some are situated in flat plains with “not a mountain in sight for 50, 60 miles,” according to Merchant, others are “on a mountaintop where the only place the helicopter can land is over on the edge, and if you walk forward you’ve got a 1,000-foot drop.”

“When it comes to safety, over the years we’ve learned what we need to do,” he says. “We’ve taken what’s required and made it better.”

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into the storage tank, training for those working on the refueling project covers a broad range of safety protocols. In addition to daily safety briefings, all refueling crew members are HAZMAT certified and take Spill Prevention, Control, and Counter-Measure training, as well as environmental and cultural sensitivity training.

On-site workers are trained on how to keep their boots and the skids of the helicopters clean to ensure that invasive species are not transferred to or from any of the areas they touch. “We’re always having to be careful—wash our feet, make sure our bags don’t sit on the tundra—from one site to another,” Merchant says.

Crews are also trained on how to avoid harming local wildlife. Because of US Fish and Wildlife Service restrictions, “if we have animals with one 1.3 miles of the site, we cannot land. We have to turn around and wait 24 hours before we attempt to go back out,” Merchant says. “We also have to maintain [an elevation] of 1,500 feet above ground going to the sites to lessen the noise from the Despitehelicopters.”alltheirbest efforts, animals still occasionally surprise the refuelers. “The guys actually landed on a site one year… and they were walking to the site and a musk ox came out from between the buildings,” Merchant says with a laugh. “One of the guys ended up on top of the building, and the helicopter took off. Everyone was ok,” he reports— including the musk ox.

GCI has never had an accident or a spill related to refueling TERRA, and in fact the company is spreading a heightened safety culture as operations take place year after year. “We’ve pulled into communities where we buy fuel or get fuel from a vendor and noticed that, out on the ramp, they may have a leaky hose and they’re just taping fuelabsorbent rags around it,” Merchant says, “and we’ve shut down the refuel

“We are on Native lands,” Merchant explains, “and there’s a lot of artifacts and historical sites out there, such as cairns… [one of] our sites sits on one of those mountaintops, and we’re not even allowed to take photos.”

While GCI’s refueling project is an annual, scheduled endeavor, Resolve Marine Alaska’s daily work is less“Wepredictable.charter aircraft and different vessels, we do emergency response, we do commercial diving, [and] we offer marine construction and land-based construction services,” says Resolve Marine Alaska General Manager A.W. McAfee. “And in all that, I’d have to say the highest potential for someone being harmed is someone that’s not situationally aware.” From his experience, it’s not the task at hand that’s the highest contributor to accidents but the attention of those involved. “Whether you’re a commercial diver or a pilot or a laborer at the shipyard, if you are unable to recognize the hazard potential, you can’t control or mitigate the hazard.”

process because of that. We say, ‘Hey, we don’t want anything leaking out here, even on the ramp.’”

After the safety message and once the equipment has been put on, gangways safely crossed, and other

“We have people that have done this type of work, who are out leading teams, who have done it for thirty years, so they might not have been on this particular emergency or done this particular project before, but they’ve probably seen something similar and mitigated something similar. That enables us to not only assess quickly but allows for practical and pragmatic mitigation.”

One of the first questions at any emergency scene is if the operation can safely go forward at all. “Conditions are constantly changing at a lot of our sites, especially emergency response sites.” McAfee explains, “Environment conditions as simple as the tide, wind, weather, or current—any of that has a tremendous effect on a lot of the places we work.” He says it’s about a 50/50 mix when the crew arrives at the site whether they’re able to move

Resolve Marine

forward with the project or need to take a step back.

Resolve Alaska’s focus on building a culture of safety is showing positive results. “Speaking for Alaska, 2021 was a fantastic year for us,” McAfee reports. “We had zero LTIs [lost time injuries]. Our safety culture has really taken a hold.”

A.W. McAfee General Manager Resolve Marine Alaska

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“We’re very good at coming in, assessing a scene, understanding the hazard potential, assessing the situation, and then mitigating any issues… Kind of like firemen that are fighting fires, the first thing they do is assess what’s burning—you don’t have people just running into a hazardous situation.”

He says Resolve Marine has developed a “near-miss reporting culture,” in which it identifies potential hazards companywide that if not mitigated properly could result in an incident. “We capture those near-misses globally at the company and then we share them with the differentDespiteteams.”Resolve Alaska’s involvement with underwater operations or emergency response, many of the hazards it sees aren’t the kind that generally inspire sensational headlines. “Some of the information that we get through our reporting culture is as simple as crossing gangways.” Projects that are obviously hazardous—such as responding to a sinking vessel—get lots of scrutiny, “so the little things are where we need people to focus and do well,” McAfee explains.

daily hazards mindfully negotiated, Resolve Alaska employees do find themselves in remote locations dealing with hazardous materials in highly evolving situations. “We’re very good at coming in, assessing a scene, understanding the hazard potential, assessing the situation, and then mitigating any issues,” McAfee says.

“Kind of like firemen that are fighting fires, the first thing they do is assess what’s burning—you don’t have people just running into a hazardous situation,” he says. “And we operate similarly.”

Guiding that focus are daily prestart meetings which always contain a conversation about safety, first running through positive news the team may have and then covering near-misses or incidents from the day before. “We’ll discuss those in an open forum, just to get everybody’s light switched on,” he says.

He says 2022 is on track for a similar record. “We’ve done about 160 jobs this year, ranging from a couple hours to several months,” he says. “We don’t want to jinx it, and it’s a little premature, but this year’s looking really good also. Somehow we all get very superstitious whenever we talk about this,” he laughs.

It takes employees engaging in best practices for safety initiatives to really work, and McAfee says that starts with communication. “We have to have folks that are good communicators—that’s paramount to safe operations,” he says. “And in communicating, I mean both expressively communicating but also listening to leadership and listening to oneForanother.”example, when Resolve Alaska responds to a casualty, it sends out a salvage master paired with a marine architect, who both work with the vessel master. “The responsibility of the vessel belongs to the vessel master; the responsibility of the operation belongs to the salvage master,” McAfee explains. A team of leaders work with each other to address the task at hand while ensuring every person on the job gets home safely, including stopping work if McAfeenecessary.says,“There's no silver bullet for safety, there's just not. It is a nonstop communication back-and-forth with the people that work for us, and as soon as we stop talking about it, it's one of the first things that gets forgotten. We want to do things safely first, and if we can't do it safely, then we shouldn't do it.”

At Petro 49, Inc., our mission is to provide best-in-class service and support. We offer innovative solutions that positively impact our customers’ bottom line, and we believe in winning together. Thank you for over six decades of partnership and trust. ALASKAN-OWNED SINCE 1959 petromarineservices.com | shoresidepetroleum.com | north60petro.ca PETRO 49 companies Whittier SewardAnchorageWasillaCordovaHomerSoldotnaKodiak Sitka SkagwayJuneauPetersburgWrangellCraigKetchikan DawsonCrossingStewartCity Watson Lake JunctionHaines Whitehorse Fueling industries that fuel our economy.

DeepADive

arhartts and HiVis are fine for construction workers and equipment operators on land, but when the work site is underwater, it’s time for neoprene and air tanks. Just another day at the office for Global Diving & Salvage, the Anchoragebased provider of marine construction, support services, and casualty response worldwide (as well as all of the images found in the following pages). Saltwater is a harsh environment, so everything it touches needs constant maintenance. Global Diving & Salvage is that handyman, seen to the right repairing the steel jacketing on wharf piles at the Port of Alaska. The work can be cold and dangerous, even bobbing at the surface, so Global Diving & Salvage puts safety first.

All photos courtesy of Global Diving & Salvage

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Global Diving & Salvage, founded in 1979, has been servicing the offshore oil and gas industry for decades. Crews have hadjacketingsteelinstallinginPortpilesthecleansDivingright,colleague.theirairmonitoringabovecrewsafetyplatformsforinspectionsannualisinthesystems.productionandliftpointvessels,positioneddynamicallyworkingexperiencefromfour-moored,boats,barges,floatingOneofregulartasksCookInletperformingsubseamultiple(left).PartoftheregimehasmemberswaterthesupplytosubmergedAtGlobal&Salvagesomeof300wharfattheofAlaskaAnchorage,freshtoreplacethatcorroded. www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 45 SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

Steel structures can be protected from saltwater by installing anodes, or sacrificial metals that preferentially absorb corrosion. At the Juneau cruise ship terminal, Global Diving & Salvage crews welded 2,331 aluminum anodes onto new pilings. Each anode weighed over 200 pounds, and divers worked at depths as much as 105 feet.

Still, as seen in the top image, working on the water has its rewards when surrounded by the shimmering sea. Here, divers inspect an oil tanker berthing and loading terminal in Prince William Sound.

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One of the jobs for the Global Diving & Salvage team is maintenance of mooring buoys. The company conducts annual servicing in depths from 100 to 800 feet using divers and remote-operated vehicles. Other dive services include propeller polishing, intake cleaning, and underwater concrete placement and repair. The company prides itself on finding solutions with minimal impact to facilities and surrounding waters.

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Due to spansunsupportedpiersregularlyDivingpipe.stressingthecommonlycrossingsInlet,currentshighinCookpipelinescourbottom,theGlobal&Salvageinstallstopropupofpipeline. Dive gear is a vital rangesystem,life-supportenablingGlobalDiving&Salvagecrewstoworkatawideofdepthsforextendedperiods.Divershaveaudioandvideocommunicationwiththetopsidecrewatalltimes.Thecompanyalsokeepsportabledecompressionchamberstoaccommodatedeep-waterormixed-gasdiving. 48 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

STANTEC

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x Sustainability is a word that can be used to vaguely signify

x Carbon neutral means that the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and carbon dioxide reductions equal each other, leading to net neutral emissions.

x Net zero means completely negating the amount of greenhouse gasses produced by human activity.

SustainabilityForwarding

What design firms can do

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By Steve Edwards

arbon neutral. Net zero. Sustainability. Greenwashing. When it comes to climate change, sometimes it seems like there are a lot of buzzwords out there. What do they all mean? Let’s look at some of the key definitions below:

But isn’t mining the opposite of Asustainable?netzero society is out of reach if extracting minerals and metals is polluting the Earth. In the mining industry, some of the largest contributors to carbon emissions are diesel vehicles, ore processing, and ventilation. They also present the greatest opportunities

What does it take to turn these words into actions? How do you know the difference between a focus on sustainability versus simple greenwashing?Whileclimate change and sustainable decisions are critical globally, Alaska is somewhat ground zero in the battle. Thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, wildfires, and floods are daily considerations in the 49th state.

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Making Mining Sustainable

How can design firms and their architects, engineers, environmental scientists, and others support sustainability? While the A/E/C industry touches all parts of Alaska, how do you put sustainability into practice?

To put it simply, a net zero world needs mining. From the cars we drive to the renewables that power our lives, the energy transition starts with precious minerals and metals that are still in the ground—and we need them.

Batteries require materials like lithium and cobalt, solar panels require copper and zinc, and wind turbines are produced from nickel, chromium, and more. Furthermore, as we transition from the combustible engine to electric vehicles (EVs), we must understand that building an EV requires approximately six times more minerals than a conventional car.

Here’s a look at three ways we can help businesses think sustainably for the long-term: mining, environmental restoration, and building reuse.

x Greenwashing essentially refers to marketing strategies designed to make a company and/or its products appear eco-friendly or sustainable despite such claims being exaggerated or even fraudulent.

eco-consciousness. However, sustainability is technically the idea that a process or practice can meet present needs without jeopardizing future generations.

Reusing old buildings spares the material and energy that went into their original construction. Top, the Hennick Bridgepoint Hospital in Toronto, Ontario repurposed a jail into an administration building. In the rendering below, the former headquarters of the Boston Globe in Dorchester, Massachusetts is re-envisioned as The BEAT, a space for creative office, laboratory, and retail uses.

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The Northern Goldfields Solar Project aims to provide fuel savings and reduce BHP’s Scope 2 emissions from its Leinster and Mount Keith operations by 540,000 metric tons of CO2 over the first ten years of operation. This renewable energy project is the first solar photovoltaic build in Australia for TransAlta and provides a platform for further renewable energy development. The project

Diesel fuel: By transitioning away from diesel fuel, mining can take a huge leap toward net zero. Many mine sites— including those in remote Alaska—use diesel generators to power operations like ventilation, conveyor belts, and other infrastructure.

Diesel is also used in vehicles. Switching from diesel to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) or hydrogenpowered vehicles greatly reduces carbon emissions. Those vehicles can include dump trucks, passenger vehicles, and semi-trucks that haul the minedNaturally,materials.the switch isn’t perfect. BEVs used in mines need to be charged multiple times each day, leading to

Both TransAlta and BHP Nickel West are working on a large-scale solar farm—with a battery-storage system— to provide renewable energy for two of their mines down under.

To decarbonize, mine operators can look to clean energy like wind, solar, hydrogen, and hydropower instead of diesel to run operations. That’s happening around the world. On the other side of the planet, Australia is at the forefront of sustainable mining.

comprises a 27.4 MW Mount Keith solar farm, 10.7 MW Leinster solar farm, 10.1 MW/5.4MWh Leinster battery energy storage system, and interconnecting transmission infrastructure.

to reduce emissions and move toward net zero mining.

Ecosystemdropped.restoration focuses

The COVID-19 pandemic helped us see what ecosystem restoration looks like. There was clear air over cities like New Delhi and Los Angeles during lockdowns. Birds migrated without the challenges presented by

place in Alaska where the impact of ecosystem restoration is easy to see. The technology allows us to observe and measure key elements of underwater ecosystems using a variety of remote sensors and underwater platforms. Previously, it required physically being at sea during all times of the year for monitoring.

Ore processing: Much of the rock extracted during mining is not the sought-after ore. Hauling tons of rock miles away from the mine site only adds to carbon emissions. A better approach is to sort the ore from the rock as close to the mine site as possible.

This data can be used for an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement, a necessary part of most development projects. Then, during construction and afterward, the environment must be monitored for any further impacts. This often extends across the entire life

remote

STANTEC

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Reusing demandbuildingsexistingeasesonnew land development. Existing buildings already have sewer, utility, and theinfrastructureThisbroaderconnectionstransportationtothecommunity.helpstolowercosts—andassociatedcarbon.

Ecosystem Restoration

While scientists still go out on ships to deploy most sensors—and for many other reasons—modern underwater remote sensing technology often provides better, safer, and less costly options to get the job done.

a project—new or ongoing—has the potential to affect the marine environment in some way, then the project would likely benefit from information that underwater remote sensing can deliver. These kinds of projects can include putting in a new port, energy terminal, or harbor. Also, projects like expanding an existing marina or installing a pipeline, transmission cable, or fiber-optic cable along the ocean floor would benefit.Allthese activities can impact the marine environment in different ways— from plankton, fish, birds, and marine mammals to water and sediment quality. In most instances, scientists need baseline data for key parameters like sediments, water quality, habitats, fish, and marine mammals.

airplane traffic. Global carbon dioxide emissions

potential delays. Strategic planning and positioning of charging stations and quick battery swaps can reduce the down time to something negligible.

Ventilation: By using ventilation-ondemand and natural cooling techniques, mines can reduce the amount of diesel-powered ventilation equipment. In a cyclical way, BEVs also reduce the amount of ventilation required by limiting vehicle fumes. The switch to a fully electric mobile fleet often results in a 40 percent to 50 percent reduction in ventilation demands.

Oceanographic are a well-established and reliable underwater sensing tool, yet new technology offers cheaper options to measure the marine environment.

What sorts of projects might require or benefit from this technology? If

moorings

on the enhancement or recovery of degraded, damaged, or destroyed ecosystems. It includes feasibility studies, master planning, design, construction, implementation, and monitoring. It can happen on mountain tops or in the ocean. And it’s critical to a sustainable Underwaterworld.remote sensing is one

What a Sustainable Future Looks Like

cycle of a project, so it can be costly and involve complicated logistics.

Retrofitting Buildings

As we target net zero energy and net zero carbon, we will need to look at reusing our existing buildings.

Utility efficiency, accessibility, and resiliency: Existing buildings are only partly to blame for current levels of

The reuse of existing buildings offers a great opportunity to curb these emissions by prolonging the useful life of materials already in place— especially steel and concrete. Budget: Demolishing a building is rarely cheap, but a lot can be done with retrofitting and reuse on a budget. For some, choosing reuse is fiscally wise. If energy costs are skyrocketing for a building operator, they have an incentive to reduce the operational budget by investing in efficient systems upgrades. This is especially true if energy systems are nearing the end of their life. Advances in digital technology mean designers can quickly model the payback time for these upgrades against businessas-usual energy usage to make an informed decision.

Steve Edwards is a senior public relations specialist at Stantec in Anchorage. The Stantec community unites more than 25,000 acrossthanworkingemployeesinmore400locationssixcontinents.

Even if every new building were designed for net zero energy, we’d still face the significant carbon footprint of North America’s existing building stock. Most of our buildings will still be in use fifty years from now, so retrofitting them is key to decarbonizing the built environment.

Embodied carbon and waste: Research from the nonprofit Architecture 2030 shows that the building materials and construction sector represents 39 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That figure breaks down into operational emissions (heating, cooling, and lighting buildings) at 28 percent and embodied carbon emissions accounting for the other 11 percent.

Smart land-use planning: Reusing existing buildings eases demand on new land development. Existing buildings already have sewer, utility, and transportation connections to the broader community. This helps to lower infrastructure costs—and the associated carbon. They also offer an opportunity to enhance their surrounding community with improved accessibility in and around their sites.

When we give existing buildings new uses, it triggers the need for compliance with modern codes. This offers an opportunity for us to enhance energy efficiency, water efficiency, resiliency, and equity through equipment and fixture upgrades, hardening and raising critical equipment, and upgrades to promote universal access.

Tax credits and incentives: In some locations, generous tax credits encourage developers to take on the risks of redeveloping buildings that exhibit historic significance for modern use. Often this is the only way such buildings achieve economic viability. Government incentives make renovations and retrofitting for energy efficiency more palatable.

global greenhouse gas emissions. However, they hold a key to its reversal and mitigation. For North American cities to hit their 2050 emissions and carbon-reduction targets, they’ll need to rethink existing buildings alongside ultra-efficient new construction.

Phased renovations: Practical, budget-conscious clients can plan renovations over multiple budget cycles to slowly transform their building. The phased approach allows the spreading out of capital investments over time, providing flexibility.

A net zero society is out of reach if extracting minerals and metals is polluting the Earth. In the industry,miningsome of the largest contributors to carbon emissions are diesel vehicles, ore processing, and netandreduceopportunitiestheTheyventilation.alsopresentgreatesttoemissionsmovetowardzeromining.

Since there are so many underwater remote sensing options available, both in terms of platforms and sensors, it is key to define objectives and create a proper study design before using the technology. It’s possible to use the wrong tool to collect data—like trying to use a hammer to remove a screw.

When one takes life cycle and embodied carbon into account, there’s nothing greener than reusing a building that already exists. Here are six key reasons to look at reuse:

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From mining to environmental restoration to building reuse, there are opportunities near and far. That’s when we can start to see the switch from greenwashing to real sustainability—and we can march forward.

Across Alaska and around the globe, climate change is affecting communities on many levels, but there are ways to make changes and move toward a net zero future.

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People AK is the result of last year’s merger of Alaska Executive Search and Bradison Management Group.

any companies excel at providing services that are easily defined by a single industry: a retailer, a financial institution, a transportation company. For others, it’s not so straightforward. They may have started in one service area and expanded over time, or perhaps they identified a specific need that requires a range of experts to get the job done, ultimately creating a business model that defies industry classification.

By Katie Pesznecker

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CrossoverSector

CEO Paula Bradison came out of the healthcare industry, leaving her career there after suffering from burnout and then turning toward consulting. “Really the motivator was to help individuals and organizations not only avoid burnout

M

Support services that blur boundariesindustry

ConstructionMarineTurnagainRichardsonMickey

Take, for example, Alaska Executive Search, which used to be all about, well, searching. When businesses needed help finding the right person to hire, they let the experts handle the task. Alaska Executive Search is gone now, and in its place is a firm with a broader mission and a bigger name.

but promote a healthy and engaged workplace,” she says.

People AK is a combined suite of services, from the recruitment of employees to their role within a company to how a company is designed and deploying business decisions and strategy to achieve the best results. On its website, People AK describes its expertise as, “The Art of People. The Science of Management.” The company employs twelve people full-time and retains nearly eighty temp workers around the state.

“That’s our approach from scouting all the way through succession planning, is looking at output,” Bradison says. “When someone is good at their job, they’re naturally engaged and proud of their work. Businesses tend to focus

Fundamental to People AK’s consulting services is helping organizations figure out their employees’ strengths and placing people in roles where they can be most effective. Recently, People AK brought strength-based training to construction superintendents and their teams. Bradison notes that construction companies are not her usual customer for this service.

“Not often do you get a bunch of construction superintendents who will stay off the job for a day and talk about how they communicate and basically how the company gets the best of them,” she says. However, “We’ve demonstrated that going through this training can lower safety incidents on theThatjob.” is one of People AK’s foundational targets: how to get the best out of people and businesses.

WHAT SETS US APARTENTERPRISINGLEADERSHIP DISCIPLINE & RIGOR EXTRAORDINARYPEOPLEMULTIDISCIPLINESERVICESLOCAL &SERVICEPERSONALIZED 800 F St, Anchorage | www.coffman.com Thank you for voting us BEST PLACE TO WORK 1-250 EMPLOYEES General | Commercial | Design Build | Construction Management 6591 A Street, Suite 300 | Anchorage, Alaska 99518 907.562.2336 | davisconstructors.com www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 59 SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

Bradison Management Group focused on helping companies and their employees be more productive, successful, and satisfied. During the downtime provided by the COVID-19 pandemic, her company bought Alaska Executive Search, adding its reputation as a recruiter to her human resources toolbox.

“A lot of times, what prompts people to call us is someone at work is disgruntled, and we find there’s a level of dysfunction in the work structure,” Bradison says. “We alleviate that pressure by looking at workflows, helping to streamline those, and looking at that longer-term strategy that helps people flourish in their jobs.”

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Recruiting remains a major element of People AK, but work begins before and extends beyond finding someone for a particular job.

Turnagain Marine Construction

on, ‘How do I hire someone?’ We’re focused on how you can keep them.”

People AK’s client base is diverse: from seamen for the Alaska Marine Highway System to construction contractors, architects, and Native corporation executives, their recruiting and coaching has touched businesses across Alaska.

As a design/build firm, Turnagain Marine Construction has in-house engineers for projects like the Ward Cove cruise ship pier near Ketchikan.

“We know how to start scouting candidates before we get the job posting that needs to be filled, so we can get ahead of a lot of HR departments,” Bradison says. “We’re looking for people before you even know you need them.”

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“In the past, contractors didn’t routinely use recruiters, and because of the labor market and because that is a place with a shortage of workers, they’ve reached out and we’ve worked with them quite a bit,” Bradison says.

Based in Anchorage, established in 2014, Turnagain’s roster includes engineers and construction staff, with a workforce of up to forty-five people.

“A lot of other structures are so dialed in, it becomes almost a commodity service,” he says. “Marine construction allows us to provide a better service in a heavily influenced niche market.”

Notable projects have included building two floating cruise ship berths at Icy Strait Point for Huna Totem Native Corporation; the design and construction of the Crescent Harbor replacement project in Sitka; emergency repair work on the Halibut Point cruise ship dock, also in Sitka; and other work to support cruise ship activity in Whittier and Klawock.

The Icy Strait Point project was particularly rewarding, Davis says: Turnagain designed and built docks for what was essentially a from-scratch tourist destination there.

“They’ve done exceptionally well at providing opportunities for communities,” Davis says, adding that work on the Whittier ferry terminal is also potentially revitalizing. “What they’re going to be doing there is going to greatly increase the tax revenue and the financial stability for the city. These are tremendous drivers for economic development and independence for theseMarineareas.”construction has so many variables and challenges that there is a real opportunity to be creative and innovative, while also having a meaningful impact on the success of a project, Davis says.

Saltwater Solutions

AK, it provides multiple services under one“We’reroof. an integrated design

With combined engineering and construction expertise, Turnagain focuses on providing solutions that fit

It’s important to Bradison that Alaskans know People AK is not just a recruitment company; her team of certified consultants can cover scouting and recruiting all the way through succession planning, employee training, and strategy mapping and implementation.

Turnagain Marine Construction is not the usual general contractor. Specializing in heavy civil marine construction, the company supports the fisheries, transportation, and tourism sectors directly, and like People

builder,” says Jason Davis, president of Turnagain Marine Construction. “We have full structural engineering capabilities in-house, and that allows us to work with a client, public or private, from the very inception of a project idea all the way through to the final commissioning of a facility. That’s really a different process from what most facility owners are able to access when they’re looking to build a new dock, port, terminal, or whatever their needs may be.”

Currently People AK is focused on helping Alaska companies navigate the evolving business climate, including addressing changes in the labor market, hiring and retention, and addressing the emerging needs and desires of today’s workforce. As a result, they’re seeing new clients.

“With our design/build experience and in-house engineering, we can provide a tremendous amount of value in the preliminary stages of a project and be a sole source, single point provider all the way through. A lot of our clients really likeWiththat.”Alaska projects planned in remote sites where there are often many unknowns about rock and soil composition, geotechnical surveying can also drive up costs for clients. Turnagain takes a different approach.

“Our barges are larger and more seaworthy than most construction barges, which allow us to travel in adverse conditions [and] do work in Cook Inlet and the Aleutians. We know it’s not a possibility but a certainty we’ll encounter 100-plus [mile per hour] winds and a big wave environment, and we’ve built our fleet for those conditions.”

service and maintenance, outside line construction, and telecommunications cabling and equipment installations.

the client’s needs and save costs on planning and conceptualizing.

“Rather than multiple contractors attempting to coordinate all of the electrical and communication requirements for a project, Alcan has the ability and expertise to handle it all,” Fleming says.

More than just an electrician, Alcan Electrical & Engineering has expanded the scope of its services as businesses have seen their needs evolve, from basic electrical work to increasingly technical projects such as security and“Wetelecommunications.dosomuchin-house as far as all the disciplines of electrical and telecommunications, so we’re very much a turnkey solution and we handle

very complex projects, big or small,” says Alcan President Chrys Fleming.

Hold the Wire

“ With experiencedesign/buildourandin-houseengineering,wecanprovideatremendousamountofvalueinthepreliminarystagesofaprojectandbeasolesource,singlepointproviderallthewaythrough.Alotofourclientsreallylikethat.”

“It allows us to give a very high degree of cost certainty and a lot of clarity on what the project will entail— the timelines, the cost—without a lot of capital expense on their behalf,” he says.

“We do everything electrically,” Fleming says. “We’ve worked on the Slope, and we’ve worked on oil platforms. Our projects range from building schools to working on radar facilities up at Clear [Space Force Station] outside of Fairbanks. We’re currently working on both Fort Greely on a barrack project and at Fort Wainwright on a communications center. And we’re building the new Solid Waste Services Central Transfer Station off Dowling Road in Anchorage.”

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“And security has moved beyond a traditional burglar system, if you will, to camera systems we design and manage, to provide more security at commercial locations,” Fleming says. “Electrical has always historically been our main area of work, and over the past twenty years it’s definitely evolved with telecommunication and security work.”

After fifteen years with Alcan, Fleming can appreciate its continuing maturation and flexibility as the company grows in newer focus areas. For instance, telecommunication has advanced into more fiber optic-based installations with higher-category cabling.

JasonPresidentDavis Turnagain Marine Construction

“Many come to us because of that. The fact that we do it all in-house really benefits both the general contractors and the business owners.”

Alcan was founded in 1971 by George Bringmann. Today it remains operated by Bringmann’s relatives and Fleming, who came on years ago as a wireman apprentice and is now a coowner. Alcan’s offerings today include preconstruction, design/build and assist, low-voltage systems, electrical

Alcan employs up to 140 full-time employees, from electrical journeymen and apprentices to telecommunications and security professionals, a full IT department, and back office staff.

“We design contingencies for a variety of potential soils that might be encountered, which is easier, cheaper, and more effective than doing an exhaustive study,” Davis says. “It reduces the risk to our clients because we go out prepared for just about any variation or anomaly that could occur. Those things are easy to accommodate for if you do it early in the design; they’re very expensive to retrofit down the road.”

Based in Anchorage, Alcan also maintains offices in Fairbanks, Wasilla, and“WeJuneau.justhad a guy get back from Prudhoe Bay, we’re out on the Aleutians, down in Ketchikan, in Juneau, in Sitka— you name it,” Fleming says.

Davis is also proud of Turnagain’s “true Alaskan fleet” of infrastructure and equipment that was envisioned as—and has proven to be—beefy enough for the natural elements confronting a marine construction environment.

When the telecom and technology sector knocked on Alcan’s door, Alcan didn’t refuse the call, sticking to its contractor and engineering bailiwick. Where the boundaries between industry sectors are blurry, sliding between them is a natural development for businesses prepared to diversify.

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Work Away from Work

Modular buildings suppliers put roofs over remote sites

does offer a number of unique challenges—especially finding the right kind of labor, at the right place, at the right time. Because the building season is super short, you can have a crew on-site, but, once the snow starts falling, it’s not cost-effective,” says Michael Repasky, president of Summit Logistics in Fairbanks. “I can build yearround, finish a project in winter, and ship it out when the snow is gone. From a cost standpoint in rural areas, modular buildings are often more cost-effective.”Modularconstruction also removes approximately 80 percent of the building construction activity from the site location, reducing disruption and construction traffic and improving overall safety and security. This can be especially important in the education and healthcare industries, where onsite activity needs to be minimized.

onstruction season in Alaska is short, and many sites—such as oilfields and logging camps— are extremely remote. Shipping in the materials needed to build traditional offices, workforce accommodations, repair facilities, and even military installations can be expensive and time consuming, causing delays in the construction process.

For this reason, many industries turn to modular facilities. These types of buildings are prefabricated using the same materials and designed to the same codes as conventionally built facilities. They can be shipped anywhere they are needed and assembled on-site.

StructuresAlaska

C

“The durability, ease of setup, and the ability to quickly relocate our modular buildings has made them the perfect solution for many industries operating in cold and hot climates around the world,” explains Carolyn Bishop, director of commercial programs at Alaska Structures, whose engineered fabric buildings were the first of their kind to be used by oil and gas companies operating on the North Slope. “Modular buildings can be used for any purpose for which you would use a typical building.”

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Depending on the complexity of a project, buildings can be completed in months—or even faster.

By Vanessa Orr

Modular building construction can describe any number of prefabricated building systems, which can include metal buildings, container buildings, fabric buildings, concrete buildings, panelized wood buildings, and jobsite trailers.

According to the Modular Building Institute, because construction can occur simultaneously with site and foundation work, projects can be completed 30 to 50 percent sooner than with traditional construction. This type of construction also mitigates the risk of weather delays, as 60 to 90 percent of construction is completed inside a factory. Because buildings can be occupied sooner, they also create a faster return on “Traditionalinvestment.construction in Alaska

Saving Time and Money

Alaska Structures

“The prices of our modular fabric buildings vary depending on the engineering and customization options required to meet our customers’ building needs,” says Bishop. “Typically, an engineered fabric building from Alaska Structures is competitive with other high-performance building solutions, though in locations with extreme conditions (high winds, heavy snow loads, seismic areas, et cetera), an engineered fabric building can be more expensive than a typical construction method.”

While Summit Logistics works within clients’ budgets, Repasky notes that most projects are less focused on cost but on whether they can be done at “Inall. a lot of the communities where our buildings go, there’s no lodging available for people to stay in, so it’s not practical to house a crew,” he says. “It’s often more cost effective to fabricate the building here and have it helicoptered into place or barged in

The interior of workforce housing built with the Denali Building System by Alaska Structures.

“We work with our clients on designing what they need and, in some cases, can create a building design in a few days. Other times, we’re working with a 100-page print deck which requires a lot more engineering to meet that specific application,” says Repasky. “Timewise, we have gone from the initial contract to shipping a building out in eight days, though a typical project takes two to four weeks.”

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and dragged into place with a large loader or Repaskyforklift.”adds, laughing, “We had four buildings built on skis that were dragged 150 miles across the tundra. The shipping bill on that was ugly. Many times, our clients are less concerned with cost and more focused on whether we can make it happen.”

At Alaska Structures in Anchorage, more than 375,000 square feet of manufacturing space lets that firm design modular buildings that meet clients’ timelines and budgets.

Because these structures have minimal foundation requirements,

In Alaska, modular construction is used in industries ranging from construction to mining, mineral exploration, energy, manufacturing, transportation, environmental remediation, military, government, medical, education, and research.

In addition to designing, engineering, and producing highperformance buildings ranging from dining and athletic facilities to hotellike workforce accommodations and jobsite offices, the company produces many support systems that enhance usability and comfort. These include rugged and portable militaryspec HVAC systems, plug-and-play lighting and electrical systems, power generation and distribution systems, proprietary insulation systems capable of meeting any R-value, modular flooring systems, and soft- and hardwall partition systems.

StructuresAlaska 66 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SERVICESSUPPORTINDUSTRIAL

“Our modular buildings do not require a concrete foundation—we offer many anchoring solutions to secure our modular buildings to virtually any level surface safely,” says Bishop, adding that upon delivery, the modular buildings are set up in a fraction of the time compared to other “instantEasy-to-followstructures.”instructions allow non-skilled labor to assemble the modular building systems, eliminating the need for expensive technicians or supervisors. The buildings can also be quickly taken down and relocated, unlike other prefabricated structures such as

their installation requires less pre-construction site work.

metal buildings, wood structures, and precast or tilt-up concrete buildings.

Customization for Clients

For example, Repasky says, “Right now in the shop, we have a washeteria that’s going up to the Toolik Field

StructuresAlaska

Summit Logistics’ in-house engineering staff specializes in remote site and extreme weather applications.

“Our rapidly deployable modular buildings and remote camp systems are used to create ‘mini-cities’ in remote locations by the US military, NATO, and Allied Forces, and mining, mineral exploration, oil and gas, and construction companies,” says Bishop, adding that Alaska Structures has custom-designed, manufactured, and delivered more than 65,000 modular building systems to more than eightyfive countries since its inception.

“Our modular buildings are virtually maintenance-free, unlike the constant upkeep required of steel buildings or wood-built structures,” Bishop adds, noting that they can also be easily expanded or reconfigured, should the needs of a business change.

dorsey.com/anchorage

Station. We also have four or five 20foot shipping containers that have been converted into an observatory that’s shipping to Finland.” Repasky adds that Summit Logistics custom designs buildings according to client specifications. “Several years ago, we built research stations for Antarctica, and we’ve also designed guard shacks, laboratories, sleepers, office trailers, kitchens, docking modules, and emergency (typically oil spill) response units,” he Repaskysays. says that Summit Logistics makes a concentrated effort to help guide its clients to solutions that will meet the goals that they’re trying to achieve.

Alaska Structures’ modular buildings are custom-designed and engineered to meet area-specific wind and snow loads required by local or international building codes for safety and longlasting durability against extreme weather conditions.

“Our customers call and speak with an engineer, not a salesperson,” he says, adding that multiple engineers on staff have more than twenty years of experience. “Once we’ve had these conversations, we’ll design what they’ve asked for and then have a couple more rounds of design modifications to make sure that all of their needs are met.”

But Will It Hold Up?

With the solution drafted, Bishop says, “Designs and pricing information are then sent to the client for review and approval. Once approved, the building is manufactured, prepared, and shipped to the client.”

A common perception about modular buildings is that they cannot withstand prolonged exposure to extreme conditions.

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“Jobsite trailers and non-engineered structures are a dime a dozen, and they deteriorate quickly when subjected to constant high winds, extreme hot and cold climates, high solar loads, or corrosive sea spray without continuous upkeep,” says Bishop. “Unfortunately, these types of modular building solutions have tarnished the industry.”

“Unlike other building suppliers that can quickly provide a cost-persquare-foot without knowing where or how the building will be used or what loads it needs to meet for safety, we take a very different approach to creating a modular building,” she says. “We start by gaining an indepth understanding of the project to learn how and where our modular buildings will be used. We also discuss the area-specific wind and snow loads that the structure must withstand. We take this information and the client's requirements and customization options to custom design and engineer a one-of-a-kind modular building solution.”

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However, there are alternatives. Bishop says, “The saying, ‘You get what you pay for,’ comes into play when you are considering purchasing a modular building and need a solution capable of withstanding harsh or lifethreatening conditions.”

“We continually improve upon the design and materials of our modular building systems,” says Bishop. “Our tensioned fabric membranes are capable of withstanding temperatures from -80°F to 130°F, offer a greater abrasion resistance than other PE- or worldwise advantage

Bishop says that Alaska Structures, like a conventional engineering firm, works hand-in-hand with its clients.

Summit Logistics’ modular units can be efficiently constructed year-round in its factory and shipped to the jobsite, allowing for concurrent preparation of the pad and other on-site services.

Summit Logistics

“As long as the buildings are designed properly, they can stand up to the elements as well or better than traditional structures,” says Repasky of modular buildings. “In terms of the construction itself, they are often built stronger, as they may get dragged across the ground or picked up and put on the back of a truck. These are 60-foot, 35,000-pound buildings that are designed to travel down the road at 50 Repaskymph.”notes that the “devil is in the details,” as modular buildings are designed so that they can bend and flex. “There will be a certain amount of movement with these buildings, so if you use drywall, for example, it pops all the joints. We use H-channel to allow it to flex. There are also some roofing and siding materials that can’t be used on these buildings; for example, vinyl siding will blow off when it’s being driven down the road.”

The building’s materials are also chemically inert for the safe use and storage of corrosive chemicals, have less than a two-inch flame spread, and feature a proprietary method for stabilizing the fabric membrane against high solar loads and prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light. Depending

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PVC-based fabrics, will not rot, and are mold- and mildew-resistant.”

Bishop adds that the company now also produces containerized building

Repasky says Summit Logistics builds with transportability in mind. “If you’re building a residential home that is only taking one trip 10 miles down the road, that’s very different than building an office trailer or complex that gets loaded on a truck two or three times a year for fifteen years,” he says. “You’ll find parts of badly designed buildings strewn across the freeway if it’s not made using the right materials.”

solutions that use the same power systems, quick-connect hoses, and plug-and-play electrical connections to quickly and easily provide hardwall modular buildings to remote sites already using systems from Alaska Structures.

on the engineering required and a customer's need for portability, Alaska Structures offers high-strength frame systems in aluminum and galvanized steel and offers powder-coated frame systems for improved resistance against corrosion, especially in coastal areas with sea spray.

While there’s always been a strong demand for modular buildings to use in the industrial/commercial sector, a growing market is in residential construction. The design of buildings has also changed as specs have become more technically advanced, including more acoustic insulation, for“Fiveexample.years ago, we didn’t do STC [sound transmission class] ratings for doors and walls; today’s projects tend to sway toward complexity,” says Repasky.

Right now, his company has more modular building work than they can handle. “Like any tool in a toolbox,” Repasky says, “modular buildings have their place.”

By Scott Rhode

Those three numbers are 988, which as of July 16 is the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. In an emergency, those three digits are less cumbersome and more memorable than the old number, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

hree little numbers can be a hassle when a phone call requires dialing ten digits instead of seven. Three little numbers can be a boon, when even a toddler can remember 911 in case a parent or guardian has a medical emergency. And now three little numbers can save the life of someone in despair–perhaps nearly twice as many as before.

customers assigned new numbers, but it was time to introduce ten-digit dialing

Those three digits are also the reason that Alaskans must dial 907 even for local calls. That switch occurred last October as part of the Federal Communications Commission’s phase-in timeline.

T

“In those areas, if you dial 988 and then you pause for a second or something, you get routed to the national suicide hotline,” says Tim Stelzig, GCI’s senior counsel, federal affairs.Dialing 907 for all local numbers, including the 988 exchange in Wrangell, avoids accidental calls to the hotline. Stelzig notes that the 988 prefix could’ve been eliminated and those

“Alaskans, more than most folks across the nation, can understand how important that is,” Handyside adds, “so the minor inconvenience has been outweighed by the benefits. Alaskans get that.”

Although 988 directs calls to the national lifeline, the national lifeline redirects calls from the 907 area code back to Alaska. Four operators on duty at Careline Alaska in Fairbanks pick up, on average, two to three calls every hour of every day.

Three Little Numbers

“Manyregardless.otherstates already use ten-digit dialing,” he explains. “We eventually would’ve anyway, honestly, so it was an inevitability, but this is a catalyst.”

Point of Contact

A telecommunications lifeline for suicide prevention

“We recognize that this is a change in behavior,” says GCI Chief Communications Officer Heather Handyside. “We gave Alaskans what we hope was plenty of time to get used to theTheidea.”activation of 988 is not the direct cause of ten-digit dialing in Alaska, but ten-digit dialing solves a problem. In Wrangell, 988 is the prefix for some ACS Wireless customers’ local phone numbers.

GCI

70 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com TELECOM & TECH

“There are some folks that you carry with you forever, that you always wonder if they’re okay,” she says. Marchuk still answers phones occasionally to fill the round-the-clock staffing of eleven 8-hour shifts per day.

Heather Handyside Chief Communications Officer, GCI

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 71

“Each operator has their individual office space,” she notes. “We have found that staff like it that way.”

Marchuk has been in the trenches herself, one of the Careline’s first paid staff when she started in 2005. A teenager at the time, the experience made an impact.

“Whether connectingit’sstudents to education and distance learning or connecting small businesses to the internet so they can expand and local economies can thrive, this connection is really powerful. We’re glad to be the platform that can provide this kind of connection that can provide healing and support.”

“Some shifts go by and are relatively calm,” says Director Susanna Marchuk.

Alaska’s only regional crisis center started as a local service in Fairbanks

“Some shifts go by and you wonder, ‘What’s in the water today?’”

Marchuk explains that operators also train for Alaska-specific scenarios. “Other contact centers are not going to have training materials on what to do if you need to initiate an active rescue for a community that isn’t accessible except for by plane,” she says. “What do you do if they can’t fly out until

Susanna Marchuk Careline Alaska

Continuum of Care

“Many other states already use tendigit dialing… We eventually would’ve anyway, honestly, so it was an inevitability, but this is a catalyst.”

Unlike 911, the Careline is not for emergencies only. Indeed, Marchuk says it’s not unusual for a person to call on behalf of someone else. “We do a lot of coaching and support for third-party calls,” she says.

Dialing 988 might result in a helpful chat with a specialist at the call center, or it might, as with 911, mobilize an entire response system.

and then partnered with Tanana Chiefs Conference to provide statewide coverage. Most of its funding comes from a contract with the Alaska Division of Behavioral Health, plus some grants from the Alaska Mental Health Trust anddoingwithwelevel“WehiringforMarchukAuthority.looks“passion”whenoperators.havePhDclinicians;alsohavefolkstheirGEDsthiswork,theybothare

“The call center is really step one in the crisis care continuum,” Marchuk says. “We have to have a robust call center because the flow is someone to talk to; someone to respond, which is

That continuum is still taking shape in Alaska, says Eric Boyer, program officer at the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. The mission of the

tomorrow because it’s dark?”

equally impactful,” she says. “Our training is really intensive but is also tailored to what skills and experience a person is coming in with, but we are not averse to building someone from the ground up.”

“We’d much rather take those calls from folks who are in the weeds but not actively contemplating suicide,” Marchuk says. “I did this work. I connected with a lot of people who said, ‘I’m not suicidal, but…’ and that ‘but’ is so important because those are people who need connection to support, need connection to care.”

our mobile crisis teams; and from there, somewhere to go, which are the crisis stabilization centers.”

Tim Stelzig Senior Counsel of Federal Affairs, GCI

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Not just a last resort, Marchuk suggests the Careline is just as useful as a first point of contact.

GCI helps to prevent suicide in two ways: as a telecom connecting Alaskans to the Careline and by directly supporting a variety of small initiatives statewide. For example, in 2018 its Suicide Prevention Fund awarded a grant to Nome Community Center, which used the money to train intervention workers.

trust, as a state corporation funded by a land grant, is to implement a comprehensive mental health program for all Alaskans with developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, dementia, addiction, or mental illness. These are the resources to which operators in Fairbanks can refer callers from anywhere in the state.

A new intervention began last year in Anchorage, a mobile crisis team that can respond instead of police or paramedics. Funded by the city’s new alcohol tax, blue-coated pairs of responders trained to deal with mental illness and trauma answer emergency calls and also make preventative check-ups. Last fall, Fairbanks got its own mobile crisis team, sometimes involving a peer support specialist—that is, a person with first-hand experience

Boyer acknowledges that the system has not been very strong, often relying on law enforcement intervention, which is not ideal. “Their options are limited,” he says. “They can take somebody to the emergency room, or they can take somebody to jail, or they can leave somebody out in the community. That’s kind of it.”

General Contractors www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 73

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It's early, but Boyer says the system appears to be helping people. “They’re getting their needs met,” he says. “They’re not languishing in the back of a police car or in an emergency room without anybody keeping a constant vigil on them. Or they’re not in the community with nowhere to go.”

Future scorecards from the Mental Health Trust might look back on 2022 as an inflection point when suicide rates in Alaska begin a sharp decline.

“This is a big, global, systemic change that I think will be very interesting to see what the data tells us in the coming years,” Boyer says, while warning, “Don’t be looking for data on this in six months or a year.”

The Fairbanks call center has been answering around 22,000 to 24,000 calls each year, yet Marchuk expects 988 will add as many as 20,000 more in the first year of implementation. The trajectory should continue upward, not because suicidal thoughts are more common but because help is moreAnticipatingaccessible.growth, the Careline moved location in June from one side of Fairbanks to a new building on the east side with 2,000 square feet of additional space. That way the mobile crisis team can use the same site as a headquarters, with more room to grow.

Just as the Careline’s approach is as simple as giving people someone to talk to, these programs aim to prevent suicide by making life worth living. “It’s very difficult to track the data on this to determine effectiveness of the grants,” Handyside says, “but the anecdotal information we get back about the increased awareness or the connections that are made, it’s just veryConnectionspowerful.” are part of why GCI chose suicide prevention as one of its community causes. “We are all about connecting people,” Handyside explains. “Whether it’s connecting students to education and distance learning or connecting small businesses to the internet so they can expand and local economies can thrive, this connection is really powerful. We’re glad to be the platform that can

More people calling the Careline would extend the teams’ reach. “The transition from that ten-digit crisis call number to 988 is really the doorway for folks to be able to engage that system,” Boyer says.

Layered Defense

Telecommunications may be one of the most potent defenses against suicide, but it’s not the only one. For a problem with no single cause, the remedy takes many forms, each supplied by organizations large and small throughout the state.

living with mental illness or addiction, either as a caregiver or patient.

The trust’s annual scorecard, published in March, shows some positive results. More incarcerated individuals received treatment for psychotic disorders in 2021 compared to the year before, and more criminal defendants were admitted to therapeutic court. Other signs are less promising: the rate of home-based or community-based care versus institutional care decreased slightly, and the rate of Alaskans who needed substance abuse treatment but couldn’t get it at a facility went up.

The mobile crisis teams in Fairbanks and Anchorage have barely a year’s worth of data, so it’s too early to tell if the stabilization system of care is working. Boyer says the Fairbanks team responds to forty or fifty unique callers per month, and it appears to be meeting 80 to 85 percent of needs.

A Wider Doorway

74 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

provide this kind of connection that can provide healing and support.”

The Mental Health Trust distributes $24 million in grants each year. Boyer explains, “Our role is to support our partners, and our partners are the State of Alaska; our partners are providers, tribal, non-tribal that are out in the community; and the beneficiaries, our community members who have loved ones who might be needing that level of Evencare.”

As for suicides, although the rate of attempts went up from 122.4 per 100,000 in 2019 to 129.4 in 2020, the rate of suicide fatalities went down. The decrease was especially notable among the vulnerable age group of fifteen to twenty-four, down 8 percent, from 57.9 suicides per 100,000 to 49.8. The rates for Alaska remain about three times the national rate.

If the price is dialing an extra three digits for every local call, Handyside figures Alaskans are willing to pay. “People in Alaska are really proud of the 907 area code,” she says, “so we hoped that would be an easy message.”

GCI has supported Opt-in Kiana, a nonprofit that connects youth in Northwest Alaska to their Iñupiaq culture; Camp Fire’s rural program for teens that emphasizes mental health and wellness; and Gold Star Peak, an organization supporting friends and families of military service members who died by suicide. This year’s recipients will be announced in September during Suicide Prevention Month.

GCI has contributed to the effort, donating more than $600,000 since 2017 through its Suicide Prevention Fund. “We have almost 2,000 employees across the state and the Lower 48, and this is something that has touched our employee family as well,” Handyside says.

"The flow is someone to talk to; someone to respond, which is our mobile crisis teams; and from stabilizationwhichsomewherethere,togo,arethecrisiscenters."

The Careline used to be hosted by the Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living, the nonprofit that supported the service for twenty years. Last year, however, the Careline spun off as an independent nonprofit.

SusannaCarelineMarchukDirectorAlaska

“Careline is experiencing a significant amount of growth and really was ready to step out and become its own entity,” Marchuk says.

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Digging the Dirt

MINING

76 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Creek has been in production since 1989 (minus a care and maintenance period from April 1993 through July 1996). It is currently ranked as the tenth largest silver mine in the world. The property includes 440 unpatented lode mining claims, 58 unpatented millsite claims, 17 patented lode claims, and one patented millsite. In addition, the Greens Creek site includes properties under lease from the United States Forest Service (USFS), and it also has title to mineral rights on 7,301 acres of federal land acquired through a land exchange with the USFS where the company is exploring but not mining.

ecla Greens Creek mine is unique in the United States. Located on Admiralty Island near Juneau, it is the only mine in the country allowed to operate inside a federally protected natural monument. Situated in the mountains at the north end of the island, with additional facilities on the northwestern shore, Greens Creek is entirely surrounded by part of the Tongass National Forest known as the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, after the Tlingit name for the island, which means “Fortress of theGreensBear.”

Miners produce approximately 2,300 tons of ore per day from the underground shaft. From 1989 to 2020, Greens Creek mined 20 million tons. That total output breaks down to 322 million ounces of silver, 2.7 million ounces of gold, 4 billion pounds of zinc, and 1.5 billion pounds of lead.

By Alexandra Kay

Living Up to Its Name

H

How Hecla Mining keeps Greens Creek green

All claims and leases comprise a total of approximately 24 square miles. Greens Creek consists of the mine, an ore concentrating mill, a tailings storage area, a ship-loading facility, camp facilities, a ferry dock, and other related infrastructure.

The primary mining methods are cut and fill and longhole stoping. The Greens Creek ore processing facility includes a SAG/ball mill grinding circuit to grind the run of mine ore to liberate the minerals and produce a slurry suitable for differential flotation of mineral concentrates. A gravity circuit recovers free gold that exists as electrum, a gold/silver alloy in the ore. Gravity concentrates are produced from this circuit prior to flotation. Three concentrates are produced: a silver concentrate which contains most of the silver recovered; a zinc concentrate, which is low in precious metals content; and a zinc-rich precious metals concentrate. A third-party processor turns the concentrate into doré bullion, which can be further refined and sold to precious metal traders. The mine’s products are shipped from the Hawk Inlet marine terminal a few miles from the mill and sold to smelters and traders worldwide.

Bryan Erickson General Manager

Scope 1 emissions come from sources the company directly owns or controls, such as the dieselpowered electrical generators used at Greens Creek. Scope 2 emissions are those related to power the company purchases from a third-party source, namely Alaska Electric Light & Power (AEL&P).Theemissions reduction at Greens Creek was driven by operating

In addition to the economic benefits the company provides to the community, “Hecla is committed to responsible mining practices that guarantee the safety of our workforce, minimize the impact of our operations on the environment, and respect and support the communities where we live

Keeping Clean

and work,” says Bryan Erickson, general manager of the Greens Creek mine.

“Hecla is committed to work.”wheretherespectenvironment,operationstheworkforce,thethatminingresponsiblepracticesguaranteesafetyofourminimizeimpactofourontheandandsupportcommunitiesweliveand

As of December 31, 2021, the company employed 464 people at the Greens Creek mine, and 80 percent of the company’s workforce is local. The creek that gives the mine its name lies near the southern boundary of the City and Borough of Juneau, which encompasses just enough of Admiralty Island to make Hecla Mining the largest private-sector employer and taxpayer in the capital city.

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As part of the company’s environmental stewardship, Hecla is doing its part to combat climate change by sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In 2021, Hecla achieved a company-wide reduction of its greenhouse gas scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 43 percent over 2019 levels and achieved its goal of net zero on scope 1 and scope 2 emissions.

Hecla Greens Creek Mine

The current mine plan at Greens Creek estimates enough reserves for approximately thirteen more years of production, but the company typically adds as many new reserves as it mines each year. Underground definition and exploration drilling during 2021 focused on eight of the nine known mineralized zones on the property. Planned activities to potentially add reserves in 2022 include approximately 80,000 feet of definition drilling in five zones and approximately 20,000 feet of exploration drilling in six zones.

hydropower has resulted in a 60 percent reduction on diesel fuel consumption for our operation.”

To learn more, visit

at donlingold.com 78 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

efficiencies that reduce the use of electricity, diesel fuel, gasoline, natural gas, and propane. The company is also focused on increasing the percentage of electricity it purchases from clean energy sources, and this includes the

Lead

use of renewable hydropower at the Greens Creek mine.

Hecla

And Hecla’s Greens Creek power purchase has benefited others. The AEL&P expansion resulted in significantly

No one shows up late for work at Greens Creek because everyone rides the same boat. The ferry leaves Juneau’s Auke Bay at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. for the 35 minute commute. The mine’s contract with Juneau tour operator Four Seasons Marine has helped that company build up its business—and helped Greens Creek lower its carbon footprint by offering mass transit to its workers.

“Our power purchase allowed AEL&P to expand its hydropower capability,” says Erickson. “Since 2006, the use of lower-cost, interruptible

Evan Polty Jr. Mechanic, Donlin Gold Born in Pilot Station and Resident of Russian Mission us

“We protect the environment because this is the land where we grew up.”

The mine’s water management involves four processes: diversion, containment, recycling, and treatment. Freshwater runoff is diverted wherever possible to minimize contact with mining and processing areas. Runoff from facility areas resulting from precipitation is either incorporated into the milling process or routed to one of the company’s water treatment plants prior to being discharged as allowed by the site’s Alaska Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. In terms of water use, the company works on a regular basis to reduce its consumption.

Greens Creek is a dry stack tailings facility. Tailings are the sand-like material leftover after metals are extracted. Dry stacked tailings are compacted, making them easier and safer to store.

lower electricity costs for residents of the Juneau area. AEL&P customers have some of the lowest electricity rates in Alaska. Since the time of the expansion, the utility has lowered rates for Juneau residents for a total savings of $70 million. When the Greens Creek mine buys surplus hydroelectricity from the local utility, it reduces the electric bill for all ratepayers in Juneau.

“By using the dry stack tailings process and recycling actually as much as 50 percent as backfill underground, we are able to minimize the required disturbance footprint at our tails storage facility,” says Erickson. “A dry stack facility which is lined also has a lower risk of seepage to groundwater than a wet tailing impounding might.”

A Smaller Footprint

x Design, operate, close, and reclaim its facilities to comply with applicable laws and regulations to meet accepted standards—and to go beyond those standards when they don’t meet Hecla’s values.

environmental training, including a focus on job-specific environmental awareness, hazardous material management, spill response, and reporting. The company provides resources in the form of a company policy.“Each Hecla employee and contractor is responsible for incorporating the policy into their daily planning and work activities to achieve this commitment,” says Erickson. They must:

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Environmental Responsibility Company-wide, all site workers received more than 5,432 hours of

shipped off island to licensed municipal landfills. Some is placed within voids in the mine or in its tailings storage facility as allowed by the mine’s state-issued waste management permit. Hazardous waste generated on the mine site is managed (as required) by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act regulations. Greens Creek recycles as much waste as it can.

x Conduct periodic environmental reviews and audits of operations

x Promote employee and contractor knowledge, capability, and accountability in implementation of this policy through the use of environmental management systems.

Greens Creek handles its waste streams as regulated by state and federal permits. A majority of solid waste at the mine is containerized and

x Continuously improve its safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible use of resources, products, and materials.

Hecla

and activities to ensure compliance, identify risks, reduce costs and liabilities, and improve sustainable operations.

Hecla

x Endeavor to reduce energy and water consumption, implementing continuously improving efficiencies into facilities, projects, and operations.

Hecla also recognizes that climate change is a part of everyone’s future. According to the company’s website, it is committed to incorporating climaterelated risks and opportunities into its risk management and strategic planning processes.

The mill at Greens Creek processes about 2,300 tons of ore each day. Ore is ground to less than 50 µm—about the size of a human hair.

Finally, when mining is finished at Greens Creek, the company is obligated to return the site to its natural condition. “Reclamation is an integral part of every Hecla project from the initial design process,” the company states. While Hecla believes the mine has years of life left, it already has a plan for the responsible closure and rehabilitation of the mine“Wesite.have established a set-aside with nearly $100,000 to pay for reclamation of the mine site after mining operations have ended,” saysUntilErickson.then,the silver that goes into making battery-electric vehicles that let Juneau residents take full advantage of their city’s cheap hydropower will continue to come out of the ground, just across the water, from the Fortress of the Bear.

x Work collectively with educational institutions and agencies to research, develop, and use best technological and management practices to reduce environmental “Environmentalimpacts.stewardship starts with safety, and safety is reliant on the quality, training, and dedication of our people,” says Erickson. “Hecla Greens Creek prioritizes finding the best people and arming them with thorough training and quality leadership. Our goal is to ensure Hecla employees always put safety first in everything they do every day. This is important for the safety of our mine, our environment, and our employees, and it means we must maintain a dedication to both big-picture engineering and worksite behaviors.”

Hecla’s Greens Creek Mine consists of a shoreside camp at Hawk Inlet, where equipment and vehicles are stored and maintained; the mine entrance and the mill and tailings dump farther inland; and the 7.5-mile road between them.

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To the west, 88 Energy has two working areas on the south side of NPR-A. Project Peregrine is on 195,973 acres acquired in August 2020 via an off-market takeover of fellow Western Australia oil explorer XCD Energy. Sitting on top of the Nanushuk and Torok oil plays, Peregrine has a prospective oil resource of 1.6 billion barrels. In early 2021, 88 Energy drilled the Merlin-1 well, which demonstrated the presence of light oil in three targets.

Far from the oil fields at home, 88 Energy looks across the globe, describing itself as an

OIL & GAS

“Alaskan-focused oil exploration and appraisal company.” Even for the North Slope, though, 88 Energy is oriented Down Under, working on units far to the south of most other operators. Its portfolio spans 440,000 net acres of the central North Slope region and into the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), on land leased both from the state and federal governments.

W

Meet the Project Areas

By Scott Rhode

82 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

sites designated Icewine-1 and Charlie-1. Icewine is the only North Slope asset that 88 Energy operates but does not have a 100 percent working interest, instead owning a 75 percent share.

Say G’Day to 88 Energy Australian firm explores the North Slope, but not ANWR

estern Australia, the home of 88 Energy, is in some ways the antipodean Alaska. The state shares the distinction of being its country’s largest by area. Although not as thinly populated as Australia’s Northern Territory, most of its people are concentrated in a single city, Perth. It also has a Barrow Island, named after the same Sir John Barrow for whom Alaska’s northernmost point was named in 1826. And the state economy is dominated by oil and gas production, responsible for 61 percent of Australia’s total petroleum output.

Since 2015, 88 Energy has held leases at Project Icewine, which encompasses 193,000 acres south of Prudhoe Bay. The company has conducted seven well penetrations across that project area, at

Refuge Refund

The proximity to ExxonMobil’s infrastructure positions the Yukon leases as a jumping-off point for development inside ANWR. A Texas-based subsidiary of 88 Energy, Regenerate Alaska, paid $771,000 for Tract 29, a 23,400-acre sliver of land on the Canning River’s opposite bank during the first—and so far only—ANWR lease sale in January 2021, in the waning days of the Trump administration.

Regenerate Alaska was the only other bidder on ANWR acreage, but this spring the company backed out. In May

Just south of Peregrine is 88 Energy’s Umiat field. The company says historic flow testing demonstrated a sustained rate of 200 barrels per day, peaking at 800 barrels per day, with no water mixed in. Umiat has the potential to combine with Peregrine for field operations.Fartherto the east, just inland from ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson unit, is 88 Energy’s Yukon lease area, covering 19,000 net acres. In the early ‘90s, the Yukon Gold-1 exploration found oil there along the Canning River, which forms the western boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Further 3D seismic mapping in 2018 estimated a resource of 90 million barrels of oil equivalent.

However, ANWR exploration is no longer in the company’s sights.

Of the twenty-two leases offered in the ANWR sale, nine winning bids came from the state-backed Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority,

A Texas-based subsidiary of 88 Energy, Regenerate Alaska, paid $771,000 for Tract 29, a 23,400-acre sliver of land on the Canning River’s opposite bank during the first—and so far only—ANWR lease sale in January 2021, in the waning days of the Trump administration. However, ANWR exploration is no longer in the company’s sights.

paying the minimum $25 per acre. One lease went to Knik Arm Services, a Texasbased company managed by an Alaskan, Mark Graber, who says he considers the purchase a future investment.

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ICEWINE

The forty-year debate over ANWR development has made it a toxic topic for risk-averse corporations. No explanation for 88 Energy’s withdrawal was given, beyond an initial statement after the lease sale that future exploration would be subject to discussion with other parties. However, steering clear

Even for the North Slope, though, 88 Energy is oriented Down Under, working on units far to the south of most other operators. Its portfolio spans 440,000 net acres of the central North Slope region and into the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, on land leased both from the state and federal governments.

2022, Regenerate Alaska asked the US Department of the Interior to rescind the lease, and the Bureau of Land Management refunded the company’s bonus bid and lease rental payments.

Not alone in backtracking, 88 Energy and its subsidiary were following the lead, in a way, of Hilcorp and Chevron, which both gave up ANWR leases last year. They didn’t receive a refund, though; those legacy leases were on Native land owned by Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, and the companies reportedly paid a $10 million “breakage fee.” Chevron had been a lease operator on 90,000 acres of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation land within ANWR since 1984, drilling the KIC-1 well in the late ‘80s in cooperation with BP. The legacy lease was one of the assets that Hilcorp took over from BP in late 2020.

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UMIAT

PEREGRINE

YUKON

opportunity, though. A ruling in the state’s favor would eject Tract 29 from ANWR, allowing state authorities to offer the tract in a future lease sale. If that happens, 88 Energy or its subsidiary could grab it again.

The land is currently subject to an ownership dispute between the State of Alaska and the federal government. In 2016, the state claimed that it owns the east bank of the Canning River and that the ANWR boundary is supposed to be the Staines River, several miles away, forming the opposite side of Tract 29. The US Board of Land Appeals rejected the claim in 2020, but the state is appealing that decision in federal court.

At the Peregrine project in NPR-A, 88 Energy began drilling its Merlin-2 well in March, targeting 652 million barrels. Drilling stopped at a total depth of 7,334 feet, penetrating all three targeted reservoirs. The company reports elevated gas readings and oil shows. The next step is to confirm the presence of an extractable hydrocarbon discovery from the well.

At its annual shareholder meeting in May, 88 Energy touted Longhorn as a “low-capital, rapid payback investment,” supplying a trickle of cashflow to pay for future business activities. Those focus areas for the coming year are in Alaska, unlocking the potential at Icewine and continued assessment of unexplored potential at Peregrine, Umiat, and Yukon. Company managers even have an eye open for opportunities to grow and diversify the existing portfolio.

From its headquarters in Subiaco, a suburb of Perth, 88 Energy operates sixteen hours ahead of the Alaska time zone. When Alaskans are having dinner, it’s tomorrow morning in Australia. And while Alaskans sleep, the Australian company is busy thinking of ways to cash in on its Alaska dreams.

Projects and Plans

That baggage was public knowledge at the time of the ANWR lease sale, so it likely wasn’t a cause of 88 Energy’s retreat. The dispute does pose an

In the meantime, the exit from ANWR hardly ended 88 Energy’s activity on the North Slope. In May, the company announced that third-party evaluation of mapping at Icewine East was complete. The mapping is partly based on wells drilled in neighboring acreage by Pantheon Resources. In late June, 88 Energy signed a licensing agreement with SAExploration to study the survey company’s seismic data for the area, paid with $1 million worth of shares of the company. A new exploration well is planned for 2023.

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Tract 29 may yet make a matched set with 88 Energy’s Yukon leases, but not as part of ANWR.

of controversy is consistent with 88 Energy’s stated commitment to the World Economic Forum’s reporting framework for Environment, Social, and Governance policies. The company pledges to work for sustainable water consumption, for example, and offsets for carbon emissions, so avoiding a designated wildlife refuge is consistent with that messaging.

With its emphasis on exploration and proving up assets, 88 Energy is barely an oil producer. The only crude being pumped comes from its Longhorn project in the Permian Basin of Texas, the one area where 88 Energy is looking beyond Alaska. That project was acquired in February 2022 and has grown to 650 barrels of oil per day equivalent.

WITHOUTDAYS A COMPWORKERSCLAIM The Uncanny Ex-Mod A single factor to control workers' comp costs

By Sean Dewalt

86 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com SAFETY CORNER

Part of determining how much premium an insurance carrier will require for a workers’ comp policy is the Experience Rating Modification Factor, or Ex-Mod. Insurance carriers use ExMod to describe both past injuries and future risk, which allows carriers to calculate premiums based not only on industry average experience but on each business' unique operations. This mathematical equation is complicated and often misunderstood but can be

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W

orkers’ compensation has existed in Alaska since 1915, but it was not until 1946 that it became compulsory in the state. Workers’ compensation insurance generally gives employers immunity from lawsuits in exchange for covering their employees’ medical costs, missed work, and other expenses related to on-the-job injuries. The employee is not required to prove fault to collect. These no-fault social contracts made the employer liable for work-related injuries and disease regardless of fault.

Ex-Mod Factors

How the Ex-Mod Affects Workers’ Comp Premiums

$100,000 0.75 $75,000

$100,000 1.25 $125,000

Mod on a business’ bottom line. This is helpful in larger companies where owners and managers are ready to work closely together to understand how incident rates drive the Ex-Mod up or down—and how best to implement changes that will drive (or keep) rates down. This is especially useful when a business has a profit-sharing program, where direct savings have tangible results. The Ex-Mod directly affects the premium credit or premium debit assessment that, in turn, affects the cost of insurance. And since the loss experience stays with business for three years, or what is known as the “experience rating period,” it is paramount that officers and managers comprehend how this factor can greatly change how much is paid that year for workers’ comp insurance—and how important it is to work as a team to reduce incidents.

Premium Ex Mod PremiumModified

The sense of trust between an employee and their employer is a key factor in the outcome of a workers’ comp and this trust is affected an injury is

The simple answer is by controlling exposures that pose a danger to workers. The fewer workers’ compensation claims a business has, the better the Ex-Mod is going to be. Any task that employees are instructed to do on behalf of the business should have a safety plan, hazard analysis, and formal training to protect those employees from hazards they may encounter. While this might sound simplistic, safety is often much more complicated than just hiring a skilled, competent person and giving that person personal protective equipment. Humans are inherently error-prone, and unexpected consequences can strike even the best, most safetyconscious companies. Diligence is key for this Anotherapproach.strategy to reduce the frequency of injuries is to team up with the insurance carrier to assess loss trends and then specifically target the leading causes of loss. Insurance carriers often have loss control professionals that can create a risk treatment plan customized to a business’s needs. Often these services are free. The business and the insurance carrier (along with the insurance broker) are all partners in risk, after all, and the insurance carrier wants to help the business improve the overall safety of their insured’s operations. This shared goal often reduces risks and improves the safety culture the fastest.

One more option is to train management on the effects of the Ex-

$100,000 0.5 $50,000

best described using this formula: experience modification equals actual losses divided by expected losses.

Another time-tested and true tool is claims management. This is a multiple-step approach that starts with reporting the claim as soon as it happens. The longer the claim goes unreported, the higher the probability is that it will cost more. This is due to any number of reasons, but the ones that stand out most are the safety factor and the trust factor. A claim that is reported and properly investigated for root cause(s) in the first three days can often correct the hazard and reduce the future risks to other workers. In addition, the sense of trust between an employee and their employer is a

$100,000 (industry1.0average) $100,000

Since 1947, Alaska has been a member of the National Council of Compensation Insurance (NCCI), which gathers data, analyzes industry trends, and prepares objective insurance rate and loss cost recommendations to insurance carriers. NCCI also creates individual Ex-Mods based on several factors including the payroll of the business, a loss analysis over the last three years, and the class codes for the work being performed. So how can employers reduce these costs?

claim,

if

not improperly.processaboutdrop,havecanpromptly.addressedWorkersfeelleftout,amoraleandworrytheclaimifhandled 88 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

The last strategy to reduce the ExMod is implement a return-to-work program. These programs can help an employee stay at work while recovering from their illness or injury. The benefits for the employee socialtocontributionofwork,toexpeditedearnings,maintainingincludefullanreturnpre-injurymaintainingskills,andthethepositiveaspects

Time magazine has the "Person of the Year," Fortune has the "Fortune 500," and People magazine has "The Sexiest Man Alive." These famous magazines roll out their versions of the "Best" each year. In 1985 Alaska Business featured the first cohort of the Top 49ers, the top forty-nine Alaska-operated businesses based on reported (gross) revenue.

The dog days of an Alaska summer in August is the perfect time to plan your ad efforts in this October's Top 49ers issue of Alaska Business. Get in contact with your account manager and discuss placement options. The October issue's deadline for reserving ad space is August 22, and the ad copy is due August 29. Don't miss the opportunity for your business to share a page with some of Alaska’s largest industry leaders.

Standout Advertising in an Outstanding Magazine The Annual Top 49ers Edition of Alaska Business

key factor in the outcome of a workers’ comp claim, and this trust is affected if an injury is not addressed promptly.

In contrast, Loss Time Incidents have no adjustment in place.

Sean Dewalt is a Senior Loss Control Consultant for Umialik Insurance Company in Anchorage. Dewalt has been working in safety and risk management in Alaska since 2000. The author wishes to acknowledge the State of Alaska Divisions of Insurance and Workers’ Compensation for providing historical dates and information for this article.

Giant-Sized Improvement

It is important to note that in many NCCI states—Alaska included—the Experience Rating Adjustment plan is in place, which allows for a 70 percent reduction in the reportable amount of medical-only claims. These are claims where there has been no payment to the worker for lost time, only for medical expenses. This gives employers an incentive to report all claims to their insurance carrier rather than trying to pay for medical-only claims out of pocket. Discounting medical-only claims in the experience modifier calculation greatly reduces the impact of medical-only claims on the modifier.

exceptional reach with their print ads in October. It's not uncommon for our readership to exceed 50,000+ with the October issue. Further, the Top 49ers issue gets bonus distribution at business and industry events like the Alaska Miners Association convention, the RDC fall conference, and the AGC of Alaska annual convention. Your advertising stands out firmly in this outstanding issue with significant reach and added distribution.

The Top 49ers is more than a glorified list of factoids. It is a collection of company-submitted data about the state's biggest home-grown businesses. Being a member of the Top 49ers is a fiscal feather in the business cap since the rankings are based on gross revenue. A smart marketing strategy is to align your advertising with

Statistics show that early reporting of injuries decreases claims costs and helps prevent injury exacerbation, and the worker receives better medical care. It can also reduce the chances of an injured worker “lawyering-up.” By law in Alaska, businesses are required to report injuries within ten days.

Workers can feel left out, have a morale drop, and worry about the claim process if handled improperly.

For years Alaska had the highest workers’ comp costs in the nation. That is changing due to an increase in safety and claims management, and as of 2020 Alaska has moved to 10th in the United States. “Reports of injury and occupational illness continue to decrease from a high in 2015,” Alaska Division of Workers’ Compensation Director Charles Collins said in a January 2021 press release. “This is good for workers, good for employers, and good for the economy.”

solid content devoted to these awardwinning businesses.

JANIS PLUME janis@akbizmag.com907-257-2917

By Janis Plume, Senior Account Manager

Almost thirty-seven years later, Alaska's premier business magazine consistently draws interest from readers month after month, but like any living entity, the publishing year has an ebb and flow. As we transition from a frantic period of summer activity to regroup in autumn, our readers’ interest seems to reach a zenith with our October issue. The Top 49ers issue is our biggest and most widely read edition of the year. Our advertisers can count on

This really is the bottom line: enhancing worker safety and decreasing risk for all Alaskans. And it saves everyone money, as well.

that working with others brings. For employers, return-to-work increases productivity, reduces administrative costs for substituting workers or paying overtime, and better controls claims costs, to name a few advantages. And since claims costs drive part of the Ex-Mod, this important tool should be part of any employer’s policies. It is best to work with the insurance carrier to formulate and implement these programs.

- SPONSORED CONTENTwww.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 89

Source:7/1/2022Alaska Department of Natural Resources

Stantec

362,600 labor force

449,917 barrels

Statewide Employment

4.7% unemployment 5/1/2022. Adjusted seasonally.

isAnchorageinforredevelopmentLong-plannedBlock41downtownunderway.

Peach Holdings

anchorage/ontheborder.com/locations/

The US Army Corps of Engineers –Alaska District selected Stantec to provide architecture and engineering design services for a five-year civil works contract. The $18 million contract covers village relocation, storm protection, and ecosystem restoration. Stantec—based in Edmonton, Alberta and with offices in Anchorage, Wasilla, and Fairbanks— recently completed the Buskin Waterline Replacement for the US Coast Guard’s Kodiak Station. stantec.com

Anchorage Community Land Trust

Peach Holdings, which owns the 4th Avenue Theater and most of the adjacent properties, obtained permits for demolition this summer. Plans call for a $200 million, multi-use complex. Peach Holdings pledges to reconstruct the historic exterior of the 4th Avenue Theater using modern materials while also preserving the interior artwork.

of their own. ACLT used a $15,000 donation from GCI to buy the truck, which is permanently stationed at the organization’s Grow North Farm in Anchorage’s Mountain View neighborhood. The food truck serves Grow North Farm and ACLT’s Set Up Shop program as an incubator for early-stage food businesses. anchoragelandtrust.org

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved a proposal by Chugach Electric Association to adjust the tariff for electric vehicle (EV) fast charging. With the tariff approval, EV charging station owners can now set prices for the electricity dispensed without incurring a penalty for high demand when chargers pour juice into batteries. chugachelectric.com

On the Border

$113.96 per barrel

The owner of Sourdough Mining Company and other Anchorage restaurants is branching out to TexMex cuisine. Jack Lewis partnered with On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, a worldwide casual dining brand, to bring a location to the Tikahtnu Commons shopping center in Muldoon. The restaurant held a grand opening in mid-June.

Budding culinary business owners have a new platform to test their menus. The Anchorage Community Land Trust (ACLT) purchased a food truck where entrepreneurs can learn the ins and outs of cooking on a line in a timely manner without the financial risk of owning a vehicle

Source:6/30/2022Alaska Department of Natural Resources

The 2022 Craft Beer Marketing Awards recognized two Alaska breweries for excellence in branding. Juneau-based Alaskan Brewing Co. won a Platinum Crushie for best can design, a 12-oz Island Ale illustrated with a puffin, and a Gold prize in the same category for a pilsner decorated with a blue and green offroad Jeep, both courtesy of Launch Beverage Consulting of St. Louis. Anchoragebased 49th State Brewing won three Gold Crushies for best 32-oz can design, best brand identity via printed “sell sheets,” and best all-around marketing story, which includes the logo, packaging, website, and merchandise designed by Creature Theory of North Carolina. alaskanbeer.com | 49statebrewing.com

Production has begun at another satellite of ConocoPhillips’ Alpine field. The company announced in May that crude began flowing from Fiord West Kuparuk in the Colville River Unit on state land just east of the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska. Doyon Drilling’s rig, nicknamed “The Beast,” set a record for extended-reach drilling of 35,526 feet when it drilled the well a month earlier. The company estimates peak output of 20,000 barrels per day. alaska.conocophillips.com

Providence Alaska

Alaskan Brewing | 49th State Brewing

ANS Crude Oil Production

INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS

Inlet Tribal Council will operate the facility, largely funded by state and federal grants. The project is part of the Anchored Home strategic plan to solve homelessness in the city. providence.org

Construction is underway on permanent supportive housing for homeless elders in Anchorage. Providence Alaska donated a vacant lot in Midtown across the street from its St. Elias Specialty Hospital. When completed in August 2023, Providence Alaska House will have studio apartments for fifty-one residents, plus on-site wrap-around services. Southcentral Foundation and Cook

-7.2% change from previous month

ANS West Coast Crude Oil Prices

ConocoPhillips Alaska

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

ChugachAssociationElectric

90 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

Perkins&Will

-7.7% change from previous month

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Committed to the Alaska Spirit 92 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com RIGHT MOVES IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY NORTHERN AIR CARGO RIGHT

Galan

 Stephanie Love is promoted to Associate MOVES

 “Peter Pan is in a growth mode,” says Mike Galan, the seafood company’s new Chief Financial Officer. In his role, he is focusing on implementing finance and accounting processes that will aid the company in its efforts to produce more value-added products and make the best use of Alaska’s wild seafood resources. His twenty years of experience includes time at Trident Seafoods, Weyerhaeuser Company, and Hartung Glass.

Jaime Kissner becomes Vice President, Loan Officer V at the Juneau Financial Center. Kissner has been with Northrim since 2019. He has seventeen years of experience in the industry and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northwestern State University in Louisiana.

of Foss and TOTE, as a senior financial analyst.

TOTE Maritime Alaska

 Lawrence Gluck is promoted to Vice President, Loan QA Officer. Gluck started at Northrim in 2015. He has thirty-five years in commercial banking and credit administration and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.

DahlinBrower

 A board member of Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation (UIC) is promoted to President and CEO. Dr. Pearl K. Brower has served on the UIC board of directors since June 2021. She was also president of Iļisaġvik College for eight years between 2007 and 2020. Brower obtained a double bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Alaska Native studies, a master’s degree in Alaska Native and rural development, and a PhD in indigenous studies with an emphasis in indigenous leadership, all from UAF. She also received an associate of arts degree in Iñupiaq studies from Iļisaġvik College in 2018. Prior to this work, she ran her own consulting business focused on strategic planning and leadership development.

Peter Pan Seafood Company

Northrim Bank promoted several members of its team and added new hires.

 TOTE Maritime Alaska has a new Vice President and General Manager. Art Dahlin is now responsible for the company’s Alaska-based operations, taking over for Alex Hofeling, who was promoted to company president last November. Dahlin comes from TOTE’s sister company, Foss Maritime, where he served as general manager in Portland, Oregon. Dahlin earned an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. His bachelor’s degree in logistics and intermodal transportation is from the US Merchant Marine Academy in 2007. He sailed as a relief captain until he was hired in 2013 by Saltchuk, the parent company

Byrne joined Northrim in 2020. He has twenty-four years of experience and a bachelor’s degree in history from UAA.

Northrim Bank

 Mhay Sy is now Senior Vice President, Special Credits and Loan Servicing Manager. Sy joined Northrim in 2007. She has twenty-three years of experience in the banking industry and a bachelor’s degree from the Philippines.

 Angela Bradford becomes Vice President, Community Development and Loan Compliance Manager. Bradford has been with Northrim since 2014 and has twenty years of experience in banking.

UkpeaġvikCorporationIñupiat

 Mark Anderson is promoted to Vice President, Lending Branch Manager at the Kodiak Loan Production office. Anderson started at Northrim in 2020. He has twenty-five years of experience and a bachelor’s degree in speech communication.

 David Byrne is now Vice President, Loan Officer V at the Juneau Financial Center.

Judy Schnese is now Vice President, Audit Manager. Schnese started at Northrim in 2009. She has thirty-three years of experience and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.

 Rodlynn Smallwood is promoted to Vice President, Operations Support Manager. Smallwood has been with Northrim since 2006 and has twenty-eight years of experience in the industry.

 Kendra Loges is now Associate Vice President, Electronic Channel Applications Manager. Loges started at Northrim Bank in 2001 and received the Northrim Bank President’s Award in 2018.

 Catherine Hsieh becomes Associate Vice President, Senior Accountant–Home Mortgage Lending. Hsieh joined Northrim in 2017. She holds a master’s degree in marketing from Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane and an Advanced Accounting certificate from Santa Clara University in California.

Coffman Engineers

 An environmental engineer at Nortech passed the Principles of Engineering exam to earn a Professional Environmental Engineering license from the State of Alaska. Mikkel Foltmar graduated from the Technical University of Denmark with a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. At Nortech, Foltmar is responsible for public water system engineering design and review, sanitary surveys, hazardous material investigations, site assessments, and contingency plan scenario development.

 Alaska Communications hired accountant Kelley Harper as Vice President of Finance and Controller, overseeing all accounting functions for the telecom company. She has twenty-five years of experience in finance, accounting, budgeting, and strategic planning.

For more information, please visit us at www.nac .aero.

Coffman Engineers promoted two colleagues in the Anchorage office to the role of Principal.

industrial projects, including petroleum facilities, liquified natural gas facilities, refineries, and terminals. Wasserman earned a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from the University of Wyoming and joined Coffman in 2017.

Nvision Architecture

Northern Air Cargo is committed to getting your cargo where it needs to be, on time, so you can worry about what really matters.

 New to Northrim is Casey Campbell, hired as Vice President, Loan Officer IV–Commercial. Campbell has six years

 Sarah Maycock becomes Associate Vice President, Electronic Banking Support Manager. Maycock joined Northrim in 2018. She has fourteen years of experience in finance and a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

Vice President, Marketing and Sales Manager. Love has been with Northrim since 2016. She has more than eighteen years of experience in the industry and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Maine.

Nortech

architect. In addition to highperformance contemporary design, Bernier provides historic preservation and actively works to save cultural resources across Alaska.

 Kaulen Pevan is promoted to Loan Officer II at the Wasilla Financial Center. Pevan has been with Northrim since 2019. He has seven years of experience and holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a marketing concentration from the University of Saint Mary in Kansas.

SmithWasserman

Alaska Communications

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 93

Jim Hansen started with Nvision thirty years ago. He started as a drafter with Nvision and has since provided successful project management with multiple clients across the state. His experience and understanding of architecture have come through hands-on experience in both design and construction along with the oversight and teaching of architects on the Nvision team.

HarperBernierHansenFoltmar

 Eric Hamilton is also new to Northrim, coming aboard as Associate Vice President, Loan Officer IV–Commercial Real Estate. Hamilton has worked the last twelve years in financial services. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Concordia University in Oregon.

lending experience in commercial and real estate lending. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Central Washington University.

 Nicole Mariman is now Associate Vice President, Operations Support Assistant Manager. Mariman joined Northrim in 2000 and has twenty-four years of experience in banking.

 Kristen Bush is now a Loan Review Officer. Bush joined Northrim in 2016. She has twenty-one years of experience in the banking industry and an associate degree in occupational safety and health from UAA.

 Tze Ming Teoh becomes Associate Vice President, Cybersecurity Program Manager. Teoh started at Northrim in 2020. He has more than ten years of experience in information security and technology risk management and a master’s degree in technology entrepreneurship.

 Nicholai Smith is an electrical engineer, leading the electrical department for key oil and gas clients. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wyoming and started with Coffman in 2010.

 Ian Sikeo is promoted to Associate Vice President, Branch Manager. Sikeo came to Northrim in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a minor in computer science from Charter College.

 The other new principal in Anchorage is Rob Wasserman, a project Wassermanandprofessionalmanagementandcivilstructuralengineer.specializesin

Two veterans of Nvision Architecture are being promoted to Associate Principal. Jobe Bernier grew up in Chugiak as a fourth generation Alaskan. He started as a drafter with Nvision and left Alaska to complete his master’s degree in Montana. He returned to Nvision as a licensed

94 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com ALASKA

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the membership rate in 2021 was 15.8 percent, down from 17.7 percent in 2020. (The percentage of workers represented by unions, not just card-carrying, dues-paying members, dropped from 19.5 percent to 17.2 percent.) That’s still above the national average; Alaska has had higher unionization than average since the bureau began keeping records in 1989. Union affiliation peaked in 2002 at 24.4 percent and has dropped ever since.

UnitedBrotherhoodofCarpenters&Joiners-2520PiledriversLocalUnion UnitedAssociation-262PPF

AmericanFederationofGovernmentEmployees183LocalAFGE

U

In this month’s Alaska Trends, we look at a cross-section of unions and how they vary in size, measured by their annual revenue. See which organizations loom large and which are doing their jobs on a smaller scale.

nion members are all around us. Us, meaning the staff of Alaska Business, since our offices are downstairs from a labor union, which happens to be our landlord. Every other Alaskan can look to their right, to their left, and in three other directions, and if they don’t see the union member standing next to them, then they probably are one.

InternationalLongshore&WarehouseUnion-222Unit

OperativePlasterers'andCementMasons'InternationalAssociation-867PCM

AmericanFederationofTeachers-4900AlaskaPublicEmployeesAssociation SmartUnion-23SM -CIOAFL-CouncilofSouthCentralAlaska -CIOAFL-FairbanksCentralLaborCouncil -CIOAFL-GreaterAnchorageCLC

Unions in Alaska

193519851980199019701960195019401975196519551945YearEstablished

UnitedBrotherhoodofCarpenters&Joiners-1281BCJ

Laborers'InternationalUnionofNorthAmerica-0942LocalUnion UnitedAssociation-375PPF AlaskaLaborersLocal341

Despite the decline, Alaska still had the 4th highest union membership rate of any state as of 2020. Only Hawaii, New York, and Rhode Island were higher. After the pandemic year, Alaska slipped behind California, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington— and just ahead of Rhode Island—for 8th place in Whether2021.that trend is positive or negative is left to the reader to judge. Suffice to say the decline has been somewhat steeper than the national trend, which has seen a much more gradual drop in union membership rates over the last decade.

AmericanFederationofGovernmentEmployees-1101AFGELocal

NationalAssociationofLetterCarriersBranch4319

InternationalAssociationofBridgeStructuralandReinforcingIronworkersUnion751 -CIOAFL-AlaskaState

That is, about one-sixth of wage and salary workers in Alaska are represented by a union, though that figure is going down.

Source: bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/unionmembership_alaska.htmlwww.causeiq.com/directory/unions-list/alaska-state

UniteHereLocal878

InternationalAssociationofMachinistsandAerospaceWorkers-601

A sampling of unions in Alaska, sorted by revenue, location & year founded TRENDS

AlaskaLaborersPublicEmployeesLocal71BuildingAssociation

InternationalBrotherhoodofElectricalWorkers-1547LocalUnion UnitedAssociation-367PPF

AFL-CIO-JuneauCentralLaborCouncilAFL-CIO

Alaska has 113 labor unions

InternationalLongshoreandWarehouseUnion Laborers'InternationalUnionofNorthAmerica-71AlaskaPublicServiceEmployees

DotPCSFKJuneauJBERAnchorageodiakairbanksewardordovaalmersizedetermind by revenue last reported to the IRS.

-CIOAFL-GreaterAnchorageCLC

InternationalAssociationofFireFighters-L1324Fairbanks UnitedBrotherhoodofCarpenters&Joiners-1243BCJ

SewardLongshoremensBenevolentAssociation

-CIOAFL-AlaskaState

-CIOAFL-CouncilofSouthCentralAlaska

ClassifiedEmployeesAssociationofMatSu

Alaska has 46K union members

AmericanPostalWorkersUnion995996MidnightSunAreaLocal AnchorageIndependentLongshoreUnionLocal1

LIUNA-AlaskaStateCouncilofLaborers PublicSafetyEmployeesAssociation CordovaDistrictFishermenUnited(CDFU) EducationSupportStaAssociation MatanuskaSusitnaEducationAssociation

AmericanFederationofTeachers-4425AnchorageCouncilofEducation

UnitedFood&CommercialWorkersUnion-1496Local AnchorageEducationAssociation JuneauEducationAssociation

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 95

InternationalAssociationofFireFighters-L1264Anchorage

ConstructionandGeneralLaborersUnionBuildingAssociation NEAAlaska

AlaskaStateEmployeesAssociationLocal52(AFSCMELocal52)

AmericanFederationofTeachers-4900AlaskaPublicEmployeesAssociation SmartUnion-23SM

-CIOAFL-FairbanksCentralLaborCouncil

DOTS

What vacation spot is on your bucket list? Savannah, Georgia.

96 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com

TaskerKerry

What charity or cause are you passionate about? Local food banks, Covenant House Alaska.

TaskerKerry©

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

Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

Dead or alive, who would you like to see perform live in concert? Nirvana.

What book is currently on your nightstand?

AT A GLANCE

Mortensen: Loyalty is my best attribute, and my worst attribute is probably that I talk too much [he laughs].

Mortensen: Naval aviator. I was just in Annapolis… and I was so impressed by these young people in their midshipman’s uniforms, the history there. It was super impressive.

AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?

www.akbizmag.com Alaska Business August 2022 | 97

Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time? Mike Mortensen: I love to spend time at the gym. Physical fitness is my go-to thing... In the wintertime, I spend a lot of time with my wife playing golf in the Phoenix area.

AB: What’s your greatest extravagance?

OFF THE CUFF

AB: Is there anything you’re superstitious about?

From pulling hoses and building orders to flying out to the Bush to splice conveyor belts, Mortensen worked his way up to COO when the company expanded to Washington and Oregon in 2013, through the acquisition of Arctic Wire Rope & Supply in 2020. He became chief executive when longtime president and CEO Janeece Higgins retired in 2021.

Mortensen says he’s passionate about creating opportunity for everyone who wants it, just as he was given.

As for rubber: “That’s a weird smell, but I don’t smell it anymore.”

Mike Mortensen

Mortensen: I just re-engaged with learning guitar again after twenty years. After a long day at work, I’m trying to learn some guitar chords.

Mortensen: I’m not a real outdoorsman, sleep on the ground, hike, carry a pack… [but] last summer I took fifteen young men, ages 11 to 17, and we did Crow Pass in three days.

AB: What’s your favorite local restaurant? Mortensen: Haute Quarter Grill.

Mortensen: I have a drift boat and a powerboat, so yeah. Now, they’re co-owned! I have a buddy and we own ‘em together... The Kenai River is my zen place... I like to go trout fishing in the fall.

A

AB: Other than your current career, if you were a kid today, what would your dream job be?

AB: What does it take to be successful in what you do?

Mortensen: Hard work, determination, and getting up every day and taking yourthatopportunitiesthecomeway.

dvancing from delivery driver to CEO might seem like a stretch, but then again, stretchy is Alaska Rubber Group’s middle name. Mike Mortensen started working for the Anchorage-based industrial supplier in 1994 during a break from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—a break that became permanent when he decided to stay in Alaska for love.

AB: What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?

Mortensen: Every time I walk on an airplane, I always tap the door, the side of the doorframe.

AB: What’s your best attribute and worst attribute?

Alaska Pacific University 71 alaskapacific.edu

Lynden.................................................... 100 lynden.com

HC Contractors ....................................... 21 hccontractors.net

ConocoPhillips 49 alaska.conocophillips.com

Northern Air Cargo ............................ 92, 93 nac.aero

C & R Pipe and Steel, Inc 33 crpipeandsteel.com

Coffman Engineers 59 coffman.com

Bob's Services, Inc. 35 bobsservices.com

Alaska School Activities Association 19 asaa.org

Parker, Smith & Feek 9 psfinc.com

MT Housing Inc. 33 mthousing.net

Donlin Gold ............................................. 78 donlingold.com

Petro Marine Services 41 petromarineservices.com

Alaska Air Cargo - Alaska Airlines...............7 alaskacargo.com

Credit Union 1 .......................................... 13 cu1.org

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MOVING AND GROOVING CONTENT... Our digital edition features expanded, coverage and interactive data. ourreadtoScan editioncurrent ...AVAILABLE IN THE DIGITAL EDITION! 98 | August 2022 Alaska Business www.akbizmag.com ADVERTISERS INDEX

Stellar Designs Inc 12 stellar-designs.com

Udelhoven Oilfield System Services, Inc 39 udelhoven.com

Odyssey Logistics & Technology Corp. .. 63 odysseylogistics.com

Crowley Fuels 75 crowley.com

Resolve Marine ........................................ 84 resolvemarine.com

Business Insurance Associates Inc 39 businessinsuranceassociates.com

3-Tier Alaska ............................................ 61 3tieralaska.com/tpeci.com

Central Environmental Inc 27 cei-alaska.com

UA Local 375 Plumbers & Pipefitters ...... 69 ualocal375.org

First National Bank Alaska 5 fnbalaska.com

Alaska Railroad 51 akrr.com

Usibelli Coal Mine .................................... 79 usibelli.com

Afognak Leasing, LLC .............................. 85 afognakleasing.com

Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. 23 kiewit.com

Nortech Environmental & Engineering ... 65 nortechengr.com

Material Flow & Conveyor Systems, Inc. ............................................ 26 materialflow.com

New Horizons Telecom, Inc. ................... 72 nhtiusa.com

AT&T 15 att.com

Conrad-Houston Insurance Agency....... 12 chialaska.com

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Great Originals Inc....................................11 greatoriginals.com

Pacific Pile & Marine ................................ 91 pacificpile.com

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T. Rowe Price 3 alaska529plan.com

The Plans Room 71 theplansroom.com

Craig Taylor Equipment ........................... 37 craigtaylorequipment.com

Span Alaska Transportation LLC.............. 20 spanalaska.com

Davis Constructors & Engineers Inc ....... 59 davisconstructors.com

Oxford Assaying & Refining Inc 81 oxfordmetals.com

Bering Straits Native Corp 53 beringstraits.com

Construction Machinery Industrial ........... 2 cmiak.com

Afognak Leasing, LLC .............................. 25 afognakleasing.com

Subway of Alaska 29 subwayak.com/

Alaska Dreams Inc ................................... 66

Tutka, LLC................................................. 73 tutkallc.com

Nenana Heating Services, Inc ................. 87 nenanaheatingservicesinc.com

Dorsey & Whitney LLP ............................. 67 dorsey.com

Davis Block & Concrete ........................... 35 davisblock.com

Matson Inc. .............................................. 55 matson.com

Nu Flow Alaska......................................... 83 nuflowalaska.com

Willscot 60 willscot.com

Airport Equipment Rentals ...................... 99 airportequipmentrentals.com

Cook Inlet Tug & Barge Inc ..................... 87 cookinlettug.com

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Alaska!

Thank you to our friends, neighbors, and valued customers for your ongoing support and partnership, and special thanks to each of our dedicated employees for their continued care, expertise, and ingenuity as we all work together to keep Alaska moving. We look forward to continuing to serve our communities by providing multi-modal transportation and logistics solutions across the entire state!

Thank You