Alaska Business Monthly March 2014

BUILDING ALASKA | PACIFIC NW-ALASKA CONNECTION | NATIVE CORPORATIONS ECONOMIC IMPACT

March 2014

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March 2014 TA BLE OF CONTENTS DEPARTMENTS From the Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Inside Alaska Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Right Moves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Agenda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Alaska This Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Events Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 What’s Next? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Market Squares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Alaska Trends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Ad Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

ABOUT THE COVER Four-time Iditarod winner Martin Buser and a key member of his team, ready for the Iditarod.

Corporate logos of some of his sponsors adorn Buser’s parka. The Last Great Race on Earth is made possible by corporate sponsors, along with fans and volunteers (page 10).

Photo © Chris Arend

ARTICLES

VIEW FROM THE TOP

8 | Carrie Lindow, President ChemTrack Alaska, Inc. Compiled by Tasha Anderson

VISITOR INDUSTRY

10 | Corporate Sponsors of the Iditarod Ensuring the Last Great Race goes on

By Vanessa Orr

10

© Joshua Borough

© Chris Arend Photography

16

Spruce Park Auto Body on Dowling in Anchorage.

SERVICES

16 | Head-On Change Spruce Park Auto Body meets new challenges sweeping collision repair industry

By Wesley Loy

44

INSURANCE

20 | Business Insurance Must-Haves Protecting companies from risks

By Tracy Barbour

TRANSPORTATION

Courtesy of © 2013 schultzphoto.com

Sponsors help to keep the Iditarod, an Alaskan tradition, going. Race start in Anchorage, March 2013.

4

26 | Rural Cargo & Passenger Options Transportation off the road system in Alaska

By Susan Harrington

HR MATTERS

43 | Are we really on the same page?

By Kevin M. Dee

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

© ASRC Energy Services

ASRC Energy Services welder.

OIL & GAS

44 | ASRC Energy Services and Oilfield Module Fabrication Synonymous with resource development infrastructure

By Tom Anderson www.akbizmag.com

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March 2014 TA BLE OF CONTENTS special section

special section

Pacific NW-Alaska Connection

Building Alaska

32 | A Closer Look at the Pacific NW-Alaska Connection Human resources and transportation dominate

By Tasha Anderson

70

38 | Alaska Rubber and Jackovich Industrial Acquisitioning the future for Alaska and the Northwest

By Julie Stricker Photo by Brian Schlumbohm/Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office

ARTICLES

50

© Exxon Mobil Corporation

Point Thomson.

50 | New North Slope Infrastructure Critical to oil and gas industry development

By Mike Bradner

60 | Alaska’s Construction Spending Forecast for 2014 Annual Report for the Construction Industry Progress Fund and the Associated General Contractors of Alaska

By Scott Goldsmith, Marry Killorin, and Linda Leask 70 | Construction in Interior Alaska Expecting to fare well, depending on funding

By Julie Stricker

74

FINANCIAL SERVICES

54 | Construction Financing Facilitates More Affordable Housing and Office Space in Alaska

By Tracy Barbour

ALASKA NATIVE CORPORATIONS

99 | The Economic Impact of Interior-based Alaska Native Organizations

TELECOM & TECHNOLOGY

103 | Apples to Androids Comparing and pairing devices for work

By Tasha Anderson

6

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

©ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc.

The CD5 development is being modeled after CD4, pictured here.

74 | Building Bridges: CD5 Creates Construction Jobs ConocoPhillips to use low-impact construction technique

By Gail West 78 | Crude Crossing Planned Cook Inlet subsea pipeline could eliminate risky oil tanker runs

By Wesley Loy

Photo courtesy of MWH

OIL & GAS

Busy trucks at Fort Wainwright construction site.

82 SA10 materials.

82 | Industrial Water & Wastewater: North Slope Borough’s Service Area 10 New treatment facility improves current operations and looks to the future

By Rindi White 88 | Alaska Business Monthly’s 2014 Construction Directory

Correction Because of an editing error, we incorrectly stated Karen Hagedorn’s name and title in “Point Thomson Construction: Proceeding on schedule” by Mike Bradner (page 50, December 2013). Karen Hagedorn is ExxonMobil’s Production Manager in Alaska. www.akbizmag.com

FROM THE EDITOR

and

Volume 30, Number 3 Published by Alaska Business Publishing Co. Anchorage, Alaska Vern C. McCorkle, Publisher 1991~2009

EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor Editorial Assistant Art Director Art Production Photo Consultant Photo Contributor

Susan Harrington Tasha Anderson David Geiger Linda Shogren Chris Arend Judy Patrick

Tip of the Iceberg

© Ron Sanford/AlaskaStock.com Tongass National Forest composite

Follow us on

BUSINESS STAFF President VP Sales & Mktg.

Senior Account Mgr. Account Mgr. Survey Administrator Accountant & Circulation

Jim Martin Charles Bell Anne Campbell Bill Morris Tasha Anderson Melinda Schwab

501 W. Northern Lights Boulevard, Suite 100 Anchorage, Alaska 99503-2577 (907) 276-4373 Outside Anchorage: 1-800-770-4373 Fax: (907) 279-2900 www.akbizmag.com Editorial email: editor@akbizmag.com Advertising email: materials@akbizmag.com Pacific Northwest Advertising Sales 1-800-770-4373 ALASKA BUSINESS PUBLISHING CO., INC. ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY (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; Fax: (907) 279-2900, ©2014, Alaska Business Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Subscription Rates: $39.95 a year. Single issues of the Power List are $15 each. Single issues of Alaska Business Monthly are $3.95 each; $4.95 for October, and back issues are $5 each.

Send subscription orders and address changes to the Circulation Department, Alaska Business Monthly, PO Box 241288, Anchorage, AK 99524. Please supply both old and new addresses and allow six weeks for change, or update online at www.akbizmag.com. Manuscripts: Send query letter to the Editor. Alaska Business Monthly is not responsible for unsolicited materials.

Photocopies: Where necessary, permission is granted by the copyright owner for libraries and others registered with Copyright Clearance Center to photocopy any article herein for $1.35 per copy. Send payments to CCC, 27 Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970. Copying done for other than personal or internal reference use without the expressed permission of Alaska Business Publishing Co., Inc. is prohibited. Address requests for specific permission to Managing Editor, Alaska Business Publishing. Online: Alaska Business Monthly is available at www.akbizmag.com/archives, www. thefreelibrary.com/Alaska+Business+Monthly-p2643 and from Thomson Gale. Microfi lm: Alaska Business Monthly is available on microfi lm from University Microfi lms International, 300 North Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

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T

his month’s coverage of the Pacific Northwest-Alaska Connection is just the tip of the iceberg. We are going to spend the next year gathering stories to tell about this topic in the 2015 special section. I’m thinking of little vignettes, spotlights on companies that have been here for years, like Odom, Osborne, and Oles, Morrison, Rinker, and Baker. Connections with communities like Bainbridge, Bellingham, and Blaine. Investments by companies headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, as well as Seattle and Portland. We’ll try to identify, locate, and quantify the goods and services, the give and take.

Just figuring out what constitutes the Pacific Northwest is a good starting point. Some federal agencies think Idaho and portions of Wyoming and Montana fit the definition, and while that definition certainly lends itself to more connections, regionally—and realistically—those Rocky Mountain states in the Northwest and West are not the Pacific Northwest. It gets confusing.

So we’ll attempt to unravel the definition and come up with our own set of boundaries. For now, I invite our readers to check out the tip of the iceberg and take a look at this year’s special section (page 30).

Another topic that is just the tip of the iceberg in this month’s magazine concerns the economic impact of Alaska Native Corporations. Finding comprehensive information for that topic was a tough one. We all know Alaska Native Corporations have a multi-billion dollar impact in Alaska. Finding ready statistics and data to enlighten people just how that impact pencils out is beyond difficult. However, not impossible, and we’ve presented regional coverage for the Interior (page 99).

We owe a special thank you to Doyon, Limited, along with the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Fairbanks Native Association, Interior Regional Housing Association, Denakkanaaga, Inc., and Jana Peirce at Information Insights, Inc. in Fairbanks for determining Interior-based Alaska Native organizations’ economic impact.

Don’t miss our Building Alaska special section (page 60), we were pleased to get the details on Alaska’s $9.2 billion construction spending forecast by press time. And that is just the tip of the iceberg for the March issue of Alaska Business Monthly. Once again, the team has put together a really great magazine. Enjoy!

—Susan Harrington, Managing Editor March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

7

View from the Top

Compiled by Tasha Anderson

Carrie Lindow, President ChemTrack Alaska, Inc.

C

arrie Lindow was born and raised in Anchorage.

An only child, she was raised by a father who she says “embodies the defi nition of an entrepreneur” and a mother who “believes in always asking ‘why.’” She left the state for college, attending the University of New Hampshire on a hockey scholarship.

After school, she returned to Alaska because of the opportunities that she saw available for young people in the state, including the ability for young professionals to quickly make an impact in their profession and community. Once back, she continued her education at the University of Alaska Anchorage, obtaining master’s degrees in business and project management.

Founded by Sig Jokiel in 1973, ChemTrack began as a construction company, and with the 1985 addition of Chuck Ronan, the company evolved to become an environmental services and engineering business as well. Lindow joined the company in 2002 and became a partner in 2008. In May 2010, she became the majority owner.

Lindow is president of the Anchorage-based ChemTrack Alaska, Inc., a GSA prequalifi ed Alaskan Woman Owned Small Business that specializes in construction, environmental engineering, and remediation services.

WORKING STRATEGIES: We have worked hard to get into our current work arena. We’ve had to cycle through down years as well as prepare for high volume seasons all while keeping a focus on remaining an authentic company that has purpose and cares for our people as well as our environment.

We overcame hurdles like slow work seasons by watching trends, looking for new markets to enter, researching, and then taking action when we see a good long-term fit that aligns with our core competencies.

INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN: In the spring of 2012 ChemTrack designed and built an Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation-approved bioswale system at the Delta Western gas station in Haines. The gas station had become a contaminated site after a subsurface fuel line leak was discovered in 2009. The bioswale design was selected due to the site’s proximity to a freshwater creek that is an anadromous fish habitat. This design provides separate migration pathways for the surface water and groundwater.

KEY PLAYERS: Everyone in the office plays a huge role in 8

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

© 2013 Chris Arend

our success. My partners Sig Jokiel and Chuck Ronan bring years of Alaska experience working in arctic and subarctic climates. Steven McCain and Imre Manyoky in the engineering department provide innovative solutions to unique challenges Alaska can present.

Our contract administrator, Jimi McAllen, keeps us all in line with her amazing organizational skills. Georgia Doerr, one of our environmental scientists, is a key player in planning our work and working our plan, and Jack Little, our controller, keeps us accountable for our job costs and overall financial management.

We have an exceptional, long-standing field crew of site superintendents, Dale Hirsch, Brian Davis, and Chris McDonnell, who consistently go above and beyond. We welcome new hire Kevin Duke to our team and look forward to learning from him.

I have a very supportive husband, Brock Lindow, who understands the demands of family and work while leaving room for fun and adventure. I also have an amazing four-year-old daughter who gives the best hugs, making any day a good day.

MATH AND LAUGHTER: Be authentic, sincere, straightforward, and hard working—all while keeping a sense of humor! Do your numbers. Yes, building it, designing it, dreaming about the color scheme, brand, name, etc. is the fun part, but if the numbers don’t make sense, the dream may not last long.  www.akbizmag.com

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VISITORS INDUSTRY

Courtesy of © 2013 schultzphoto.com

Corporate Sponsors of the Iditarod

Ensuring the Last Great Race goes on

By Vanessa Orr

F

Above: The Iditarod Trail Race start in Anchorage, March 2013.

Left: Martin Buser

© 2014 Chris Arend

or the past forty-one years, the Iditarod, also known as “The Last Great Race On Earth,” has been a tradition revered by Alaskans. The longdistance sled dog race, which winds from Anchorage to Nome, not only showcases the talents of mushers who battle hazardous weather conditions, dangerous obstacles, and sheer exhaustion, but serves as a tribute to the resiliency, skillfulness, and strength of those who live in the Last Frontier.

Though the mushers serve as the “face” of the race, it takes the efforts of countless people behind the scenes to keep the tradition alive. “A big part of dog mushing in Alaska is the involvement of sponsors, fans, and volunteers,” explains Aaron Burmeister, who has raced in the Iditarod for fourteen years. “They are absolutely critical; without them, the race just wouldn’t happen.”

Sponsors are so important, in fact, that mushers rely on them throughout the year to provide funds and in-kind support to keep them competitive. And their contributions are even more important to the race itself. “The biggest piece of pie in terms of revenue comes in the form of sponsorships,” explains Iditarod Executive Director Stan Hooley.

“Sponsorships make up approximately 51 percent of our operating budget; we simply couldn’t stage the race the way we do without this support.”

Investing in an Alaskan Tradition According to Hooley, roughly $1.5 million of the race’s $5 million budget is provided by cash sponsorships, with another $1.1 million coming in the form 10

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

of in-kind goods and services. “There are so many examples of this—we get airline tickets from Alaska Air and PenAir, and Anchorage Chrysler Dodge provides the winner’s truck and also gives us four vehicles to give away as raffle prizes,” Hooley says. “Hotels rooms and meeting space are provided by the Millennium Alaskan Hotel, and shipping is supplied through Northern Air Cargo and Horizon Lines.

Anchorage Daily News provides us with advertising space, our office equipment is supplied by Konica Minolta, and Allworx provides us with phone systems for use at race headquarters.

“While the types of sponsorships differ, one thing that our sponsors have in common is that they all have strong ties to Alaska,” he continues. “ExxonMobil, though a very large international company with business interests all over the world, has a large presence here. Donlin Gold has mining interests of real significance in Alaska, and GCI is an Alaskabased communications provider. Wells Fargo also has very prominent ties to Alaska in many different communities.”

Companies can choose to participate at a number of levels. The Principal Partner level requires an investment of $250,000 or more; Lead Dog partners invest $100,000 or more; Team Dog partners invest $50,000 or more; and Wheel Dog partners invest $25,000 or more. In turn, sponsors get the opportunity to invest in an event that is not only unique, but truly Alaskan.

“When you sponsor a property like the Iditarod, it is different than traditional advertising or marketing,” Hooley says. “It is a way to market your company differently and set it apart from the competition. Our sponsors are able to use the Iditarod name, which is a registered trademark, in their promotions and advertising. They can also use this event to drive retail traffic and create buzz for their customer base.”

Signature Event At Anchorage Chrysler Dodge, the entire month of March is given over to the Official Iditarod Trail Sale, which encourages customers to “drive home a winner,” according to Chuck Talsky, president of Husky Advertising and spokesman for the dealership. “This is a great way to showcase our products, including RAM, which is our biggest seller, at the right www.akbizmag.com

time,” he explains. “We say that RAM stands for ‘Real Alaskan Mushing’ and call our dealership Checkpoint #1; we tie our promotion in to the Iditarod using the same phraseology as the race.”

The dealership has been a sponsor of the Iditarod for the past twenty years, taking it over after the Chrysler Corporation ended their support. In addition to providing a sizable check, the winner’s truck, and four trucks to be raffled, the dealership also provides two dozen four-wheel drive vehicles to be used as transportation for volunteers and veterinarians. Dealership owner Rod Udd—who is called “Idita-Rod” by the mushers—created and continues to fund the Joe Redington Sr. Trophy, which is presented to each year’s winner.

“We are in the transportation business, and since the traditional form of transportation in Alaska is the dog sled, there’s an excellent connection between the Iditarod and the dealership,” says Talsky.

“Rod doesn’t want to see that tradition die out, so he’s committed to giving a truck to the winner every year for as long as he owns the business. We believe in this event—it captures the imagination of everyone in Alaska and the world.”

Wells Fargo also considers the Iditarod to be one of its signature events, sponsoring the finishers’ banquet in Nome and cohosting a hospitality booth at the start of the race with ExxonMobil.

They also present the Red Lantern award to the last musher to come in from the trail and present the Gold Coast Award to the first musher to reach Unalakleet.

“This is such an important tradition; the race captures the Alaskan spirit and is all about Alaskans helping Alaskans,” explains Elaine Junge, vice president and regional marketing manager for Wells Fargo. “Its rich heritage is so important to what we as a company believe; it reflects our values as a company.”

Wells Fargo began sponsoring the race in 1988 after acquiring the Bank of the North, which was located in Nome and other rural locations. Now all of its branches feature Iditarod Days, during which team members wear race-themed shirts designed by Alaskan artist Jon Van Zyle. “It’s a great time to talk to our customers about the Iditarod, our involvement with Alaska, and their financial picture,” says Junge. “Just like the Iditarod, financial planning is a long-term race and a journey with a lot

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11

Courtesy of © Jeff Schultz/IditarodPhotos.com

Mitch Seavey, winner of the 2013 Iditarod, at the finish line in Nome.

of milestones and challenges; we use the race as a way to discuss meeting goals.”

Commitment to Education ExxonMobil Alaska uses their association with the Iditarod as a stepping stone to reach outlying communities, as well as the younger generation. “The Iditarod has introduced us to and helped us maintain our relationships with communities across the state,” explains Hans Neidig, public and government affairs manager for Alaska ExxonMobil Corporation. “As we look forward to starting up our Point Thomson Project on the North Slope in the next couple of years, the Iditarod provides us with a great venue to introduce our project and our commitment to education to many communities in Alaska.”

ExxonMobil supports the Iditarod Education Program, which Neidig says is in line with their focus on science, technology, engineering, and math education.

“Teachers know that when kids are excit12

ed about a subject, learning comes easily,” he says. “That’s the great opportunity provided by the Iditarod: Adventure, competition, and the universal bond between children and dogs combine to create the perfect chemistry to make learning fun.”

The company hosts a community reception the week before the ceremonial start that coincides with the kick-off of Fur Rondy in Anchorage. They also support the Iditarod Educators Winter Conference in Anchorage and host a hospitality tent on Fourth Avenue, where more than four hundred ExxonMobil employees and their families decked out in Iditarod gear are on hand to celebrate the start of the race. “We’re also active participants at the mushers’ banquet and the awards banquet in Nome—our entire company gets involved with Iditarod; it’s a highlight in our year,” says Neidig.

Mushers in the Media In addition to driving retail traffic and

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

enabling companies to reach out to outlying communities, the Iditarod also helps sponsors get a lot of media attention. The Millennium Alaskan Hotel, which has been a sponsor of the Iditarod since the year after it opened and also serves as its official headquarters, found this out in a big way last year.

In addition to providing free hotel rooms and meeting space to Iditarod Trail Committee members throughout the year, the hotel sponsors the First Musher to the Yukon Award, which includes a $3,500 prize and a sevencourse dinner, which is delivered to the first Yukon checkpoint.

“We fly our culinary team to Ruby or Anvik, depending on which race route is taken, and present that musher with the dinner, which last year included filet mignon, scallops, and a bottle of Dom Perignon,” says Carol Fraser, general manager, Millennium Alaskan Hotel. “Last year, we got quite a bit of press, including TV stations here filming the executive chef making the meal; we even let them taste it! The press loved it—we got something like three hundred articles out of it in the press and from bloggers—our PR department was blown away.

“The response is huge, though it’s hard to put an exact number on it,” she adds. “But I know that we couldn’t pay for this national and international press; we get hundreds of thousands of dollars of coverage from being the host hotel.”

The hotel is also able to target Alaskans, which is one of the markets that they want to reach. “While we’re still not as recognized as a Hilton or Marriott, Alaskans recognize us as the host hotel, which is a big deal to us,” she says. “Alaskans are insanely loyal to Alaska and Alaskan programs; even though we are a national chain in fifteen states with one hundred hotels worldwide, the Iditarod gives us that Alaskan connection.”

According to Fraser, the hotel sells out in the week leading up to the event and is still pretty full two weeks after.

During this time, the hotel hosts three big parties in their bar with Alaskan Brewing Company, and this year they plan to start fireside chats with mushers, photographers, and veterinarians who stay at the hotel during the race.

In addition to sponsoring the Iditarod itself, companies can also choose to sponsor individual mushers. “We www.akbizmag.com

encourage companies to sponsor both the race and mushers, because mushers need that support to be competitive and run successfully,” Hooley says. “The cost of competitive mushing is not getting any lower. If a company wants to develop a marketing campaign around a musher, it makes sense to also sponsor the Iditarod, because it gives them more latitude as to what they can do.”

Four-time Iditarod winner Martin Buser is sponsored by fourteen different companies on both a local and national level. “I’m very fortunate to have a whole bunch of sponsors including three who have been with me for the past thirty years—Eagle Super Premium Pet Food, Kendall Auto Group, and MTA,” he says.

“It’s pretty phenomenal how much help all of my sponsors provide.”

According to Buser, while each sponsorship is a little different, the goal is to come up with a win-win situation where everyone benefits. “What I receive varies from cash to in-kind; in turn, I may make appearances, do staff training sessions, or provide seminars and motivational presentations,” he says. “I make a lot of appearances on my sponsors’ behalves; I want to give back as much as I receive.”

Musher Aaron Burmeister also has a number of sponsors, which include Bering Pacific Construction, Northern Air Cargo, Specialty Supply, Dr. Tim’s Momentum Dog Foods, Eureka Meats, QAP/ Colaska, and Alaskan Wildstyle Racing.

“It’s almost impossible to do what we do without the sponsors to offset costs, provide travel expenses, and help support our kennels,” he says. “My sponsors get really involved in the event, following me through the Iditarod’s Insider Tracking program, which uses a satellite to update mushers’ progress on the trail every ten minutes. It really builds excitement and employee morale.”

In addition to helping to get his sponsors’ names out, particularly in Bush communities, Burmeister attends company events where he signs autographs and serves as a guest speaker. “I tend to get sponsors who stick with me quite a while,” he says. “When you’re racing dogs, there’s not a whole lot of time to knock on doors to find new sponsors, so you work to grow these relationships.”

In addition to being a Lead Dog partner with the Iditarod, Northern Air Cargo sponsors Burmeister as well as mushwww.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

13

ers John Baker and Pete Kaiser. “We’ve been a sponsor of the Iditarod for more than thirty years; almost since the first race,” says Blake Arrington, marketing and communications manager, Northern Air Cargo (NAC). “We take pride in being an Alaskan company and supporting Alaskan events and organizations.”

NAC offers both financial and inkind support to the race. “For the last five years, we’ve provided an ATV as a prize at the awards banquet; mushers reach into a container of mock keys and try to find the one key that will start it,” says Arrington. “It’s a really popular portion of that night.”

NAC also gives away the Herbie Nayokpuk Award, named after a respected western Alaska musher. “At the end of the race, all of the volunteers at checkpoints along the coast nominate the musher who they think exemplifies Herbie’s spirit and good nature,” says Arrington. “In addition to the trophy, that musher gets a Carhartt jacket stuffed with 1,049 one dollar bills.”

As a musher sponsor, NAC provides transportation for dog teams, straw, sleds, and more. “We give a freight allow-

ance and transport whatever they need throughout the year to support them in training races,” says Arrington, “whatever they need to get from point A to point B.” “Having sponsors like this doesn’t just help the single musher, but supports the sport as a whole,” adds Burmeister. “It’s absolutely critical because we can focus on the dogs and spend time training; we don’t have to worry about where the next twenty bags of dog food are coming from or how we’re getting to the Kobuk 440 or Kusko 300.”

Even though NAC has been in business since before Alaska was a state and is fairly well-known, an Iditarod sponsorship still helps them keep their name in front of prospective customers.

“There are still some people who may not know about NAC and the vital service that we provide from Anchorage to communities with no road system,” says Arrington. “Brand recognition is important, but it’s also important to us to be a good corporate citizen by offering support to organizations like the Iditarod.

“We started early in the Iditarod’s history, and it’s now became a part of our history,” he adds. “We feel like it’s

Pam Varni THE MEETING: Council of State Governments National Meeting Aug. 9-13, 2014 1,800 delegates Estimated Economic Impact: $2.3 million

MEETINGS PAY IN ANCHORAGE 14

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

truly an Alaskan sport, and we’re truly an Alaskan company.”

And while it’s certainly important to support such an Alaskan tradition, the fact is, it’s also just fun. “I think our sponsors do particularly well in using the Iditarod to entertain clients and customers and to reward key personnel,” says Hooley, who adds that current Iditarod sponsors have supported the race for an average of seventeen years. “In this day and age, just about every business has a golf tournament where you might get to play with a professional, but how many people can say that they’ve been to the Iditarod, ridden a snow machine to one of the checkpoints, and watched the dog teams come in in the middle of the night?

That’s a pretty powerful element.”  Vanessa Orr is the former editor of the Capital City Weekly in Juneau. Jack is her sled dog.

THANK YOU TO ANOTHER ANCHORAGE MEETING CHAMPION! Members of the Council of State Governments bring fresh ideas to the table from the state level, and when it comes time to pick a meeting location, Alaska always has a strong voice in the conversation. Pam Varni’s passion for Alaska has brought the group to Anchorage twice in the past decade. Her enthusiasm keeps our city top-of-mind with the council.

ARE YOU A MEMBER OF AN ASSOCIATION? CONTACT VISIT ANCHORAGE TO BRING YOUR GROUP TO TOWN:

MEETINGS@ANCHORAGE.NET | 907.257.2341

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“Special Thanks to all our customers. It’s you who make Anchorage Chrysler Dodge a winner as Alaska’s Largest Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram dealer and allow us to keep the Iditarod running strong. When you buy from us, your Hometown Dealer, you inspire us to continue to sponsor the Last Great Race®.”

— Rod Udd, Owner Rod Udd, Owner Anchorage Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram

Ram 1500 Quad Cab 4X4 ”The Winner’s Truck” 2013 Iditarod Champion Mitch Seavey ®

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SERVICES

Head-On Change Spruce Park Auto Body meets new challenges sweeping collision repair industry

By Wesley Loy

S

o you banged up your new car during that first snowfall of the year. No problem. Just take it to the body shop and let them bang out the dents and touch up the paint.

Simple, right?

Turns out it’s not nearly as simple as it once was, at least not for the professionals in the collision repair industry. Automobiles are evolving rapidly, which is a good thing on many levels but a major challenge for body men.

Just ask Lewis “Chuck” Perrault, president of Spruce Park Auto Body, Inc. on East Dowling Road in Anchorage.

“There are awful big changes coming to our industry,” he says.

Complex, Advanced Materials Auto manufacturers increasingly are using advanced materials in today’s

ALL PHOTOS Copyright © Joshua Borough

The materials cars are made of today make tools and techniques used by body men for decades obsolete.

cars and light trucks, including complex steels and carbon fiber. These materials are thinner, lighter, and stronger, helping the car makers meet toughening government standards for fuel economy and crash safety.

More and more, the cars on the clean and spacious work floor at Spruce Park Auto Body are taking on the characteristics of space ships, pushing Perrault’s body technicians to new limits.

The advanced metals in these cars are not only lighter and stronger, but much more finicky to work with. It means tools and techniques body men used for decades are now obsolete, says Perrault, with some fift y years in the business.

“I grew up with a solder bar, a pick hammer, and a file,” he says. “You can’t use that anymore. It’s changed drastically.”

From right: Owners Chuck, Shirley, and their son Ken Perrault stand in the reception area of their business, Spruce Park Auto Body, Inc., off Dowling in Anchorage, Alaska. © Joshua Borough

16

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

A Family Business Spruce Park is one of Alaska’s busiest body shops. An average of 140 vehicles a month cycle through the shop, which has a team of three estimators, six body technicians, and three painters.

Understandably, business is best in winter. When the first snow flies in autumn, the phone starts ringing and tow trucks pile in.

Spruce Park is a family business, with Perrault’s wife, Shirley, serving as secretary-treasurer and their son, Ken, handling much of the day-to-day management of the shop.

Chuck Perrault, seventy-four, is from Wisconsin originally and has a ready smile. Why come to Alaska? “Hunting and fishing, just like everybody else,” he says.

Spruce Park got its start in 1963, four years after Alaska became a state. The Perraults bought the operation in 1976, and in 2001 moved into a sparkling new building on East Dowling, a bustling four-lane road lined with automotive businesses.

Chuck Perrault says the family traveled to Seattle to look at body shops and pick up ideas to make their new space as efficient as possible. For body shops and their customers, it’s vital to keep the cars moving. A walk through Spruce Park reveals car carnage everywhere—mangled metal, cracked glass, bashed radiators, severed wiring, blown airbags. www.akbizmag.com

“She let her teenage son drive her brand-new BMW,” says Ken Perrault, looking over a beautiful black ride with a crunched front end.

Don’t Heat, Don’t Hammer It was hard enough, even in the old days, to make a wreck look new again.

Much of the work involved salvaging parts made of what’s known as mild steel, which accepts bending, hammering, and heating.

In recent years, auto makers started incorporating more advanced materials into their vehicles, including ultra high-strength steels. Heat can adversely affect the properties of this advanced steel, making it weaker. And beating, straightening, or otherwise working the metal can make it brittle.

These issues obviously pose big new challenges for body technicians. Welding, for example, is complicated because of the heat involved.

Auto makers are using an array of other advanced materials including carbon fiber, and magnesium and aluminum alloys. And they’re using new attachment methods in manufactur-

www.akbizmag.com

© Joshua Borough

Chuck Perrault, left, chats with body techs Cliff Kennell, center, and Tyson Kennell, right, at Spruce Park Auto Body, Inc. in Anchorage, Alaska.

ing, such as adhesive bonding. All these strong, lightweight materials are going into parts such as roofs, floor panels, hoods, bumper reinforcements, instrument panel frames—you name it.

The advanced materials offer not only strength and weight benefits, they

work to absorb or transfer collision energy. That’s a big consideration for body shops.

“Your collision repairs need to replicate the original engineering design more precisely than ever before, and these new materials present greater

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

17

© Joshua Borough

Above left: Body tech Cliff Kennell working on a car.

Above: Body tech Tyson Kennell works on squaring new parts for the car frame.

Left: In the paint booth.

challenges during the repair process,” said an article in the trade journal BodyShop Business.

Safety First The nature of ultra high-strength steel and other advanced materials means that more parts are being replaced outright, rather than refurbished and reinstalled. For example, a quarter panel might need replacing—even for damage that appears fixable.

Ultimately, the issue is safety. An improper repair might look fine, but it could compromise a car’s integrity in the event of another crash. Auto manufacturers urge body shops to make fixes according to proven procedures.

And why should the manufacturers care?

“If the car’s not repaired properly and it flies apart, Ford is going to be named in a lawsuit,” Ken Perrault explains.

Auto manufacturers work to educate body shops on new models and the advances they incorporate. Toyota, in a trade journal insert last summer, previewed its 2014 Corolla sedan, which the company said would feature “extensive use of lightweight, high-strength steel.”

18

Toyota further urged body shops to “just say no” to salvaging parts from junk yards for collision repair. Such parts might be damaged, or might not perform as originally engineered in another accident, Toyota said. Further, the company said welding on salvage parts “can reduce the strength and safety of the original design, and so can seriously compromise crashworthiness.”

The Importance of Training Today’s high-tech cars can mean higher collision repair costs. But that’s OK with most customers, Ken Perrault says.

“They want their car fi xed properly,” he says. “They don’t want to drive a car that’s not safe.”

Spruce Park Auto Body faces great costs for the staff training and equipment to keep up with the changes confronting the industry, Perrault says.

One resource Spruce Park taps is ICAR, the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair. It’s a Chicagobased, nonprofit training organization formed by the collision industry in 1979. I-CAR offers services such as training and certification courses in welding. The organization estimates

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

that nearly two-thirds of technicians in the collision repair industry lack up-todate weld training.

In a recent article in BodyShop Business, Jeff Peevy, an I-CAR senior director, noted major changes were predictable following the advent of CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards. Congress first enacted CAFE in 1975 to reduce energy consumption by increasing the fuel economy of cars and light trucks. Now manufacturers are working sophisticated technology into even cheap cars, not just the highend models.

“We’re in a big time of change. Unfortunately, a lot of our industry does not recognize it,” Peevy said.

The Insurance Angle Body shops that want to do repairs right must deal with more than wrecked cars and their owners. They also must successfully negotiate with insurance companies. Sometimes, the body shop and the insurance company don’t see eye to eye on a repair job.

“It can be a fight,” Ken Perrault says.

“Sometimes they see it our way.”

Ideally, the insurance companies www.akbizmag.com

agree to repairs according to manufacturer specifications, he says.

Arrangements known as direct repair programs, or DRPs, are now commonplace in the industry. Under a DRP, an insurance company maintains a list of preferred body shops for doing repairs. Body shops obviously want to stay on the list, but they can find themselves in an uncomfortable situation if the insurance company presses for repair shortcuts.

Spruce Park Auto Body is on two DRPs now, Perrault says. One is USAA, a mutual insurance company catering primarily to military personnel, military retirees, and their families. USAA steers a lot of business to Spruce Park, and requires that the shop’s technicians have I-CAR training, Perrault says.

“They won’t argue components that we say need to be replaced,” he says.

Ken’s dad, Chuck Perrault, says the changes sweeping the body shop business today are “just astronomical.” And he expects a lot more change to come down the pike.

“The days of slam bam are gone,”

© Joshua Borough

Vehicles are lined up inside the spacious shop at Spruce Park Auto Body.

Chuck Perrault says. “People need to understand that fi xing their car properly is critical.” 

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Journalist Wesley Loy writes from Anchorage.

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INSURANCE

Business Insurance Must-Haves Protecting companies from risks

I

By Tracy Barbour

nsurance is an essential component of operating a business, according to Alaska’s commercial insurance experts. Some types of coverage are mandated by law, while others are necessitated by industry, financing, and other standards.

Commercial insurance should be an integral part of every business’s operating plan, says Timothy Maudsley, president of Alaska USA Insurance Brokers, Alaska’s largest full-service insurance agency. “Insurance plays a large role in protecting a company’s bottom line by ensuring critical assets, including its physical property, as well as human capital, are covered,” he says.

Or as Kathy Martin, a sales executive for Wells Fargo Insurance Services, puts it: “It’s the only way the insured can protect the assets of their company.”

Coverage Mandated by Law Must-have types of insurance that are mandated by state and federal laws include commercial auto, workers’ compensation, and health insurance. Commercial auto insurance generally covers cars, vans, trucks, and other vehicles owned by the company, as well as employee-owned vehicles in certain cases.

For example, Alaska USA Insurance Brokers—a subsidiary of Alaska USA Federal Credit Union—offers commercial auto insurance for business vehicles and employee vehicles being used for 20

business-related activities. The company provides coverage for liability, cargo, limousine, bus/motorcoach, garage liability, and occupational accident.

The Alaska Workers’ Compensation Act requires each employer having one or more employees in Alaska to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, unless the employer has been approved as a self-insurer, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s website.

However, there are some exceptions to those who must be covered. In general, a workers’ compensation policy isn’t mandatory for sole proprietors in a sole proprietorship; general partners in a partnership; executive officers in a nonprofit corporation; and members in a member managed limited liability company. Exceptions are also made for part-time baby-sitters, cleaning staff (non-commercial), harvest help and similar part-time/transient help, sports officials for amateur events, contract entertainers, and commercial fishers.

Health insurance is another important type of coverage that is legally required—for some businesses. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), employers of fift y or more full–time equivalent employees (FTE) must offer minimum essential coverage, according to Eric Deeg, a vice president with Wells Fargo Insurance Services. And that coverage must be “affordable,” with employee cost for single coverage not to exceed 9.5 percent of the worker’s modified

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

adjusted gross household income, as defined by the ACA. “Small employers of two to forty-nine can choose whether or not they want to offer group coverage, but are not required to offer group coverage,” Deeg says. “If they do offer a group plan, it must cover essential health benefits, as defined by the ACA.” As far as benefits for small employers go, Deeg adds, groups with two to twenty-four employees can qualify for some additional tax credits if they offer a plan through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP). However, the SHOP Exchange is delayed until 2015.

Today, many small businesses are concerned about the employer shared responsibility penalty, also known as the pay-or-play penalty. This piece of the law has been delayed until 2015 and only impacts employers with fift y or more FTEs. However, Maudsley says, entrepreneurs who own multiple businesses, due to “common ownership,” could get snared by these penalties, since the law aggregates all employees working for a combined total of a common owner’s businesses.

Penalties for the “pay-or-play” rules range from $2,000 per full-time employee, minus the first thirty full-time employees, to $3,000 for each employee that receives subsidized coverage through the Marketplace. There is no tax penalty for businesses that do not offer coverage and have fewer than fifty FTEs. “The best advice for Alaska businesses is to seek a knowledgeable benefits broker to advise www.akbizmag.com

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Shattuck and Grummett Insurance

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you with this complex and ever-changing law,” Maudsley says.

and officer’s liability, key man life insurance to protect the business should there be a death or disability of someone who is critical in management or ownership, and crime insurance for protection against robbery or embezzlement. “The purpose of insurance is to protect the business’s financial interest from the possibility of catastrophic loss, and there are many different ways to do that,” Grummett says.

Requirements by Lender and Industry Beyond the kind of must-have insurance that is legally required, businesses can purchase a variety of other policies to minimize their risks. Certain coverage is dictated by lenders, industry standards, and the specific needs of the business, according to Shattuck and Grummett Insurance President Stacy Grummett. The family-owned firm, founded in 1898, is based in Juneau and operates throughout the state of Alaska.

For instance, a company seeking a loan from a financial institution may be required to purchase general liability, professional liability, or an umbrella policy. Licensed general or specialty contractors are required by the state to carry a surety bond and general liability coverage to perform on public and private construction projects. Contractors engaging in excavation work may elect to add pollution liability insurance.

On the other hand, businesses in the fishing industry could benefit from hull coverage for vessels. A tourism company offering shuttle services would need a commercial auto policy. And companies entering into legal contracts or service agreements generally need special endorsements such as additional insured status or primary/non-contributory wording added to their liability insurance.

Other more specialized forms of commercial insurance that can help businesses protect themselves include directors

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Popular Types of Insurance Insurance agencies in Alaska are experiencing a higher demand for certain kinds of business insurance. Wells Fargo Insurance Services, for example, is selling considerably more earthquake insurance. “Ten years ago, I couldn’t sell quake [insurance] to any of my clients,” Martin says. “Today, because costs are declining, they are more apt to purchase coverage for earthquake.”

Employment practices and cyber insurance are also hot commodities in Alaska and nationwide, according to Adrienne Little, who is also a sales executive for Wells Fargo Insurance Services.

Employment practices liability insurance covers risk such as wrongful termination, discrimination, and sexual harassment.

Cyber insurance can mitigate losses from a variety of threats, including network damage, data breaches, and the loss of a private client’s data. “If somebody hacks into your system, once you make a claim, they are there to investigate what happened,” Little explains.

Not only does cyber liability insurance explore how the breach occurred, but it also covers the expense of notifying the www.akbizmag.com

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insured’s clients of the breach and the cost of protecting the company’s reputation.

Timothy Maudsley, Alaska USA Insurance Brokers President

business to get back up and running after a major loss. “Loss of income frequently plays a major role in making an otherwise Maintaining the Right Coverage healthy company file for bankruptcy once Far too often, companies tend to be unin- a loss occurs,” Maudsley says. sured or underinsured by commercial inGrummett says there are ample comsurance in terms of their business income mercial insurance carriers available to expense, Maudsley says. Many times, this meet the needs of Alaska’s businesses. critical coverage is misunderstood, yet it However, companies that go underinsured is one of the most important ways for a may do so for a variety of reasons. Some-

24

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

times business owners have a tight budget and only purchase the minimum coverage required by law. In other cases, they may not be aware they are underinsured.

That’s why Shattuck and Grummett Insurance strives to meet with its insured businesses annually to discuss their needs.

“There are so many changes that can happen throughout the year,” Grummett says.

“We ask if they are adding a business or location. And we take notice when things are in the paper, such as a grand opening, and follow up with the insured to ensure they are adequately covered.”

Many business owners have very little knowledge about the ins and outs of commercial insurance, Martin says, but an insurance professional can fill in the gaps. She says, “It’s up to the broker to show them where their exposure is.”

Maudsley expresses similar thoughts: “Each company’s needs are quite different, and a professional broker can assist with identification and assimilation of those needs.”  Former Alaskan Tracy Barbour writes from Tennessee.

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Skagway SPB

X7

J7

Skwentna Apt

P6

Lake Hood SPB

Q6

Sleetmute Apt

M6

M7

Lake Minchumina Apt

E

IN HA

DIK

ON

KL

P6

P3

Coffman Cove SPB

Y8

ES

HW Y SS IAR

FF

TO

CA

CU

Cordova Municipal Apt Council No 1 Apt

S6

Loring SPB

Y HW

Petersburg James A Johnson Apt Petersburg Lloyd R Roundtree SPB

Kake Apt

Kake SPB

Wrangell SPB

Sitka SPB

Wrangell Apt Hyder SPB

Point Baker SPB

Meyers Chuck SPB Thorne Bay SPB Klawock Apt

Port Alexander SPB

Klawock SPB

RE

Craig SPB

GI

KK

Kasaan SPB

Loring SPB Murphys Pullout SPB Ketchikan Peninsula Point SPB

9

Hydaburg SPB

M7

Meyers Chuck SPB

Excursion Inlet SPB

54

JJ

13

KK

170

LL

Toksook Bay Apt Tonsina Apt

Tuluksak Apt Tuntutuliak Apt

K6 K9

Fort Glenn Apt

H10

Nenana Municipal Apt

Fort Yukon Apt

S3

New Golovin Apt

X7

New Stuyahok Apt Newtok Apt

Q2

Gold King Creek Apt

R4

J3

Nome City Field Apt

I4

K5

Nondalton Apt

S5

Noorvik Robert (Bob) Curtis Memorial Apt

X7

Nuiqsut Apt

Hollis SPB

Homer Apt

P7

V7

X7 Q5

Y9

Nulato Apt

H10

Whittier Apt

L4

P3

Wrangell Apt

Y8

Wrangell SPB

W

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X

134

Y8

Yakataga Airstrip

Palmer Municipal Apt

Q6

J4

Q6 P6

Wiseman Apt

Yakutat Apt

V7

Yakutat SPB

V7

T6

N7

There are currently 302 Airports listed on this map.

138

Y8

J6

O8

X8

Q6

O8

M5

Pedro Bay Apt

L1

Whale Pass SPB

Willow Apt

Nunapitchuk Apt

Ophir Apt

K3

H10

G4

White Mountain Apt

U5

Old Harbor Apt Y9

R3

Wasilla Apt

P1

Ouzinkie Apt L5

N7

North Shore Apt Northway Apt

Venetie Apt

Warm Spring Bay SPB

Gulkana Apt

X7

R6

Wales Apt I4

Grayling Apt

X7

K5

Valdez Apt

Wainwright Apt

Nome Apt

Q6

Haines SPB

M8 O2

Unalaska / Dutch Harbor Apt

K7

Holy Cross Apt

V

Umiat Apt

I6

Goose Bay Apt

Haines Apt

P6

Ugashik Apt

P6

Noatak Apt

K7

Unalakleet Apt

Goodnews Apt

Hollis Clark Bay SPB

140

Tyonek Apt

N5

Ninilchik Apt

Q6

Q4

M7

I6

Nikolai Apt

F5

J6 I6

Twin Hills Apt

J4

Nightmute Apt

M4

K6

Tununak Apt

Nelson Lagoon Apt

Healy River Apt

50

P6

P7

Funter Bay SPB

I6

Trail Ridge Apt

J6

L5

T5

S6

Napaskiak Apt

Harris Harbor SPB

11

Tok Junction Apt

J5 Z9

Napakiak Apt

R4

Harlequin Lake Airstrip

172

Q4

Murphys Pullout SPB M7

S6

Y9

K7

Nanwalek Apt

Gustavus Apt

52

Togiak Apt

R4

Girdwood Apt

pt

Thorne Bay SPB

J9

Gambell Apt

10

T5

Thompson Pass Apt

Y9

Q6

X8

False Pass Apt

Galena Apt

52

R5

H4

Fairbanks SPB

Fairbanks Intl Apt

Galbraith Lake Apt

12

Tetlin Apt

Z9

O4

V7

R6

Mountain Village Apt

Naknek Apt

X7

T5

Tenakee SPB

Minto Al Wright Apt

W7

P5

Tanacross Apt

Teller Apt

H6

Ekwok Apt

I5

Talkeetna Apt

M6

Ted Stevens Anchorage Intl Apt

Q6

Metlakatla SPB

J4

M5

Tazlina Apt

T6

N5

Merrill Field

Q5

Takotna Apt

Tatitlek Apt

T6

Mekoryuk Apt

Summit Apt

Tanis Mesa Airstrip

L7

M7

Flat Apt

ON

V7

J6

P4

J6

McGrath Apt

Emmonak Apt

Ketchikan Intl Apt Hollis Clark Ketchikan SPB Hollis Bay SPB SPB Metlakatla SPB

Manley Hot Springs Apt

Egegik Apt

Elim Apt

Coffman Cove SPB

G4 Q4

McCarthy No 2 Apt

U4

Q3

Tanana Ralph M Calhoun Apt

May Creek Apt

S4 L7

Elfin Cove SPB

Whale Pass SPB

Port Protection SPB

LL

Eek Apt

56

N6

Z9

Marshall Apt

J3

Dillingham Apt Eagle Apt

V7

J5

Stony River No 2 Apt

M7

Manokotak Apt

Delta Junction Apt

Angoon SPB

Q6

Levelock Apt

Livengood Camp Apt

L6

M3

Q1

Deering Apt

Lawing Apt

Stebbins Apt

Stevens Village Apt

Little Diomede Heliport

Y9

Deadhorse Apt

8

S6

O5

O8

Lime Village Apt

J4

Dangerous River Airstrip

S

Larsen Bay Apt

S6

Cordova Merle K "Mudhole" Smith Apt

58

Craig SPB

ST

U

X8

Koyukuk Apt

Kwigillingok Apt

L7

Q4

East Alsek River Airstrip

JJ

K4

X8

Sitka SPB

Coldfoot Apt

EA

174

S4

M3

Sitka Apt

I

C U A N Harris N Harbor SPB I T A E D D A Funter Bay SPB S T A Hoonah SPB T Hoonah Apt E

170

Shungnak Apt J3

J3

R6 I5

H3

South Naknek No 2 Apt

Warm Spring Bay SPB

172

Shishmaref Apt

Soldotna Municipal Apt

Juneau Intl Apt

UT H

J7

J5

Koyuk Apt

L6

Copper Center No 2 Apt

Sitka Apt

Sheldons Point Apt

Kotzebue Ralph Wien Memorial Apt

S4

K4

Sheep Mountain Apt

R5

Tenakee SPB

SO

Shaktoolik Apt

N7 M7

Kotzebue SPB

Dahl Creek Apt

Pelican SPB

O8

I4

L5

Koliganek Apt

Kotlik Apt S5

S6

Crooked Creek Apt

S K A

Shageluk Apt

Q6

Haines SPB

Gustavus Apt

O8

Q6

Lake Louise Apt

Alsek River Airstrip

Elfin Cove SPB

Seward Apt

Kokhanok Apt

Kongiganak Apt

L8

P7

Serpentine Hot Springs Apt

Lake Hood Strip

BR

Excursion Inlet SPB

Seldovia SPB

O8

J9

Tanis Mesa Airstrip

East Alsek River Airstrip

O8

Kodiak Trident Basin SPB

L8

T5

Chitina Apt

M3

Kodiak Apt

Kodiak Municipal Apt

I6

Chisana Apt

Kobuk Apt

Kodiak Lilly Lake SPB

Q6

I6

Cold Bay Apt

Skagway Apt

Haines Apt

F5

KO

Skagway SPB

arlequin Lake Airstrip

Savoonga Apt

Klawock SPB

Clarks Point Apt

7

I7

F8

K9

Q2

Circle Hot Springs Apt

Y OR RIT ER BIA N T UM OL H C TIS

Sand Point Apt

Chandalar Shelf Apt

Clear Apt

YU

M7

K3

Circle City Apt

A

King Salmon SPB

I4

Selawik Apt

Chuathbaluk Apt

ALASK

Salmon Lake Apt

Scammon Bay Apt

Chistochina Apt

HWY

J5

Saint Paul Island Apt M7

Y9

Chignik Lake Apt

60

Saint Michael Apt

J9

I3

Chignik Lagoon Apt

126

BB

J5

Klawock Apt

Chevak Apt

128

AA

G8

Saint Mary's Apt

Kivalina Apt

Chenega Bay Apt

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134

K3

K6

Saint George Apt

Q3

T3

Chelatna Lake Apt

X

Z9

King Salmon Apt

Kipnuk Apt

S4

R6

Russian Mission Apt

Z9

King Cove Apt H4

M6

N4

Chandalar Lake Apt

Chefornak Apt

136

Z9

Kiana Bob Baker Memorial Apt

Q6

Chalkyitsik Apt

MILES

Ruby Apt

I4

Q6

P4

Red Devil Apt

P6

January temperatures and heavy rains caused massive multiple avalanches January 24 in Keystone Canyon on the Richardson Highway, road connections were terminated in and out

K7

Robe Lake SPB

Ketchikan Peninsula Point SPB

K4

Central Apt

J6 P6

Ketchikan Intl Apt

U4

P3

Rampart Apt

Bettles Apt

Buckland Apt

KILOMETERS

Y9

Kasilof Apt

Brevig Mission Apt

Y8

M7

Prospect Creek Apt

Quinhagak Apt

Kasigluk Apt

Boundary Apt

O8

Portage Creek Apt

Quartz Creek Apt

R3

S3

L8

Quartz Creek - Kougarok Apt P5

N8

K6

Q6

P7

Port Heiden Apt

Port Protection SPB

Bethel Apt

P3

X8

Port Graham Apt

Port Lions Apt

T1

L4

Kasaan SPB

I4

J2

Port Alexander SPB

K6

Karluk Apt

M1

Y8

H2

Point Lay Apt

Beaver Apt

Birchwood Apt

80.0

Y8

Kantishna Apt

Birch Creek Apt

N

Y8

Kake SPB

Kaltag Apt

J6

M1

Big Lake Apt

DOT&PF Region Boundary

Kake Apt

K7

Point Hope Apt

N7

Y8

J6

Point Baker SPB

X7

Kalskag Apt

II12

Bettles VOR Lake SPB

Railroad

Platinum Apt

Y9

Kaktovik / Barter Island LRRS Apt

S2

Basin Creek Apt

Ferry Routes

M4

Juneau Intl Apt

Barrow Wiley Post-Will Rogers Apt

Road System

5

Y8

M8

Pilot Station Apt

Iliamna Pike Lake Apt

P2

X8

Aniak Apt

Atka Apt

20.0

N3

I5

Arctic Village Apt

0.0

Pilot Point Apt

O3

Ambler Apt

Airport (Other Government)

200.0

L9

Petersburg Lloyd R Roundtree SPB

Q6

Allakaket Apt

Atqasuk Apt

50.0

H6

Aleknagik Apt

Atmautluak Apt

0.0

Petersburg James A Johnson Apt

Akutan Apt

Alsek River Airstrip

There are 254 airports controlled by DOT&PF

64

W8

Perryville Apt

X7

s Valdez recently learned, cargo and passenger options are limited for rural Alaska communities not connected to the road system. After sustained unusually warm

Airport (DOT&PF)

4

Pelican SPB

X7

Hoonah SPB

Hooper Bay Apt

K6

Alakanuk Apt

LEGEND

66

P7

Hoonah Apt

By Susan Harrington

In Cooperation With The U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION And FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION

3

N8

Akiachak Apt

Prepared By The ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC FACILITIES DIVISION OF PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT TRANSPORTATION DATA SERVICES SECTION

2

Homer-Beluga Lake SPB

HH13

There are 254 that are controlled

(owned) by DOT&PF and the remaning 48 controlled by Local Government.

Y

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

27

of Valdez and the city joined some 256 other Alaska locations without access to the state’s road system. With the road closed between mileposts 12 and 64, eliminating access, air and water became the only means of egress in or out of Valdez for almost two weeks in January and February—options that for some in Alaska are always the only ticket in or out.

In the case of Valdez, increased cargo and passenger flights, extra Alaska Marine Highway System ferry stops, and stepped-up schedules for freight-

bearing barges were made, providing temporarily needed transportation services that were typically provided over the road. What about those other 256 Alaska towns with no connection to the road system? What do rural businesses and people do day after day, 24/7/365?

Businesses and residents of Valdez are luckier than many in rural locations, in that there are abundant marine transportation resources in the community.

Many others across Alaska have much more limited options. There are scores

of rural Alaska communities built near the shores of rivers and seas, although many of those have very limited marine services due to lack of harbors, no docking facilities, limited window of accessibility by barge services, and no visits from the state ferry. The Alaska Marine Highway System ferry service makes its way to about three dozen locations in the state. In these communities, the ferry offers transportation for people and goods. For everyone else, the options are much more limited and expensive. Transportation, for many in Alaska, is up in the air.

Up in the Air The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities controls more than 254 airports in the state through its Northern, Central, and Southeast regions. About four dozen additional airports are controlled by other government agencies that are local, borough, or tribal in nature. There are countless private airstrips scattered across the state as well. Alaska is heavily invested in runways and associated airport infrastructure.

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Contact us at 1.800.426.3113 northlandservices.com 28

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Available at Barnes & Noble, www.akbizmag.com or the publisher Alaska Business Publishing, 501 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 100 Anchorage, Alaska 99503 (907) 276-4373

akbizmag.com www.akbizmag.com

Close to half of all the airports in Alaska provide the only means of year-round cargo and passenger transportation in or out of some towns, and that percentage increases when zeroing in on passenger services. More than one hundred communities have at least seasonal or annual barge service; although that is only for cargo and fuel deliveries, not people.

Luckily, there is no shortage of air carriers and marine operators to transport everyone and everything to the far flung roadless reaches of the state.

A few dozen of the many transportation carriers taking passengers and/or cargo where there are no roads in Alaska are listed below.

■ Ace Air Cargo ■ Alaska Air Cargo ■ Alaska Airlines ■ Alaska Air Taxi ■ Alaska Marine Lines ■ Alaska Seaplanes ■ Arctic Circle Air ■ Arctic Marine Solutions ■ Bald Mountain Air ■ Bering Air ■ Bering Marine ■ Bering Pacifi c Services ■ Bettles Air ■ Bowhead Transport ■ Bristow Alaska ■ Carlile ■ Coastal Transportation ■ Corvus ■ Crowley ■ Cruz Marine ■ Delta Western ■ Dena’ina Air Taxi ■ Egli Air Haul ■ Era Alaska ■ Era Aviation ■ Era Helicopters ■ Evergreen Helicopters ■ Everts Air Cargo ■ Foss Maritime Services ■ Frontier Flying Service ■ Grant Aviation ■ Hageland Aviation Services ■ Harley Marine Services ■ Horizon Lines ■ Island Air Service ■ Kenai Aviation ■ Last Frontier Air Ventures ■ Lynden Air Cargo ■ Lynden Transport ■ Maritime Helicopters ■ Million Air ■ Northern Air Cargo www.akbizmag.com

IN CHICAGO, THEY CALL IT

A BLIZZARD. IN ALASKA, WE CALL IT

A BREAK

IN THE WEATHER.

We’re used to working in tough conditions.

In remote Alaska, there’s no other way to get medicine, food or toys. For over 80 years, we’ve been delivering the things that keep businesses open and homes warm.

We believe late is not an option – wherever we are.

K A. IS AL ASNATIONWIDE. E M A N OUR VICE IS OUR SER

TM

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

29

The Alaska Marine Highway ferry M/V Tustumena motoring through False Pass at the edge of the Aleutian Islands in Southwest Alaska. False Pass is the third to the last stop on the Alaska Marine Highway, far left on the ferry route map above.

Photo Š Scott Dickerson/AlaskaStock.com Map: FerryAlaska.com

30

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

n Northland Services n NTCL n Pathfinder Aviation n PenAir n Ravn Alaska n Ryan Air n Samson Tug and Barge n Security Aviation n Span Alaska n TransNorthern Aviation n Vitus Marine n Warbelow’s Air Ventures n Ward Air n Western Towboat Co. n Wings of Alaska n Wright Air Service n 40-Mile Air Ltd.

Going Postal Probably the majority of cargo going to rural Alaska is commercial or industrial in nature, though another component is personal. The US Mail has long been another option for Alaskans to transport goods, especially personal. Businesses have long-enjoyed bypass mail, with larger shipments and lower prices, while private citizens used parcel post to mail provisions and supplies home to avoid excess baggage fees when flying home. However, rural individuals were caught off guard on January 26 when parcel post was replaced overnight with “standard post� with raised rates rivaling priority mail and no consolation for rural Alaska. After a February 6 meeting with US Postal Service Postmaster General Patrick Donahue, US Senator Mark Begich said: “Today I convinced the Postmaster General to roll back rate increases for Alaskans who are off the road system and shipping or receiving large packages. Alaskans should see relief from soaring postal costs by next week,� according to a press release issued by the senator’s office.

Back to Valdez Turns out it took a week after the avalanches, until the last day of January, before the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities could even begin to remove the estimated 100,000 to 150,000 cubic yards of snow blocking the Richardson Highway that cut off Valdez from the road system.

The department worked night and day for almost another week before the road opened at ten o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, February 5.

R www.akbizmag.com

Soaring Above Expertly navigating Alaska’s challenging terrain, Ravn Alaska weaves in and out of our communities and our lives.

Formerly known as Era Alaska. Some flights may be operated by other airlines in the Ravn Alaska family.

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

31

special section

Pacific Northwest—Alaska Connection

Photo by Don Wilson, Courtesy of the Port of Seattle

Aerial view of the Port of Seattle’s T-5 with the harbor and Seattle skyline.

A Closer Look at the Pacific NW -Alaska Connection Human resources and transportation dominate

By Tasha Anderson 32

A

laska is a remote place. But remote doesn’t necessarily mean isolated: goods come in and out, transportation moves north and south, and expertise is exchanged over the Internet and phone lines. Alaska needs to be connected to the outside, and many of those connections have taken root in various parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Gold Rush North One of the earliest ties between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest dates back to July 1897 when the steamship Portland docked in Seattle carrying prospectors and gold, two days after the steamer Excelsior, carrying the same cargo and similar passengers, landed in San Francisco. Both ships had left a month earlier from St. Michael on the Bering Sea near the mouth of the Yukon River with three tons of gold between them. Before getting on those steamships in Alaska, the Klondike prospectors had travelled from Dawson City (about 1,300 miles) or Whitehorse (about 1,800 miles) down the Yukon River, mostly on stern-wheelers.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

The news led to an avalanche of prospectors heading to Seattle, gathering supplies, and shipping off to the Yukon Territory to be a part of the Klondike Gold Rush. Skagway and Dyea quickly became the favored ports of call for prospectors to access the gold fields via the Chilkoot and White Pass trails. The amount of supplies was significant, as it was reported—erroneously, according to the National Park Service—that Canadian authorities required every person heading to the territory to bring a year’s worth of food and equipment.

True or not, the business savvy of Seattle at the time began to advertise the city as “The Gateway to the Gold Fields,” the convenient stop for food, warm clothing, equipment, supplies, and transportation north. It’s estimated that, of the approximately seventy thousand north-bound hopefuls, thirty to forty thousand bought their supplies in Seattle and travelled to Skagway and Dyea, opting to traverse the mountain passes rather than the Yukon River to reach the gold fields. www.akbizmag.com

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The effect of the gold prospectors didn’t end with the gold rush; their presence increased the awareness of both the United States and Canada of the great potential of Alaska’s natural resources, including fish, timber, and other mined materials.

People Come In, People Go Out Alaska has been similarly connected to the Pacific Northwest ever since. The economy of Alaska relies heavily on what is missing being moved in and what is overly abundant being moved out; Seattle is the first stop in many cases for both. Seattle, in turn, benefits from supplying what Alaska lacks, and shipping out what resources are sent down.

One of Alaska’s best renewable resources, tourism, moves itself—mostly.

For most visitors coming to experience the Last Frontier, it takes a little help from a cruise ship or an airplane to get to Alaska, with fewer traveling the Alaska Highway since the surge in fuel prices. In 2013, 937,000 visitors came to Alaska by cruise ship, many leaving from Seattle, and 832,600 tourists traveled to Alaska

34

by air, according to a presentation given

by Ralph Samuels, VP of Community and Government Relations for Holland America, at RDC’s Annual Conference November, 2013. Whether traveling by air or boat, most visitors to Alaska started the last leg of their trip in Seattle, a mimic of the gold rush migrations north more than one hundred years prior.

Many travelers will spend some time in Seattle leading up to or preparing for an Alaska jaunt, eating out, purchasing traveling supplies, perhaps staying a night or two at a hotel. If nothing else, it’s the rare traveler that has a layover in an airport and doesn’t spend any money on a snack or replacing damaged ear buds.

People are shared between the two cities in other ways, as well. While the majority of Alaskan students that choose to attend college do so in Alaska, the number two, three, and four states are Washington, Oregon, and California, respectively, according to the June 2012 Alaska Economic Trends, a publication by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development Research and Analysis Section. Staying in the Pacific Northwest to get a college education al-

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

lows students to build and maintain networking opportunities that can easily transfer back to Alaska. Not only are students able to meet other students that also plan a return trip north, possible future coworkers and business associates, but they can make connections with industry leaders down south.

Alaska does have a small population for its size, an estimated 735,132 people in 2013 , according to the US Census Bureau. This small population makes it difficult for Alaska to have experts in everything, and often when highly specialized knowledge is required, Alaska business must look Outside to find it. On the other hand, Alaska has its own group of highly specialized employees that are valuable to Lower 48 business communities: Working in Alaska requires good planning, creative problem solving skills, and familiarity with extreme weather and the difficulties of working in remote areas.

Moving the People, Moving the Goods A good chunk of those students, tourists, and specialty experts flew in or out on Alaska Airlines, a Seattle based

www.akbizmag.com

company with origins in Alaska. The airline that ultimately became Alaska Airlines was founded in Alaska in 1932.

As it grew and developed, it gradually flew to more and more places in Alaska until it finally received authority to fly to Seattle and Portland in the 1950s, officially exporting passengers out of the state. The airline itself became a sort of export, moving its headquarters to Seattle around the same time. A true Alaska/Seattle Company, Alaska Airlines Group is in the business of moving people and cargo in and out of Seattle and Anchorage, one perfect example of the many shared resources the two cities benefit from.

Moving by air isn’t the only way to get to Alaska, which has a lot of coastline.

In elementary school, it’s taught that Alaska has 6,640 miles of coastline, compared to the 5,840 miles of coastline of all of the rest of the United States combined, including Hawaii. It would follow that marine activity plays a huge role in the connection.

Many a company’s home state is Washington or Oregon with branches or subsidiaries in Alaska, following the model of Vigor Industrial. The company is headquartered in Portland, Oregon, with a subsidiary, Vigor Alaska, located in Ketchikan. This gives Vigor access to more immediate supplies and a larger labor force than would be prudent to base in Ketchikan, while still being able to take advantage of local Alaskan expertise.

Vigor is setting up to expand its operations in Alaska, announcing in January that the owner of Seward Ship’s Drydock signed a letter of intent to sell the assets of the Seward shipyard company to Vigor. Shipbuilding is only step one; just as, if not even more vital, is what is accomplished once the ships are on the water.

The Pacific Northwest and Alaska also share the Pacific Ocean, and therefore the valuable fishing resources found in it. Alaska fishing boats are often docked at Pacific Northwest ports if suitable off-season accommodations aren’t available in Alaska, and much of the Alaska fisheries fleet is home ported out of state as well, coming to Alaska only during openings. Alaska’s fishing bounty is a multi-billion dollar a year industry in Alaska. www.akbizmag.com

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email: info@seatacmarine.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

35

Photo by Don Wilson, Courtesy of the Port of Seattle

Rough sawn lumber from Alaska offloaded from a Boyer Towing barge at the Port of Seattle.

Cruise ships regularly move people from the Port of Seattle up the Alaska panhandle, infusing the economies of Southeast Alaska during the summer months with visitors, money, and seasonal jobs. A growing number of cruise ships dock at the Port of Anchorage as well.

More cargo comes and goes between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest via ocean-going ships and barges than any other means, simply because it is the less expensive mode of transportation. According to current statistics on the Port of Tacoma’s website, that port’s annual two-way trade with Alaska is estimated to be $3 billion, which would make Alaska its fifth largest trading partner, were it ranked among international entities.

With the completion of the AlaskaCanada Highway in 1942 by the military, trucking goods to Alaska became possible, though more trucking services take place within the state than to and from it. The Alaska Highway is paved, with the last section being completed in 1992, with the exception of “gravel breaks,” areas a few feet to a few miles long undergoing repairs. Lynden, a transportation company founded in 1906 in Washington state under the name of Lynden Transfer, pioneered the first scheduled truck delivery to Alaska in 1954, using the Alcan to transport goods despite the obvious obstacles and poor condition of the highway at the time. This early effort to reach Alaska markets helped Lynden carve a place for itself in the market with a lasting reputation for quality service.

36

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Span Alaska, Pacific Alaska Freightways and American Fast Freight are three more transportation and logistics companies based in Washington state with facilities in Alaska. Saltchuck is another Outside company with several well-known transportation and shipping subsidiaries located in Alaska, including Cook Inlet Tug and Barge, Delta Western/Inlet Petroleum, Northern Air Cargo, and the recently acquired Carlile Transportation, all of which are located in Anchorage.

Additionally, Foss Maritime and Totem Ocean Trailer Express, which both have a significant transportation presence in Alaska, are Saltchuck subsidiaries.

These transportation networks connect Alaska with the Lower 48, but not necessarily by driving between them.

The majority of cargo is shipped to Alaska by steamship or barge from the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. The real connection is people, know-how, and service. They create a pool of resources and a quality of service that benefit the economies of both locations.

Alaska is a wealthy state in many facets. The Pacific Northwest has its own unique resources and services to offer.

Industries in both locations are privy to incredible benefits when the best of Alaska is combined with the best of the Pacific Northwest.

R Tasha Anderson is the Survey Manager and Editorial Assistant for Alaska Business Monthly. www.akbizmag.com

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special section

Pacific Northwest—Alaska Connection

Alaska Rubber Group employeeowners stay busy filling orders and helping customers. Š 2013 Chris Arend

38

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

Alaska Rubber and Jackovich Industrial Acquisitioning the future for Alaska and the Northwest

By Julie Stricker

W

hen it comes to natural resource development in Alaska such as oil and gas, minerals, and logging, big machines and rigs get all the attention. But the big rigs would not get much headway without the proper fittings, pipes, hoses, lubrication, and local knowledge of conditions that are key to successful operations.

In the past year, two major suppliers of these products have undergone significant growth and strengthened the supply lines between Alaska and the Northwest United States. They are Colorado-based Motion Flow Control Products, Inc. (MFCP) and Anchoragebased Alaska Rubber.

The two companies are following divergent growth strategies, but aiming for the same trajectory of success in Alaska and beyond.

“We definitely think that the entire industry based in Alaska is positioned for growth,” says Mike Robinson, marketing manager at MFCP. “There [are] a lot of attractive markets we participate in, in Alaska and the Lower 48.”

Anchorage-based Alaska Rubber Group acquired five locations in Washington state in October 2013, doubling the size of the company, which is employee-owned. The acquisitions made sense because of how inter-connected the Alaska and Pacific Northwest markets are, says Chief Operations Officer Mike Mortensen.

www.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

39

Photo courtesy Motion Flow Control Products Inc.

Motion Flow Control Products, Inc.’s newly acquired Jackovich Industrial store in Anchorage.

“Because of the proximity of Alaska and Washington and the close relationship, we’ve always had customers in both Washington and Alaska,” Mortensen says.

Healthy Competition The moves bring MFCP and Alaska Rubber into direct competition with each other in some areas, but Robinson and Mortensen each note their company has its own individual strengths that will stand out in the industrial fittings marketplace.

“They’re definitely a dominant player,” Robinson says of Alaska Rubber. “We feel there’s a significant opportunity for us to capitalize on our supply base; that having inventory in the Lower 48 to supply Alaska will be a huge benefit.”

Mortensen notes that the natural resources industry is growing in both Alaska and in the Lower 48.

“With the relaxation of some of the oil structures, we are seeing a tremendous amount of growth, not only in the North Slope oil fields, but in the Kenai oil fields as well,” he says. Alaska Rubber recently opened a big rigging shop in Anchorage with eight employees to serve the oil and gas industry.

In addition to its stores in Fairbanks, Wasilla, and Anchorage, Alaska Rubber Group now also owns Pacific Rubber, Inc. in Seattle; TIMCO, Inc. at the Port of Tacoma; North Sound Hose and Fittings in Everett; Central Hose and Fittings in Pasco; and Inland Pacific Hose and Fittings in Spokane. Collectively, the companies were formerly referred to as the Pacific Rubber Group.

The Alaska ties are deep. President and CEO Janeece Higgins notes that former owners of some of the Washington stores, Don and Drennon Adams, were 40

also the founders of the Alaska locations.

“We all started with a very similar model,” Higgins notes in a media release. “It’s kind of in our DNA.” Keeping the stores’ individual corporate cultures intact was an important consideration for Alaska Rubber, Mortensen says.

“There’s a strong commitment within each store to customer service, and over the years each store has developed a loyal customer base,” he notes in a media release about the acquisitions. “As we integrate these stores into the group, we’ll look to find efficiencies, win new customers with expanded offerings and skill sets, and capitalize on economies of scale as a much larger group.”

Corporate Structures The corporate makeup of the businesses is very different.

Three companies were combined to

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

create MFCP, which is based in Colorado and distributes fluid connectors, fluid power equipment, instrumentation products, and seals. MFCP is backed by Colville Capital investment firm, through which the company has made several key acquisitions.

Colville Capital, based in North Carolina, says its strategy is to build a portfolio of smaller companies with “strong growth trajectories and the management teams to sustain them.” Colville Capital focuses on established industries in expanding markets and proven cash flow generation.

At the base of MFCP is McCoy Sales, which was formed in 1960 and built strong HVAC heating, hydraulic, and instrumentation businesses in the Rocky Mountain region. In 2011, McCoy moved to expand its hydraulic and instrumentation business and acquired Fluid Connector Products, based in Portland, Oregon, with locations in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The combined company was renamed Motion and Flow Control Products, Inc. In 2012, MFCP acquired American Hose, which gave it twenty stock locations throughout the western United States. In 2013, it acquired Hydraulic Energy Products in Denver, a repair center for hydraulic components. In May 2013, MFCP acquired M&D Hose in Sidney, Montana, which gives the company access to the booming oil and gas Bakken shale oil marketplace.

In October 2013, MFCP added Alaskabased Jackovich Industrial and Construction Supply.

Moving spools of hoses at Alaska Rubber Group. © 2013 Chris Arend

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Manufacturing rigging at Alaska Rubber Group.

Photo courtesy of Alaska Rubber Group

Planned Strategy The acquisitions were part of a carefully planned strategy that would give MFCP a strong foothold in the Northwest and access to key industrial areas for future growth, according to MFCP’s Robinson.

MFCP has divisions in nineteen locations and prides itself on having a large, readily available, locally based inventory and exceptional application expertise.

“As MFCP was formed, part of the strategy was to identify and capture the geography we felt was under-served and fit into the strategic acquisitions that we were looking for,” Robinson says. One of those regions was Alaska, which led to the acquisition of Jackovich, giving it four new locations in Alaska: two in Anchorage, one in Wasilla, and one in Fairbanks.

President and CEO John Niemi says MFCP will give Alaska operations access to capital and management that will allow it to grow.

“This acquisition has strong support from Parker Hannifin and Stihl because MFCP provides its customers with a high level of service and technical expertise,” Niemi notes in an October 2013 statement. “MFCP is authorized to sell six of Parker’s product groups into an area that had been underserved by the Parker network.”

Jackovich carried complementary product lines as a distributor for Parker Hannifin and Stihl and had built a reputation for quality and service in Alaska’s unforgiving climate.

“The Jackovich brand name is certainly well-recognized in Alaska,” Robinson says.

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Fairbanks-based Jackovich was started by Joe and Buz Jackovich in 1969 as Jackovich Tractor. During the construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline in the 1970s, Jackovich expanded its product line and services to “bring the West Coast three thousand miles closer to Alaska, and its market.”

The name was officially changed in the 1980s to Jackovich Industrial & Construction Supply to better reflect the expansion. MFCP will retain Jackovich’s employees, although owner Buz Jackovich is retiring. “I was fortunate to be able to be very selective in who acquired the company I have been building for over forty years,” he said in a statement. “I am confident that Motion and Flow Control Products will be a good fit for our employees and customers.”

MFCP plans to keep the Jackovich brand name for the immediate future.

In 2013, the company had forty employees, and Robinson expects that number to grow.

MFCP has no immediate plans for new acquisitions, Robinson says, and believes it can best leverage its existing market knowledge and supply base to build on and grow over the next few years.

“Organic growth is really going to be a key push for us over the next couple of years,” he says. “We hope to leverage the additional geography we’ve picked up, as well as our market knowledge, our product knowledge, and the strength of our supply chain.”

Oil and gas is a big part of its targeted market, as seen by MFCP’s acquisi-

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

tion of M&D Hose in Sidney, Montana, in the heart of the Bakken complex.

Coupled with Jackovich employees’ knowledge of oil and gas production in a harsh climate, MFCP is ideally situated to serve customers in the Bakken region as well as Alaska’s Kenai, Cook Inlet, and North Slope oilfields.

MFCP also plans to focus on its ability to come up with solutions and packages for customers. “We have a very broad access to the entire range of Parker Hannifin products. We have access to every product line, from flue connector products to sealing hydraulics.”

Improving the Future Alaska Rubber distributes products from mainline vendors such as Goodyear, Gates, and Eaton for hose and fittings and Wireco, Campbell, and Gunnebo for wire rope.

With the acquisition of the five Washington locations, more than one hundred employees now work for—and are part owners of—the Alaska and Washington Rubber. Mortensen says being part of an employee-owned company has many advantages.

Not everyone gets it, Mortensen says.

Some workers are just looking at a paycheck, but some realize that what they do can affect the value of the company they own.

“A capital investment company has shareholders, just as we do,” he says.

“Those shareholders wake up every morning and look at the stock ticker, and that’s what they care about. Our employees wake up every morning and they go to work at the company they own stock in and their efforts go directly to the value of the company that they own. I think our guys wake up every morning thinking about what they can do to improve their futures.”

It’s a model for powerful growth, and that’s what Alaska Rubber foresees in its immediate future, Mortensen says.

“I believe there are going to be some more acquisitions in the future,” Mortensen says, although he did not want to go into details. “This is a pretty large bite that I think will keep us pretty busy over the next couple of years.” R Julie Stricker is a journalist living near Fairbanks. www.akbizmag.com

HR Matters

I

By Kevin M. Dee

Are we really on the same page?

n most organizations I find many different opinions on whether or not everyone is on the same page.

When I ask managers I usually get a resounding yes. When I asked the people in the trenches what the mission of the company is they often look at me like my dog used to—with a cocked head and a “huh, what do you mean?” response.

One of the worst retorts to this by managers is: “Well, we told them didn’t we?” I’ll sometimes hear so many different responses to the question (of what we’re trying to accomplish as a company) that I question if the people I’ve asked are even working for the same organization. So why does this matter?

The truth is it matters a lot more than you may think.

Alignment Understanding the strategic intent of your company and your role in moving the organization forward to accomplishing that strategic intent is the ultimate definition of alignment. From a bigger perspective, companies are like ships. Unless everyone is pulling or rowing in the same direction there is inefficiency and waste. The larger the organization the more important alignment becomes. Too many people pulling in the wrong direction will render a large organization restricted in its ability to maneuver and accomplish its goals.

If each individual knows how their job assists their team and their organization to achieve its mission, then they will become self-directed. They will do whatever is needed, including pushing on other departments or teams to achieve success. In this environment command and control is not as necessary and managers become more of a support and coaching function. These types of teams and organizations will do what’s necessary to achieve success, if they have line of sight to performance. www.akbizmag.com

Employee Awareness What we’re talking about here is “strategic importance.” It is an employee’s awareness of how their everyday job assists the organization’s success. If every employee owns their individual strategic import to the company and they have freedom to improve what they do to assist the goals of the company, then you have a motivated and engaged workforce.

What would happen if tomorrow your company said they would pay you 50 percent of the first year’s proceeds from any new idea that either makes money or saves money as long as the benefit was measurable? I’ve seen this work wonders to motivate employees.

Too often, management seems to think they know what’s best from their loft y perches. In reality, quality and efficiency improvement is best sourced from those people actually doing the work. Real leadership motivates people and sets them free to do the best they possibly can do. They remove obstacles and support each individual to their greatest success.

Obstacles The biggest obstacles to becoming this type of organization tend to fall into three categories.

1. Lack of trust. This is the organization where politics rule and decisions are mostly made on opinions and personality versus factual information.

Proud peacocks rule these roosts and covering your backside is the modus operandi.

2. Inattention to results. These are organizations that do not react to reality. They tend to be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and usually have environments of blaming and justifying when things don’t turn out the way they planned.

3. Lack of accountability. These organizations suffer from vague roles and responsibilities and a lack of clear ownership of anything that’s being

done or not being done. Silos and turf battles abound.

Overcoming Obstacles Overcoming these obstacles requires a clear definition of what success is for the entire organization and for each department and each person. The first step is accessible information regarding company and individual performance.

Second, meetings and conversations should always include fact-based and purpose-driven performance goals and objectives that are celebrated when met and redirected when in danger of not being met.

We all want to know that our work matters and that we make a difference by doing what we do. We all want to know the facts on how we’re performing. We yearn to be part of something bigger than ourselves, something that we can tell our great-grandchildren about someday. We’d like to be able to say that we were a part of something great and important.

Every business and every organization has the capability of being a place where everyone—and I mean everyone—can have pride in what they do and what their coworkers do. Everyone in every organization needs to be able to answer the question, “How do you make your company successful?” R Kevin M. Dee has a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and is the president of KMD Services & Consulting. He has more than twenty-eight years of experience providing leadership development, organizational development, and human resources services in Alaska and internationally. Contact him at mail@kmdconsulting.biz.

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

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OIL & GAS

ASRC Energy Services and Oilfield Module Fabrication Synonymous with resource development infrastructure

By Tom Anderson

44

W

ithin the realm of Alaska natural resource development technology and construction, size is a relative measure of success. More often than not, the larger and more comprehensive a business’s production process becomes, the more efficient and successful its output, profit, and reputation.

Fabrication is an essential element to resource development infrastructure

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

in the state. As equipment and onsite structural placement grow, so too will success and likely expansion.

In the fabrication world, knowledge, experience, and safety records also play a huge role in production momentum.

Building Block— the Fabrication Process The process of fabrication for a trucktransportable module starts when a www.akbizmag.com

Welders in the process of building the floor of the superstructure. The AES facility specializes in all aspects of structural steel fabrication and accommodates assembly of twentyfoot-wide truckable modules joined side by side. © ASRC Energy Services

with the installation of the HVAC system. While the structural crews are completing the finish work on structural (flooring, bracing), the electricians and pipe crew are completing work. At that point the architectural crew begins installing panels that comprise the outside walls and roof. During installation and after completion of the work, all craft work is inspected for quality control. A final FCO (functional check out) is also conducted by third-party or client direct representatives. The completed module is then shrink-wrapped, loaded, delivered, and deployed.

fabrication facility is awarded a contract. Engineering drawings are made and then reviewed for construction.

Structural drawings are detailed, and a procurement of materials is necessary, which includes mechanical (piping, valves, fittings, etc.), structural steel, electrical components, architectural supplies, and paint.

Once specifications are confirmed, construction starts with the structural www.akbizmag.com

steel fabricated to match drawings and then assembled to create what’s referred to in industry nomenclature as a “superstructure.” During the assembly of the superstructure, the fabrication of mechanical piping begins. Once complete, electricians install electrical components like strut, wiring, and junction boxes.

During this period the installation of the mechanical piping begins along

Comprehensive Fabricator When it comes to fabrication in Alaska, the list of qualified businesses that handle such unique services comprehensively is limited. One such company is ASRC Energy Services (AES), a wholly owned subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), a private for-profit corporation formed in 1971 under terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. AES is one of the largest, private, Alaskan-owned and -operated oil and gas service companies in the state. Its total workforce exceeds five thousand employees, and 80 percent of its workforce is made up of Alaskans.

The company takes pride in its safety and quality records while embracing Iñupiat values. ASRC is certified by the National Minority Supplier Development Council as a Minority Business Enterprise. As its corporate messaging confirms, an aggressive culture of safety is demanded and is reflected in AES’s performance in 2013 when the company achieved several safety milestones while working over 2.4 million man-hours across all operations.

AES has provided oil and gas services since 1985, and as its website and information materials proudly inform, the company offers services for all phases

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

45

© ASRC Energy Services

© ASRC Energy Services

The AES Anchorage Fabrication Facility excels in truckable module fabrication and assembly, and offers clients everything from material procurement to client Functional Check Out support.

of an oilfield lifecycle, from exploration, permitting, and field development to production optimization and decommissioning, as well as offshore oil spill response capabilities.

In terms of fabrication, AES maintains two full-service fabrication facilities in Alaska and a facility in New Iberia, Louisiana, that caters to clients located on the Gulf Coast in the global energy, offshore/onshore oil and gas, refining, utility, and manufacturing industries, both domestically and internationally.

“We’re fortunate not only to have clients that value our fabrication craftsmanship, but that also allow us to help them build and maintain the resource development industry in Alaska,” says Sheila Schooner, corporate communications manager.

The AES Alaska fabrication and construction division is made up of three groups in three locations across Alaska: Anchorage fabrication facility, Nikiski fabrication facility, and a North Slope construction facility in Deadhorse offering services to producers.

The range of fabrication projects pursued by the company is impressive. The list includes the fabrication and construction of electrical modules, production modules, power generation modules, production skids, well shelters, telecom modules, structural components, electrical components (panels), and pilings.

46

The company’s corporate messaging notes the principal purpose of ASRC Energy Service’s Fabrication and Construction Division is to produce modular facilities for both oil processing and electronic control of the oil production process. Modules are built to accommodate the logistics of moving them by truck from the Anchorage or Nikiski fabrication facilities to the end user, as part of oilfield maintenance and construction services.

Anchorage Fabrication Facility The Anchorage Fabrication Facility is a 50,000-square-foot shop with 5,500 square feet of office space, situated on a nine-acre lot. An additional 5,000-square-foot heated warehouse is used to store owner-furnished and weather-sensitive materials. The facility interior consists of four 50-foot by 250-foot bays, each equipped with several one-ton jib cranes and 10-ton and/or 5-ton overhead bridge cranes.

It accommodates assembly of two 16foot wide truck-transportable modules joined side by side. A portion of one bay is dedicated to structural steel fabrication equipment, including automated plate cutting equipment.

There are ten semi-automatic welding stations, and welders are AWS and ASME qualified.

AES uses customized piping and structural steel fabrication computer software to ensure accurate shop draw-

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Architectural crew installs wall panels while electricians finish installing the electrical and instrumentation components within the module.

ings and fabrications, material control, quality control documentation, and detailed shipping lists. The fabrication starts with raw material and ends with a serviceable product ready for delivery and installation.

Nikiski Fabrication Facility The Nikiski Fabrication Facility sits on thirty acres adjacent Cook Inlet. It has a 26,000-square-foot heated shop and warehouse with 8,000 square feet of office space and another 2,400 square feet of staff housing. Additionally, AES has another 5,000 square feet for warm storage of client materials. Much of the equipment, personnel, and services offered at the Anchorage facility are comparable to the Nikiski facility.

The Nikiski facility also has a lighted dock and beach space. This allows modules, like Alpine’s, to be barged to the North Slope and other destinations using the company’s Rig Tenders Marine Terminal dock.

Rig Tenders Dock The Rig Tenders Dock was built in the late 1960s to support an expanding offshore oil and gas industry in Cook www.akbizmag.com

BusinessPROFILE

Little Red Services, Inc.

VOTE NO ON 1 LRS Hot Oil Unit being built at WEONA

T

he More Alaska Production Act (SB21) is the new tax law which took effect January 1st of 2014. The law has improved our competitive position among other oil producing regions and is generating new investment in Alaska. The change in the tax law has been sharply criticized by some and praised by others. It has been my observation that too many Alaskans have not been made aware of the facts, and critics continually use propaganda and misrepresentations to further confuse the issue. The facts of the More Alaska Production Act (SB21) are pretty straight forward, and here are just a few: 1) At current prices, the new tax brings in more revenue to the state than ACES. The new tax law has not cost the treasury $2 billion dollars as the opposition has stated. At higher prices there is a cost to Alaska’s treasury. For example, at $111.67 per barrel, the cost to the treasury, assuming no new production, is $430 to $505 million. While this sum is significant, it is much lower as the price of crude declines. In fact at just about $105 per barrel, the state collects about the same revenue between old tax (ACES) and the new law (SB21). As prices go below $105, we collect more tax revenue under the More Alaska Production Act (SB21).

2) We have seen a significant change in investment and activity level since the passage of the new law SB21, and

the state predicts $10 billion in new investments. We are hiring more Alaskans and putting them to work with good paying jobs in the oil and service related industry since the law passed.

Alaska is benefitting from a healthy oil environment and is seeing real progress on a major LNG project to bring our vast gas resources to market.

3) Why is our oil production so important? Revenues from oil production provide the majority of state funding. I encourage every citizen to review the “Revenue Resources Book” that is published by the Tax Division of the Department of Revenue semiannually. This shows how we fund the state treasury to pay our bills and fund important public needs like education, roads, social services, etc. The tax base has many components, but they are grossly overshadowed by the 92% of tax revenue provided by oil to the unrestricted general fund this past fiscal year. Oil revenues are projected to provide over 85% of our unrestricted general fund for the next 10 years.

4) How will the new tax law impact the permanent fund? The permanent fund does not receive money from production taxes. The permanent fund receives 25% of the royalties paid to the state as the landowner. So the permanent fund is at risk by the old tax policy that results in continual oil production decline and benefits under a tax policy that encourages investment

and rewards production. We have seen the results of decline over the past 6 years and it is time to go a different direction with the More Alaska Production Act. The activity level is up at Little Red Services for the first time in years and the future looks bright for our local business. The benefit extends outside of our company as we are producing new equipment at a locally owned fabrication shop to meet new demands and hiring local Alaskans to fill the good paying job opportunities being created. Be informed of the facts and base your position on those facts. Aviod the misleading commentary and sensationalism by those who are working hard to politicize the issue as opposed to supporting what’s good for Alaska’s future.

Little Red Services, Inc. Doug Smith, President & CEO dsmith@lrs-ak.com 3700 Centerpoint Drive, Suite 1300 Anchorage, AK 99503 907-349-2931

littleredservices.com

P A I DInc.,A3700 D VCenterpoint E R T IDrive, S E Suite M E1300, N T Anchorage, – Paid for by Little –Red Services, AK 99503.

Douglas L. Smith, President and CEO is the principal officer of Little Red Services. Douglas L. Smith, President and CEO of Little Red Services, Inc. approved this advertisement.

The craft support for both facilities is broken down by disciplines that are specific to process piping, structural, electric, architectural, and material support groups and include primarily welders, pipe fabricators, and electricians.

The dock had major upgrades in 2013 and is scheduled to re-open in spring 2014. The refurbishment is timely considering the resurgence of activity in the area. Existing oil and gas facilities in Cook Inlet need diesel fuel and potable water to maintain operations. Additionally, there is a need for shore-side staging and storage for materials.

Above and Below: Finished and ready for transport, modules are shrinkwrapped and loaded onto trucks destined for the North Slope where they will be unloaded, assembled, and installed. The Anchorage Fabrication Facility is located on a nine acre lot and can accommodate simultaneous fabrication, assembly, and load-out of multiple modules year-round. Š ASRC Energy Services

48

Inlet. AES acquired it in 1997 and transformed the facility to a module fabrication and assembly yard for the construction of the Alpine Development Project. Both fabrication facilities were involved in the fabrication, assembly, and installation of sixteen sealift modules. The Rig Tenders Terminal was used to barge these modules to the North Slope.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

What’s Ahead for AES? AES is in the process of building a new multi-million dollar fabrication facility on forty acres in Deadhorse at Prudhoe Bay to meet the growing needs of producers and projects on the North Slope.

The facility will offer state-of-the-art equipment for project use including a fueling system and a tank farm, as well as personnel housing. AES expects full operations in 2015.

As for regulatory reforms from the Alaska State Legislature in 2013, AES

www.akbizmag.com

is content with the current statutory landscape. “The More Alaska Production Act has had an immediate and significant impact for us this year. Right now, we’re running our Anchorage shop around the clock to meet project schedule demands. It was the shot in the arm Alaska needed to put Alaskans to work and keep them working in our state,” says Steve Gasser, general manager of Fabrication and Construction for AES. Gasser notes that after the More Alaska Production Act was passed, and ConocoPhillips Alaska and BP Exploration Alaska announced their intent to invest in the North Slope, AES witnessed an increase in the amount of work at the Anchorage Fabrication Facility over the summer of 2013.

Gasser says that several truckable and truck-transportable module packages destined for the North Slope have gone through his facility in the last eight months and the number of AES employees has increased as a result.

Prior to the passage of Senate Bill 21, the Anchorage facility saw a steady decline in the amount of work, and AES had significant reduction in the fabrication facility’s workforce, suffering a plant all-time low of twenty-two Alaskan employees on a reduced thirtyhour work week. Gasser adds that because of the blossoming commitments of AES clients, the facility is now operating with more than one hundred Alaskan employees, and he foresees the employee count and current activity level to continue in 2014.

It Isn’t Size or Profit, but Quality that Matters in Fabrication Ultimately, for ASRC Energy Services, efficient production and quality output are key ingredients to its success. While the size of a business, and the number of employees, may make a difference in corporate rankings and profits, for AES it’s about a commitment to Alaska. It’s not the size that matters in AES’s longrange goals, but rather a respected, useful product. When it comes to the field of fabrication, the company has definitely met the mark.

R

GCI Industrial Telecom has proven experience designing for and working in demanding environments. As experts in the field, our aim is to provide innovative full life cycle communications solutions to increase your productivity.

Tom Anderson writes from Alaska. www.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

49

OIL & GAS

New North Slope Infrastructure

Š STG, Inc.

STG, Inc., a subsidiary of Calista, supplied cranes to a CD5 subcontractor.

Critical to oil and gas industry development

By Mike Bradner

F

rom east to west across the North Slope, critical oil and gas industry infrastructure is being put into place that could usher in a new era of incremental petroleum development.

New infrastructure is also planned for the southern slope, which will open up prospective new areas for development and exploration.

At Point Thomson, sixty miles east of Prudhoe Bay, a twenty-mile common carrier liquids pipeline is being built to connect that new project, now being built by Exxon Mobil Corporation and its partners, to the existing twenty-five-mile Badami pipeline, which is now owned by Savant Alaska, an inde50

pendent company. The Point Thomson pipeline is being built to accommodate growth in the eastern slope region. It will have a capacity of seventy thousand barrels per day, far more than is needed for the ten thousand barrels per day of liquid condensates that will be produced in the initial phase of Point Thomson development. The Badami pipeline already has ample spare capacity.

Since the Badami and Point Thomson pipelines are both common carrier pipelines, a requirement of Alaska law for oil pipelines, other companies will be able to use them. Common Carrier pipelines are required to accept all oil offered for shipment. If Shell develops

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

offshore oil in the eastern Beaufort Sea, for example, the oil can be brought ashore to a connection with the common carrier onshore pipelines, a substantial savings for Shell.

Other critical infrastructure facilities now built at Point Thomson will also benefit development in the eastern North Slope. A permanent, year-around airfield and a dock facility is now complete along with a permanent camp and utilities and communications facilities.

Western North Slope To the west, at the Colville River west of the large North Slope producing oilfields, ConocoPhillips is building a www.akbizmag.com

bridge over a river channel to reach the CD5 drill site on the west side of the river. The bridge and the gravel roads associated with it are strategically important because they will provide access not only to the new drill site but also to projects farther west in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). In effect, CD5 is providing the “gateway” to the petroleum reserve.

ConocoPhillips is already planning an extension of the road eight miles farther west to the GMT-1 (Greater Moose’s Tooth) project it now hopes to develop with its partner, Anadarko Petroleum.

The companies are also looking at a possible GMT-2 project, another drill site, a few miles farther west. New exploration drilling planned for this winter will help prove out the GMT-2 prospect.

In this fashion an incremental expansion of the road west into NPR-A could continue toward other areas where discoveries have been made. For example, NordAq Energy, an Alaskan independent company, plans further exploration on oil and gas discoveries made several years ago by a Talisman Energy subsidiary, FEX LLC, that is

west of where ConocoPhillips is exploring. If those prospects prove up, the road and pipeline network could be extended farther. NordAq is also exploring a prospect on state-owned offshore leases north of NPR-A. If a discovery were made a pipeline could be brought ashore and built south to connect to a pipeline extending east.

A long-term, major infrastructure addition in the NPR-A would be if Shell or other companies make major discoveries in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast. This oil, or gas, could be brought ashore and shipped across NPR-A in a new west-east pipeline to a connection with the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. This has huge significance for NPR-A because the proximity to a new pipeline will make many small and medium-sized oil and gas deposits economic to develop. These projects, individually, could not afford to pay for their own pipelines.

Eventually, residents of the largely Iñupiaq community of Barrow, a community with about four thousand people, may become interested in a road connection to the oilfield roads net-

work so that movement of goods and supplies, and personal travel, can be done by road from Interior Alaska.

Southern North Slope On the southern North Slope, a one hundred-mile road from the Dalton Highway to the Umiat area to the far southeast boundary of NPR-A is in the early planning and permitting stages.

An Australia-based independent oil company, Linc Energy, is drilling test wells at Umiat to determine if a small, shallow oil deposit discovered decades ago by US government agencies can be commercially developed.

If the Umiat oil is economic to produce, a pipeline would be built to carry the oil to the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. However, the road now in the planning stages would be critical to giving year-around access to the Umiat field.

It would also foster more exploration in the region, where there have been discoveries of natural gas on lands owned

by Arctic Slope Native Corporation.

At this point the Umiat road planning is being led by the state of Alaska as part of Governor Sean Parnell’s “Roads A coffee table photo book of Alaska’s North Slope oil patch.

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51

Another concern now, for both industry and government agencies, is the limitation in moving equipment and supplies to a remote, “roadless” field quickly in an emergency in months of the year, summer mainly, when the ice road is not available. to Resources” program. It includes other state-led road projects intended to open up new areas, for example, a road planned to the Ambler mining district of the western Brooks Range, also from the Dalton Highway.

If Linc Energy’s work at Umiat shows the deposit to be viable for production, Linc may take over management of the road project from the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, which is now leading the project.

If it does that, Linc will probably involve another state agency that works in partnership with companies on infrastructure, the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA. AIDEA has a long and successful track record of working with companies on infrastructure: the Red Dog Mine and port in the late 1980s and, more recently, the redevelopment of an ore export facility at Skagway.

New Policy Paradigm An interesting aspect of the CD5 project and the network of roads west that will result from it is that this represents the end of a policy of encouraging “roadless” development projects with pipelines but no year-around road access.

The Alpine and Badami fields were built in the late 1990s, as is the Point Thomson project today, to be standalone projects with no permanent roads from Prudhoe Bay. Surface access is by ice and snow roads in winter, which have to be built each winter at great expense.

There is access only by air, although at Point Thomson there is barge access.

The concept behind this was to minimize the environmental impacts of a permanent gravel road, not only from its construction but also dust and other pollution resulting from vehicle traffic in summer. There was also a savings in construction, in that a project could be built without also paying for an expensive road and, usually, bridges across streams and rivers.

These ideas have now been rethought, both by industry and at least some government agencies. For industry, the 52

savings in construction of a road and bridges is offset by the higher operating costs of the field, the need to build ice roads in winter, and higher volumes of air-freight during summer when these fields are isolated.

Another concern now, for both industry and government agencies, is the limitation in moving equipment and supplies to a remote, “roadless” field quickly in an emergency in months of the year, summer mainly, when the ice road is not available.

The Alpine and Point Thomson fields are large enough that the operating companies can store emergency equipment on site. The small Badami field, however, made the limitations of access to a remote location (it is twenty-five miles east of Prudhoe) more apparent. However, independent companies interested in the eastern slope have pressed the state on a possible state-led roads-to-resources road from Prudhoe Bay east. Some preliminary work by the state has been done on a possible “Bullen Point” road, but the state is giving emphasis now to the Umiat road, so this project is now on the back burner.

As ConocoPhillips began planning CD5, GMT-1, and other modest-size projects in NPR-A, it was apparent that while these could, in theory, be built as “roadless” projects, the availability of a road would allow not only emergency response equipment to be stored in a centralized facility at the Alpine field, but also equipment and supplies for serving the smaller fields. That would make for greater efficiency.

Of course, there were also “roadless” small satellite drill sites in the Alpine field that were developed in the Colville River delta, which are served by pipeline but no roads. These are reached in winter by ice road and in summer by air. In these cases, however, the complex web of river channels in the delta would have required a great investment in bridges, making those drill sites uneconomic. The overall support network of this area is now being studied because Repsol has made additional

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

nearby discoveries on the delta.

At the CD5 project west of the Alpine field, however, the policy changed, at least for ConocoPhillips. CD5 was considered both as a “remote” (no road/ bridge access) and a non-remote (bridge and road) project. After careful study, ConocoPhillips came down on the side of a permanent bridge and road, mainly on safety grounds. Access for heavy equipment during an emergency at CD5 or GMT-1 farther west would be more effective with a bridge and road.

Also, a bridge-supported crossing of the Colville for a pipeline would allow the pipeline to be inspected for leaks more easily than if the pipeline were buried below the river.

This was a crucial test case. Federal agencies such as the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Environmental Protection Agency fought the bridge plan fiercely, arguing that a buried crossing for the pipeline would be safe and that a network of surface roads, expanding to the west, would have adverse effects on highly productive wetlands that support major migratory bird habitat. The east-west gravel roads would disrupt the mainly south-north drainage patterns through the wetlands, the agencies argued.

The US Army Corps of Engineers finally came down on the side of ConocoPhillips in approving the bridge and road permits, again mainly on the grounds of increased safety. The decision was crucial because the bridge and road to CD5 now allow the expansion of the road to the west. Roadless projects will always be considered by industry and advocated by some agencies. The precedents set by the Corps of Engineers in the CD5 bridge decision will be important.

Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority Another important new development in North Slope infrastructure is the entry of the state’s economic development finance corporation, AIDEA, in working with small companies to jointly-finance support projects. The authority’s poswww.akbizmag.com

sible role in working with Linc Energy on the Umiat road was mentioned previously, but AIDEA is now working with another small independent on projects farther north in the main oilfields areas.

AIDEA is already engaged in a partnership with Brooks Range Petroleum, a small Alaska-based company, on a short access road and pad for the small Mustang field planned by Brooks Range. Mustang is west of the Kuparuk River field on the slope. The road and pad are now built.

In the second stage of this project, AIDEA and Brooks Range are working together on development of an oil and gas processing facility for Mustang that will also be available to serve other companies developing small oilfields nearby. This is the first time this has been possible. It is important because until now the lack of access by others to process facilities, which are owned by the major North Slope operating companies, is seen as an impediment to development. Pioneer Natural Resources was able to work out an agreement to process oil from its small Oooguruk field with owners of the nearby Kuparuk River field at processing facilities in that field. Eni Oil and Gas, however, chose to develop its own process plant for its small Nikaitchuq field, but that was partly to have the plant designed to handle the mix of heavy and lighterweight oil from that field.

Eni and Pioneer are large companies and the availability of the state, through AIDEA, to help finance oilfield infrastructure is crucial if small independents, like Brooks Range, are to be able to develop discoveries on the slope. Brooks Range, for example, believes the area west of Kuparuk has potential for several small to modest-sized oil discoveries like Mustang. Having a shared processing plant available for those projects, a benefit of AIDEA’s involvement, is a new concept.

Other companies exploring in the area west of Kuapruk are also interested.

These include some that are not so small, like Repsol, which has already made discoveries, and Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, which is exploring on stateowned lands though a subsidiary.

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

53

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Photo courtesy of Cook Inlet Housing Authority

Eagle River’s Coronado Park Senior Village construction site in January. The Senior Village portion of the subdivision is to the left of townhomes, already under construction.

Construction Financing Facilitates More Affordable Housing and Office Space in Alaska

By Tracy Barbour 54

L

ast spring, Coronado Park Senior Village broke ground in Eagle River, promising to be the tallest building in town. The $16.6-million senior rental housing development will boast a four-story, fifty-six-unit structure convenient to retail, entertainment, and dining.

The development, being built by Cook Inlet Housing Authority, will feature one- and two-bedroom units—some of which will have garages. Perhaps most important, the facility will provide a place where Alaskans age fifty-five and older can live independently and affordably on a fixed income. About forty of the units will be designated as “affordable” and offered to low-income seniors, with the rest to be rented at market rates.

Residents of Coronado Park will also have the added bonus of being able to live in ultra energy-efficient housing.

The building is designed to meet a 5 Star Plus energy rating and will have the largest alternative energy system in a residential building in Alaska, according to Cook Inlet Housing Author-

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

ity. The project will be powered by a solar-thermal system that will provide more than half of the energy needed to heat hot water for domestic use.

Coronado Park Senior Village is being funded by a number of sources, including R4 Capital, Northrim Bank, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, Rasmuson Foundation, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Northrim Bank provided both the construction financing as well as the permanent financing. Favorable loan terms for the permanent financing were able to be provided as a result of Northrim Bank’s membership with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle through participation in their Community Investment Program. Northrim Bank’s further contribution included investment in the project through the purchase of low income housing tax credits. “It’s a project we are very proud of,” says Northrim Bank Construction Loan Manager Tara Tetzlaff. “It meets the needs of the community in a number of ways.” www.akbizmag.com

Rendering courtesy of Cook Inlet Housing Authority

Rendering of Coronado Park Senior Village.

Photo courtesy of Cook Inlet Housing Authority

The Coronado Park subdivision will have townhomes for rent and sale, in addition to the fifty-six-unit, four-story Senior Village.

The project is scheduled to be completed in July.

Hot Segments of the Market Alaska’s financial institutions provide funding for all types of construction projects, from industrial warehouses

and office buildings to residential housing and subdivision development. Projects involving low income housing tax credits—which are an important element of Coronado Park Senior Village’s funding—are becoming increasingly popular with investors. That’s not sur-

prising, given that investors can receive a significant tax credit related to their investment which reduces their federal tax liability over several years.

Such tax credits provide a strong incentive for the use of private capital in the development of housing aimed at lowincome households. They serve as a vital resource for creating affordable housing throughout Alaska and the United States.

At Coronado Park Senior Village, for instance, rental amounts—which are based on household income—will range from $750 to $975 for a one-bedroom unit and $870 to $1,135 for a two bedroom.

Affordable housing is an active segment of the real estate market in Alaska,

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Tetzlaff says. She adds that meeting the affordability needs of the community is important to Northrim Bank, which is heavily concentrated on the residential construction industry. Northrim provides financing for approximately four

56

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Photo Courtexy Wells Fargo

Photo Courtexy Northrim Bank

Tara Tetzlaff, Northrim Bank Construction Loan Manager

of the five largest residential builders in Anchorage and Eagle River. It also funds a variety of other commercial real estate projects, such as office buildings and apartments.

Tetzlaff says Northrim Bank has always been very committed to the construction industry, whether residential or commercial. From 2009 to 2011, when the real estate market was at its lowest, the bank continued to provide financing to meet the needs of the industry. Additionally, the bank chose to carry or build out its bank-owned properties in an effort to preserve the market, she explains, adding: “Northrim took a very responsible approach during this period. We wanted to preserve our presence and commitment to the community and the industry.”

Like Northrim, Wells Fargo is also seeing an increase in construction projects utilizing low income housing tax credits.

The bank is also funding more projects involving industrial warehouses and office buildings, according to Andrew Petro, Wells Fargo’s Commercial Real Estate Group Alaska Region manager. The vacancy rate for these segments is around

Andrew Petro, Wells Fargo Commercial Real Estate Group Alaska Region Manager

3 percent, with 7 to 10 being a healthy range, Petro says. So the increased demand for financing for industrial and office buildings isn’t surprising. “There’s not a lot of speculation,” he says. “There is

www.akbizmag.com

Managing Project Costs Cost overruns are a critical issue. And they can occur during any phase of the project—including the beginning. For example, if a buried tank is discovered during the excavation of the construction site, this could generate unexpected environmental remediation costs. Of course, completing an environmental analysis prior to starting can prevent some—but not all—surprises. It’s really about being able to manage the construction process and cost overruns, as well as being able to handle the unknown, Petro says.

Petro says it’s prudent to build in a contingency for cost overruns, which can run 5 to 10 percent of the project costs. Wells Fargo also uses a construction project budget cost analysis to ensure the borrower has adequately accounted for expenses. “We look at what you are budgeting and what your costs are,” he says. “If you’re way low on a particular item, we might ask: Is there a reason for that? Or do we need to add something more in the budget?”

First National Bank Alaska has a similar perspective about making allowances for cost overruns. Vice President Corporate Lending Division Chad Steadman says projects always have change orders, and he advises project owners to plan for cost overruns. He recommends budgeting anywhere from three to seven percent for cost overruns. “If you plan for them and they happen, you’re ready,” he says. “If you don’t plan for them, it can really put the project at risk.”

Different kinds of construction contracts have varying levels of risks, with two of the most common types being fixed-price and cost-plus contracts. Fixedprice contracts are perhaps the least risky

Photo Courtexy First National Bank Alaska

a lack of inventory and a need out there— plus, people want to have a choice.”

Petro’s customers are a split between nonprofits and individual investors/developers; however, Wells Fargo finances a wide array of construction-related projects. Regardless of the type of project, most financial institutions perceive construction funding to be riskier than other types of commercial financing.

Petro explains: “We tend to look at construction as a little higher risk because it still has to get built. And it has to get built to create a source of repayment.”

Chad Steadman, First National Bank Alaska Vice President Corporate Lending Division

for the borrower and lender. With this type of contract, the borrower typically pays for change orders out of pocket and the builder is responsible for covering cost overruns. Construction projects may also

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

57

FNBA/ Chris Arend Photography

Crews working on the Natural Pantry construction project.

use a cost-plus contract based on the budgeted costs, plus an additional amount to cover the contractors’ profit.

However, before projects can reach the budget-setting stage, they start with an idea. At First National, customers discuss the feasibility of their concept and ultimately develop a budget based on the estimated costs, appraised value of the project, and other elements.

Another important factor is the loan to cost, the ratio of the loan to the total cost of the project. Essentially, this ratio

helps the lender determine the risk involved in lending the funds. Typically, the higher the risk for the lender, the higher the borrower’s interest rate. “We typically require 25 percent down, but in some cases, we might do an 80-percent loan to value with a good borrower,” Steadman says.

During the building process, construction-loan borrowers receive shortterm funding dispersed in increments and at various phases of the project. The construction financing requires inter-

est-only payments from the borrower.

Once the project is completed, the interim funding is replaced with a longerterm loan with a lower interest rate.

Feasibility of Project Critical to Loan Qualification Construction financing is unique from other forms of commercial lending in that approval depends more on the viability of the project, market, and demand, and less consideration is placed on the five Cs of Credit—character (in-

The Natural Pantry deck area, under construction.

FNBA/Chris Arend Photography

58

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

tegrity), capacity (sufficient cash flow to service the obligation), capital (net worth), collateral (assets to secure the debt), and conditions (of the borrower and the overall economy).

However, the type of project is an important factor. In some cases, the borrower is the project owner and plans to occupy the completed property. In other cases, the borrower intends to build the property and sell or lease it. “That’s more risky for the bank,” Steadman says. “That’s where we look at if it makes sense and if there is a market for it.”

In Natural Pantry’s case, the owneroccupied project made good sense. The natural and organic food store recently built a forty-four thousand-square-foot building in Midtown Anchorage, tripling its staff from thirty to one hundred. The stand-alone store is considerably larger than the thirty-two thousand-squarefoot University Center location Natural Pantry had occupied since 2000. “It’s very satisfying to see a project that size come all the way to completion,” Steadman says. “I think it’s a great project, and I think what’s special is that it’s local individuals who are doing it.”

FNBA/Chris Arend Photography

Early construction site work at the Natural Pantry project in Anchorage.

There are a number of ways borrowers can lend strength to their project financing application, Petro says. Getting a lease signed prior to construction can make the deal stronger. So can securing a guaranteed-price contract or performance bond. Wells Fargo, he says, looks at financing projects from a comprehensive standpoint. “We’re try-

ing to make it work for all parties. We also look to form long-term relationships with our builders, developers, and customers so that we continue to help them along the way.”

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

59

special section

Building Alaska

Construction Spending Forecast for 2014 Annual Report for the Construction Industry Progress Fund and the Associated General Contractors of Alaska

By Scott Goldsmith, Mary Killorin, and Linda Leask, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage OVERVIEW The total value of construction spending “on the street” in Alaska in 2014 will be $9.2 billion, up 18% from 2013.1, 2, 3 Wage and salary employment in the construction industry, which was stable last year at about 16,300, should continue at that level through the next year.4 The oil and gas sector will account for most of the growth this year. It will total $4.3 billion, up from $3.2 billion last year.

Other spending will be $4.9 billion, up from $4.6 billion last year.

Private spending, excluding oil and gas, will be about $2.0 billion, up from $1.9 billion last year—and public spending will increase from $2.7 to $2.9 billion.

The robust projection of construction spending in Alaska in 2014 is due to four factors. The largest and most obvious is the petroleum industry’s expanded investment plans.

Federal government spending will be higher than anticipated, because of both a larger Department of Defense budget and the one-time re-allocation of previously unspent federal highway funds.

State government spending will also be strong, notwithstanding the reduc-

tions in state appropriations for capital projects the last two years. In FY2013 the state appropriated a record high $2.8 billion (including transportation bonds) for capital spending for projects (excluding federal grants). That fell by $1.7 billion in FY2014, to $1.1 billion.

For FY2015 the governor has proposed project spending of $0.6 billion.

State-funded construction spending has been largely insulated from that drop, for several reasons. First, the record-breaking appropriation in FY2013 pumped more money into the construction “pipeline” than it could handle, so many projects funded then are only now under construction. Second, many projects now receive only partial funding in a single year—so many projects from the large budget years are still seeking additional funding to start or continue to completion.

Third, the FY2013 bond appropriation has yet to be fully utilized. Also, many of the projects approved in the record capital budget were not constructionrelated.

Finally, the economy has continued to grow, adding jobs and population.

This fact, together with the renewal of

cautious optimism in the oil patch, has led to higher private spending in the residential and commercial construction sectors.

Most of the uncertainty in the forecast this year is in the oil and gas sector. We assume that the oil and gas companies will be largely successful in carrying out the plans they have announced for the year.5 But plans can and do change, because of many factors associated with weather, logistics, availability of supplies, evaluation of work completed, regulatory and environmental challenges, prices of oil and gas, and other operational and strategic concerns. The continued uncertainty about the future direction of state petroleum tax policy, possible new energy policy initiatives put forward by the second Obama administration, and the prospects for construction of a gas pipeline to commercialize North Slope gas add a cautionary note not only to industry planning, but to the entire economy.

As in past years, some firms are reluctant to reveal their investment plans, because they don’t want to alert competitors; also, some have not completed

Our revised projection for 2013 was $7.8 billion, slightly lower than originally estimated. The revision is based primarily on lower than anticipated oil and gas spending in 2013.

2 We define construction spending broadly to include not only the construction industry as defined by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Alaska Department of Labor, but also other activities. Specifically, our construction-spending figure encompasses all the spending associated with construction occupations (including repair and renovation), regardless of the type of business where the spending occurs. For example, we include the capital budget of the oil and gas and mining industries in our figure, except for large, identifiable equipment purchases such as new oil tankers. Furthermore, we account for construction activity in government (like the carpenter who works for the school district) and other private industries. The value of construction is the most comprehensive measure of construction activity across the entire economy.

3 “On the street” is a measure of the level of activity anticipated during the year. It differs from a measure of new contracts, because many projects span more than a single year.

4 Alaska Department of Labor 5 Some companies new to Alaska have tended to be overly optimistic in the last couple of years.

1

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their 2014 planning. Large projects often span two or more years, so estimating “cash on the street” in any year is always difficult—because the construction “pipeline” never flows in a completely predictable fashion.

Tracing the path of federal spending coming into Alaska without double counting is also a challenge, and as the state capital budget grows it becomes more time-consuming to follow all the flows of state money into the economy.

We are confident in the overall pattern of the forecast—but as always, we can expect some surprises as the year progresses.

PRIVATELY FINANCED CONSTRUCTION Oil and Gas: $4,255 Million The biggest sector, and the one projected to increase the most this year, is oil and gas. We expect that if actual spending matches the announced plans and past experience in the industry, spending will be up 33% from $3.2 billion last year.

The growth is being driven by the continuing high price of oil, the increase in the cost of inputs to all phases of oil and gas operations, the growing need to maintain the aging infrastructure and facilities on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet, and perhaps most importantly, by the climate of optimism created by passage of the new production tax on oil and gas that went into effect at the start of 2014.

On the North Slope, Conoco Phillips will be conducting exploratory drilling at Kuparuk and in the NPRA (National Petroleum Reserve Alaska) west of the Colville River, where the company hopes to develop the Greater Moose’s Tooth Prospect. Conoco’s largest project will be developing the CD-5 satellite, also west of the Colville River and the Alpine field. Work this year will include a bridge, module installation, and pipeline fabrication. British Petroleum has announced an expanded capital budget this year, with concentration on more well work-overs and well stimulations at Prudhoe Bay. The company has also begun to re-evaluate its Liberty prospect, and expects to increase capital spending by several billion over the next five years. Exxon Mobil is continuwww.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

61

ing work on development of its Point Thomson field.

Shell Oil is hoping to come back and complete the well it started to drill in 2012, on the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) in the Beaufort Sea. Meanwhile, Statoil has not announced any plans to explore its prospects in the Beaufort Sea. Also on the North Slope, ENI is continuing to drill wells in the Nikaitchuq field, and Savant is re-working wells at 6

Badami. Pioneer has plans to expand its facilities at the Oooguruk field, with an additional onshore production pad and expanded island.6 Brooks Range Petroleum is working to develop the Mustang field, west of Kuparuk, with financial assistance from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA).

Repsol, Linc Petroleum, and Nordaq Energy are all planning exploratory wells this year, and Great Bear will be

Pioneer recently sold its assets to Caleus.

doing seismic work but no drilling.

A number of other companies, including Chevron and Anadarko, have interests in various fields on the North Slope but are not operators. Their expenditures are also included in the total.

Work continues on maintaining the TAPS (Trans Alaska Pipeline System) oil pipeline and modifying it to meet the challenges of reduced flow.

Spending in Cook Inlet will be dominated by Hilcorp, a relative newcomer to Alaska that recently purchased the assets of both Chevron and Unocal.

Hilcorp drilled 10 new wells in 2013, and plans are for a similar number this year.

Buccaneer, Furie, and Cook Inlet Energy are the other most active players in Cook Inlet. Buccaneer has been using the jack-up rig Endeavor to explore in the Cosmopolitan unit. (It is also developing and operating fields on shore.)

Furie used a second jack-up rig to develop its Kitchen Lites prospect and is currently installing the first new production platform there since the 1980s.

Cook Inlet Energy is working several different fields.

Other companies active in Cook Inlet include Armstrong, Apache, Nordaq, Aurora, and XTO. Elsewhere in the state, there will be exploration for gas near Nenana and Copper Center.

Mining: $205 Million Spending by the mining industry—on exploration and development,7 as well as maintaining and upgrading existing mines—will be lower in 2014 due to the drop in the price of gold.

Spending on maintenance, continued exploration, and new facilities at the six large operating mines will be $110 million. Spending for drilling and other site work will be down this year at the three world-scale mine projects currently in various stages of review (Donlin Creek, Pebble, and Livengood).

Numerous smaller projects across the state, such as the Bokan rare earth metals prospect in the Southeast, and the Nova Gold upper Kobuk mineral project, will see activity.

Excluding exploration and development costs associated with environmental studies, community outreach, and engineering.

7

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Other Basic Industries in Rural Alaska: $76 Million Investments in facilities to support tourism, the seafood and timber industries, and other natural resource industries often occur in rural areas. Holland America is planning extensive upgrades to a newly purchased hotel outside Denali National Park, and a new hotel is under construction on the North Slope.

Two seafood processing plants, with total construction spending of $60 million, are planned for Naknek.

Utilities: $851 Million8 Spending for new and upgraded electric generating plants will drive utility spending higher this year.

Two new large plants will be under construction this year—the MEA (Matanuska Electric Association) plant at Eklutna, and the AML&P (Anchorage Municipal Light and Power) replacement plant in northeast Anchorage. GVEA (Golden Valley Electric Association) has taken over the Healy Clean Coal plant and plans there include spending for upgrades and emission control systems.

Smaller utilities are involved in a number of hydroelectric projects, including Blue Lake at Sitka and Allison Creek at Valdez.

Other electric utility projects involve renewable sources like wind and biomass, bulk-fuel upgrades, and other system efficiency upgrades financed partially through programs like the Renewable Energy and Energy Projects appropriations in the state capital budget.

Telecommunications spending will also be higher this year, driven by new firms moving into the market (Verizon), as well as continued expansion and upgrading of facilities by existing companies like GCI and Alaska Communications. Telecommunications spending in Alaska benefits from funds generated by the Universal Service Funds, which channel revenues collected from services provided in other locations to help pay for needs in Alaska.

Spending by ENSTAR, the natural gas utility, will be up as it continues expansion in the Homer area. But the

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THE CALISTA CORPORATION FAMILY OF COMPANIES

Yulista Management Services, Inc. • Y-Tech Services, Inc. • Yulista Aviation, Inc. Brice Companies • Tunista Services, LLC • Tunista, Inc. • Tunista Construction, LLC Yukon Equipment, Inc. • Brice Environmental • E3 Environmental • Futaris Sequestered Solutions • Chiulista Services, Inc. • Solstice Advertising Calista Real Estate • Calista Heritage Foundation Statistics from Alaska Business Monthly October 2012

Although we include utilities and hospitals/health care spending in private spending, there is also a significant amount of public spending for some projects in these categories.

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

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state project to transport LNG from the North Slope to Fairbanks has yet to get underway.

Hospitals and Health Care: $230 million Spending was down in 2013, because new hospitals had been completed at Barrow, Nome, and Fairbanks. Spending for hospitals and other health care facilities in 2014 should be about the same as last year.

Hospitals around Alaska are continuously renovating and expanding.

This year the largest planned project is at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, where a state-financed residential housing facility for patients and their families is scheduled for construction, along with a new parking garage. Providence Hospital is nearing the end of its multi-year “Generations” expansion project, and Alaska Regional Hospital has announced modest renovations. Expansions are also expected to begin

at hospitals in Ketchikan and on the Kenai Peninsula.

Smaller projects are underway across the state, in response to the growing need and aging of the population. For example, a new blood bank facility in Anchorage, and a long-term care facility for veterans in Haines, will be under construction.

No large projects have been identified for military hospitals this year.

expansion in the oil patch. For example, Cook Inlet Regional Corporation (CIRI) is building a new larger headquarters to replace its existing building in Anchorage.

New national chains, such as Cabela’s and Bass Pro shops, continue to move into the Alaska market, and a large new shopping mall is planned for the MatSu Borough, in response to a growing population there.

Other Commercial: $170 Million Commercial construction spending consists primarily of office buildings, banks, hotels, retail space, and warehousing.9 The level of spending from year to year can be influenced by a few projects, like large office buildings. Vacancy rates for commercial space have been falling over the last three years in the larger markets, and we project modest growth this year in office space in response to both the tightening of supply and the expectation of future need associated with

Residential: $480 Million The residential housing market continued to tighten last year, as reflected in rising prices, higher rents, lower vacancies, and quicker sales—but that was not reflected in construction activity.

For example, the number of new residential building permits in Anchorage did not increase last year.

We expect that the upward pressure on the market will result in a modest increase in new housing starts this year in the major markets in the Railbelt and Southeast.

Our commercial construction figure is not comparable to the published value of commercial building permits reported by Anchorage and other communities. Municipal reports of the value of construction permits may include government-funded construction, which we capture elsewhere in this report. We have also excluded hospitals and utilities from commercial construction, so we can provide more detail about those types of spending.

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Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

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PUBLICLY FINANCED CONSTRUCTION National Defense: $395 Million Defense spending, which had been falling and was projected to continue to shrink as the federal budget tightens, will take a big jump this year. The budget for MILCON (military spending for facilities on bases), which was only $33 million last year, is forecast to be $103 million. Funding includes seven new projects at Fort Wainwright, of which the largest is a $36 million warmstorage hangar. The environmental program budget, including FUDS (Formerly Used Defense Sites), will also be larger, at $127 million in 2014. This program includes cleanup of hazardous substances and contaminants at former defense sites as well as on current Army and Air Force installations.

Spending on the smaller civilian programs and other interagency programs will be similar to that in past years. This spending mostly funds Corps of Engineer projects for other federal agencies, and projects done in cooperation with Alaska communities, such as harbor improvements.

Missile defense spending, concentrated at Fort Greely, will increase this year to $90 million from only $18 million last year. This is the start of an announced $1 billion expansion that will add 14 interceptor missiles to the defense system at Fort Greely over the next several years.

construction along the Parks highway, pavement preservation on the Seward and Sterling highways, bridge construction in Alek-nagek, and extension of major arteries in Anchorage. Some federal funds also go directly to Alaska Native tribal organizations for transportation projects.

The state also funds road construction through both the Department of Transportation and grants disbursed by the Department of Commerce, Com-

munity, and Economic Development.

This source of funds will be marginally lower this year because the large size of the grant program in FY 2013 was not repeated in FY2014. Some money was also allocated for the state’s Roads to Resources program, largely for continued planning. The state will continue to pay for deferred maintenance.

The $453 million state general obligation bond package for transportation that passed the legislature in 2012 in-

10 Not all of the federal appropriation funds highway construction because it also includes the funding for the marine highway system and research and planning of transportation facilities.

ACHIEVE MORE

Transportation—Highways and Roads: $765 Million Spending on highways and roads will be marginally lower this year, because the large Tanana River Bridge project is nearly complete, and road funding from state sources is marginally lower.

But federal funding for highways will be at an all-time high, because the state was able to re-obligate about $100 million of unexpended federal dollars it had received in years past. Together with the annual federal appropriation under MAP21 (the Federal Transportation Reauthorization Act) and the state matching money, there should be more than $500 million available this year for highways funded through federal programs.10 These funds will pay for major projects throughout the state, such as rewww.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

65

cluded $227 million for highways and $35 million for bridges, with the rest allocated to ports. But not much highway construction associated with that bond package is expected in 2014. The bond money was divided between state highway construction and grants to local communities. Some of the specified projects are not yet “shovel ready,” so it will take some time before this money hits the street. Also, many of the projects will need additional appropriations by the legislature to be fully funded and put out to bid.

The current federal legislation under which transportation funding is allocated to the states is scheduled to expire later this year. There is concern that Alaska will receive a smaller share under any new legislation.

Transportation—Airports, Ports, and Harbors: $425 Million Federal funds, mainly from the Federal Aviation Administration’s AIP (Airport Improvement Program), will provide the bulk of funding for airport improvements both at the large international airports in Anchorage and

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Fairbanks and the smaller state-owned airports across the state. Major planned improvements at the Kodiak airport will boost airport spending marginally higher than last year.

Spending related to ports and harbors will be less than last year, because no activity is anticipated for the Port of Anchorage. A combination of federal funding, state general funds, the transportation bond package, and local sources is supporting many smaller projects around the state, including at Ketchikan, Port Lions, and Homer. No major work is yet underway to expand the Seward Marine Industrial Park to over-winter the Bering Sea fishing fleet, and potential expansion of Nome and Kotzebue harbors to provide a base for Arctic operations is still on hold.

Spending for the railroad spur line to the port at Point MacKenzie in the MatSu Borough is expected to be up this year, as construction continues.

Alaska Railroad: $23 Million The core capital construction program for modernizing and upgrading the Alaska Railroad will be modest this year.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

State funding will allow continued work on a federally mandated collision avoidance system, a large, multi-year project.

(Spending for the Tanana River bridge and the Port McKenzie rail extension are included in other parts of this report.)

Denali Commission: $9 Million The Denali Commission—an innovative federal-state partnership Congress created in 1998 to more efficiently direct federal capital spending to rural infrastructure needs—continues to decline in importance. Most of its modest capital budget will be for energy-related projects.

Education: $477 Million Spending for education will be lower this year. In the past two years, the state has appropriated general funds for construction of several new rural schools, as part of the settlement of the Kasayulie case. Two of those schools, at Emmonak and Koliganak in western Alaska, will be largely completed in 2014. Construction will be underway at another, in Quinhagak, but construction at Nightmute and Kwethluk will not begin until next year. The general

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fund also contains numerous education-related grants for local school districts throughout the state.

New schools will be under construction in Valdez and Kodiak, and several in the Mat-Su Borough alone, funded by local bonds that are largely reimbursed by the state. Local school bonds in Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Mat-Su Borough, and elsewhere are also funding a large number of upgrades and renovations for other educational facilities.

University of Alaska construction spending will be lower this year, as the new Seawolf Arena in Anchorage is completed. Work in Anchorage will also include the building portion of the new engineering complex and renovations of several older buildings. In Fairbanks, work will also continue on a new engineering building as well as expansion of the Wood Center dining facilities. A variety of projects are also planned for the community colleges around the state.

Other Federal: $300 Million Other federal construction should be higher this year due to an increase in direct procurement, led by spending by the Coast Guard on housing in Kodiak and a hangar at Cold Bay. Direct spending by other federal agencies—the Department of the Interior (National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management), the Postal Service, the Department of Agriculture, and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)—will be modest.

In addition to funding a large share of spending on transportation infrastructure through grants from the Department of Transportation, the federal government funnels construction dollars to the state though many other programs.11 Most of the funding for the state-administered Village Safe Water program for rural sanitation comes from federal sources, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Indian Health Service. With the state contribution, it is expected to be constant at about $60 million this year. Other types of federal grants It is difficult to track all the federal dollars that find their way into construction spending in the state, because there are so many pathways, and they change every year. The possibility of double counting funds as they pass from agency to agency, or become part of a larger project, also creates difficulties for the analyst.

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fund armories and veterans’ facilities and ferry terminals, among other things.

The federal government also provides construction grants to Alaska tribes, non-profit organizations, and local governments across the state.12 Alaska Native non-profit corporations, housing authorities, and health-care providers receive most of this money. The largest of these programs in Alaska is NAHASDA (the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act), which provides about $100 million annually for housing construction in Alaska Native communities, through grants to federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native housing authorities statewide.

Other State & Local: $515 Million State and local government capital spending—excluding transportation (roads, airports, and ports), education, health, and energy—will be marginally higher this year, as many of the projects in the large state capital budgets of the last two years are completed. Many of these projects were funded through the grants by the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development to local governments and non-profits throughout the state.

The state budget also includes the ongoing state weatherization and home energy rebate programs, which have now been expanded to include commercial buildings. Work is expected on a number of state-funded buildings, including the new library-museum in Juneau. The first phase of the South Denali visitor center should be completed.

This category also contains about $100 million of deferred maintenance spread across all state departments.

Local government capital spending, from general funds and bonds as well as enterprise funds and direct federal grants, tends to be modest and stable from year to year. A large share of this spending is for water and sewer facilities, but it also includes other construction, such as buildings, recreational facilities, and solid waste facilities.

WHAT’S DRIVING SPENDING? The three primary drivers of construction spending are private basic sector

investment (mainly petroleum and mining), federal spending (military and grants to state and local governments and non-profit organizations), and state capital spending (which ultimately depends on petroleum revenues), through the general fund and bond sales.

These large external sources of construction funds also give a general boost to the economy—and thus add to the aggregate demand for new residential, commercial, and private infrastructure spending.

CONSTRUCTION IN THE OVERALL ECONOMY Construction spending is one of the important contributors to overall economic activity in Alaska. Annual wage and salary employment in the construction industry in 2013 was about 16,300 workers, with an average annual payroll of $70 thousand, second only to mining (including petroleum).

But that figure doesn’t include the “hidden” construction workers employed in other industries like oil and gas, mining, utilities, and government (force account workers). In addition, it does not account for the large number of selfemployed construction workers—estimated to be about 9,000 in 2011.

Construction spending generates activity in a number of industries that supply inputs to the construction process. These “backward linkages” include, for example, sand and gravel purchases (mining), equipment purchase and leasing (wholesale trade), design and administration (business services), and construction finance and management (finance).

The payrolls and profits from this construction activity support businesses in every community in the state. As this income is spent and circulates through local economies, it generates jobs in businesses as diverse as restaurants, dentists’ offices, and furniture stores.  Alaska’s Construction Industry Forecast for 2014 is published in Alaska Business Monthly with the permission of the Associated General Contractors of Alaska and the Construction Industry Progress Fund.

Federal spending on health care projects for the Alaska Native community funneled to Alaska Native organizations is included in the Hospital/Health Care section of this report.

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Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

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special section

Building Alaska

Construction in Interior Alaska Expecting to fare well, depending on funding

UAF photo by Todd Paris

By Julie Stricker

Maintenance technician Dean Ojala checks the fl ame in one of the coal-fi red burners which have remained in continuous use at the UAF power plant since the early 1960s.

A

sking about the 2014 Fairbanks construction season in January is a bit like consulting a Magic 8-Ball for an answer: You’re likely to get “reply hazy, try again.”

That’s largely because many of the projects are dependent on government funding, which may not be approved until this spring or later, if at all. It’s a story being played out all over Alaska, which is heavily dependent on federal and state funding, both of which are on the wane, according to an analysis by Northern Economics, an Anchorage-based consulting firm.

Interior Alaska is expected to fare better than the state as a whole, with some growth projected in the military and construction sectors. But even

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there, projects are largely dependent on Congress and the Legislature. A top priority is a new heat and power plant for the University of Alaska Fairbanks and several projects are being overseen by the US Army Corps of Engineers under the military construction program.

Military Projects “We’ve got ourselves poised to go as soon as funding is approved,” says Mark Coburn, acting chief of the Military Branch Program and Project Management Division for the US Army Corps of Engineers.

“Any time between now and March, but it’s sometimes as late as June before we’ve gotten the construction money. You lose a lot of construction season that way, but that’s

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

out of our hands,” he adds with a laugh.

If, however, all of the stars align and Congress passes all of the appropriations, 2014 could be one of the last big seasons for military construction in Interior Alaska, Corps of Engineers officials say.

“All of our work has shifted up north for the most part for the military,” says Curt Biberdorf, a public affairs specialist for the Corps of Engineers. “For us, you can say it’s fairly busy, but it’s all concentrated on that one aviation task force. Military construction is in decline. We’ve had our big surge of buildup and now it’s on the downslope.”

One major project already under way is the Northern Rail Extension, which will extend Alaska Railroad’s infrastructure from North Pole another eighty miles www.akbizmag.com

southeast to Delta Junction. The project will be built in four phases with a total cost of $650 million to $850 million. The first phase is a bridge over the Tanana River at Salcha, which is expected to cost $188 million and has a July 2014 completion date.

Phase 2 includes laying track from Moose Creek to the Tanana River Crossing. It is currently unfunded.

The bulk of the Corps of Engineers’ anticipated 2014 projects are at Fort Wainwright Army Post, Fort Greely, and Clear Air Force Base. Two of the main projects on Fort Wainwright have been broken into seven separate construction contracts, Coburn says. The $103 million in projects were divided as a way to help ensure their passage by Congress, “but the biggest reason is we get to spread the work out a little bit more that way.”

They are: 1. A fi fty-seven thousand-square-foot warm storage hangar 2. A thirteen thousand-square-foot company operations facility 3. A thirteen thousand-square-yard parking lot with lights and vehicle plug-ins 4. Two separate contracts for identical battalion headquarters with classroom attached, each forty-one thousand square feet 5. A thirty-three thousand-square-foot duplex company operated facility 6. A contract to demolish hangars 2 and 3, which have been unused for years The contracts are pending an environmental impact statement, Coburn says.

Other projects that have different funding sources include changing out the power plant at the NOAA facility near Fox; utility repairs and a mechanical electrical building in the Fort Greely missile field; and putting in the foundations for a radar facility at Clear Air Force Base. Another project at Clear is to tie the base’s electricity and heating systems to the Golden Valley Electric Association intertie.

The Corps of Engineers will also be overseeing the construction of a 168-person dormitory at Eielson Air Force Base.

The dormitory was scheduled to be built in 2012 but was put on hold until military officials decided against moving the base’s F-16 squadron to Anchorage.

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tion to help accommodate the five hundred soldiers expected to arrive in 2015.

Lend Lease, the Army’s housing partner, built eighty new three-bedroom units in the Northern Lights housing area in December 2013 and is building another forty units this spring, Storch says. This summer, sixteen older housing units will be demolished and construction begun on thirty-six new housing units, which are expected to be completed in 2015.

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Construction at UAF Two major projects are underway on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, the construction of a new engineering facility and a major renovation/ addition of the Wood Center, a dining and gathering place for students.

The engineering facility is a $108 million, four-story building designed by ECE Hyer/NBBJ with Davis Constructors and Engineers. The facility is under construction on a former parking lot between the Duckering and Bunnell buildings, and the project includes a retrofit of the Duckering Building. The new facility will include forty new laboratories and an engineering cold room. It is expected to be completed in 2015 and open for classes that fall.

In the center of campus, a new dining facility is going in on the west side of the Wood Center. The project incorporates about 20 percent of the existing Wood Center, which is a hub for student activities, says Jenny Campbell, acting director of design and construction at UAF. The price tag for the major part of construction is $27 million. Ghemm Co. is overseeing construction.

“We’re taking over the kitchen and revamping the dining room,” Campbell says. “It will include state-of-the-art cooking facilities and a new/old cafeteria concept. You know, everything comes around again. It’s a beautiful space and our hope is that the students and faculty and community will all want to be there and we hope the food will draw them.”

The Wood Center administrative offices were also renovated, a project that was completed in January 2014, Campbell says.

The facility will also include a coffee shop downstairs with a stage and microphone that Campbell says will be a venue for dessert and coffee after events on campus. “We like to think it has under-twenty-one pub potential because most of our students are under twentywww.akbizmag.com

Photo by Brian Schlumbohm/Fort Wainwright Public Affairs Office

Large trucks are busy entering and exiting the construction area of the new hangar site on Montgomery Road in 2013. Several construction projects are slated for the Army post in 2014, but all are dependent on congressional funding this spring.

one and they don’t have things to do at night,” Campbell says. The anticipated completion date is July 16, so the building will be open in time for fall classes.

One of the most urgent projects on campus is the construction of a new power and heat system to replace an antiquated system, says UAF spokeswoman Marmian Grimes.

“We’re going to the Legislature this session with the main funding request for that,” Grimes says. “The total project will cost $245 million. We’re looking for $195 million in state funds and then we’re looking to bond the remaining $50 million.”

The project is essentially a major upgrade of the current plant, which was built in 1964 and has pressing maintenance needs.

“What we’re using right now is 1890s technology, a little bit upgraded,” Grimes says. “It’s not too far removed from the person with a shovel on the fire except our shovels are mechanical. It truly is very old technology.”

The new boilers will burn coal and about 15 percent biomass, which would significantly reduce the university’s fuel costs and reduce emissions, Grimes says. But, the Legislature needs to act soon because building the facility will take time and construction would begin in 2015 at the earliest.

“It’s not an off-the-shelf thing,” Grimes says. The university needs to hire someone to design the boiler. Then the facilities housing the boiler must be designed and the site prepared before any construction can begin.

Complicating the issue is the current facility’s fragile condition. The boiler’s tubes need to be replaced, which would www.akbizmag.com

cost millions of dollars, Grimes says. It doesn’t make sense to do that if a new power and heat system will be built. At the same time, “if we have another blowout, it could knock everything offline.”

“We’re there,” Grimes says. “We really need to get funding for this this session. Otherwise, we’re going to have to look at whether we need to put that Band-Aid on that existing plant.”

Other Commercial Developments As far as commercial development within the city of Fairbanks, building official Clem Clooten says the most significant is a new REI outdoors outfitters store that is expected to open this spring in a building that formerly housed a Fred Meyer store on College Road. Ryan Middle School’s gymnasium overhaul is also due to be completed this summer.

A Japanese restaurant and a Friar Tuck hoagie house are also scheduled to open in east Fairbanks near a new Verizon outlet. And while Clooten has heard a national drugstore chain is looking at locations in Fairbanks and a hotel chain wants to build a 103-room building, he has yet to see official paperwork for either.

“As of right now, this will be an average, a little bit under average construction season,” Clooten says. “The past ten years have been excellent. Certainly a couple of big projects would bump it right up to the top if they happen. A lot of times people don’t want to say anything until the last minute. I hope there are some surprises this spring for us.”  Julie Stricker is a journalist living near Fairbanks.

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

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special section

Building Alaska

Building Bridges: CD5 Creates Construction Jobs ConocoPhillips to use low-impact construction technique

By Gail West ©ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc.

Rendering of the Nigliq channel bridge.

C

onocoPhillips is moving forward with construction of the billiondollar Colville Delta 5 (CD5) project, a new Alpine drill site on the eastern edge of the National Petroleum ReserveAlaska (NPR-A). The project will consist of a gravel road and pad along with affiliated drill-site facilities, pipelines, four bridges, and fifteen wells—with space for up to eighteen additional wells, according to the company.

Through its contractors, ConocoPhillips will begin building these four bridges—ranging from about 200 feet to 1,400 feet—along a 6.2-mile-long road from Alpine to the CD5 site. The project will create approximately five hundred new construction jobs during the next several construction seasons.

The four bridges will carry both traffic and oil and gas pipelines, according to James Brodie, ConocoPhillips’ capital projects manager for CD5 and NPR-A. Although the Alpine Field is not connected to the North Slope road system, Brodies says, year-round access between the main Alpine pad and CD5 is critical to safe and environmentally sound operations. All bridges should be complete by May 2015.

PCL Construction, in conjunction with CH2M Hill and Ruskin Construc-

74

tion Ltd., will be building two of the four bridges, including the 1,400-foot bridge, and Nanuq Inc./Alaska Frontier Constructors as a joint venture will build the remaining two bridges.

Unique Technique The three shorter bridges “are more typical of what we do,” Brodie says.

These three will provide additional flow capacity (compared to culverts) in case of high water during breakup. The smaller bridges cross a dry lake bed, what Brodie calls “a paleochannel,” a remnant of the Colville that is now inactive, and the Nigliagvik Channel of the Colville River.

The longest of the bridges, which crosses the Nigliq Channel, will consist of steel pilings, seven midstream pier groups with sheet-pile abutment, and a steel box superstructure. “It will have eight spans of concrete deck panel ranging from 175 to 200 feet each and will be the longest bridge on the North Slope,” Brodie says.

One of the construction techniques ConocoPhillips anticipates employing for this bridge is relatively unique, Brodie adds: “We’ll use a launch structure that we build on the gravel at one end

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

of the bridge, then we’ll push the bridge out span by span across the channel.”

He says it’s the optimal technique to reduce the amount of heavy equipment on environmentally sensitive areas. “It’s definitely a lower impact way to build in this area.”

ConocoPhillips anticipates using ice roads during two winter seasons to bring the equipment in while the ground is frozen. “It’s like an offshore platform with no ocean for nine months of the year,” Brodie says. “It’s surrounded by tundra and you can only get there during the ice-road season.”

Once there, the equipment will not need to be deployed onto the riverbed while the spans are launched. Contractors are scheduled to build a launch track with trolley beams to place the eight separate spans as they’re built.

Each span is expected to move at about four-and-a-half-foot increments; then it will be jacked up for the roller removal before being lowered into place.

A second benefit to building the bridge in this way, Brodie points out, is that it’s significantly safer for all the construction crew to work at grade on the ground rather than being suspended over the river. www.akbizmag.com

New Infrastructure In addition to the road and bridges into CD5, ConocoPhillips plans to build an 11.8-acre gravel drilling pad, pipeline, drill-site facilities, power, and communication infrastructure. Although the oil and gas pipeline is a separate entity from the road and the bridges, the bridge structures will be utilized to carry it across. The pipeline is a twenty-inch production line that will carry sixteen thousand barrels a day at peak production. The oil from CD5 will send all fluids back to Alpine for processing, Brodie says, and ConocoPhillips plans to begin drilling in May 2015 with start-up scheduled for December 2015.

Peak production should be reached in 2016, and the site is expected to produce for thirty years. Activity scheduled for this winter includes bridge construction, gravel installation, and module and pipeline fabrication.

According to ConocoPhillips Alaska President Trond-Erik Johansen in a presentation to The Alliance in November, CD5 will be the farthest west production on the North Slope, and its development is important to further development in NPR-A because it takes infrastructure across the Nigliq Channel—essential for development farther west.

Long Time Coming Planning for the development of CD5 began in the mid-1990s, and a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit application for a roaded bridge design was originally filed with the Corps of Engineers in September 2005. In 2008 the application was resubmitted with location changes to accommodate local subsistence concerns. That application was denied in February 2010 and ConocoPhillips appealed the decision.

Finally in December 2011 the Corps of Engineers approved the application and ConocoPhillips was able to move ahead with its development of the site.

Among the challenges to creating the CD5 site are two lawsuits, one filed by the nonprofit law firm Trustees for Alaska representing seven Nuiqsut villagers (although two of the original seven dropped out of the lawsuit last October) and the second filed by the Center for Biological www.akbizmag.com

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The original Alpine development, where CD5 oil will be processed. ©ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc.

Diversity—both against the Corps of Engineers. The Trustees’ suit alleged the development would harm subsistence hunting and fishing. The Center’s suit says a spill could put oil into the Colville and then into the Beaufort Sea, which could affect endangered bowhead whales, polar bears, and ringed and bearded seals.

ConocoPhillips notes that since 2008 they have worked with the Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the State of Alaska, the Kuukpik Village Corporation, and the residents of Nuiqsut to address subsistence issues and mini-

mize the footprint from both the construction and the operation of CD5.

Elizabeth Bluemink, spokesperson for the state’s Department of Natural Resources, says: “Permitting issues between the US Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency did impact the project schedule at one time, but since then state officials have worked with the Corps and EPA to come up with a single-agency alternative enabling ConocoPhillips to permit and construct the CD5 satellite project.”

In an opinion piece for “The Arctic Sounder” newspaper published July 27,

AN ALASKA MINING PROJECT COMMITTED TO: LOCAL HIRE RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY

2013, written by Edward Itta, former North Slope Borough mayor, Itta said: “Residents of the nearby village of Nuiqsut were concerned about the impacts of ConocoPhillips’ original plans on the community and on the area’s wildlife.

The Kuukpik village corporation also had objections. I was North Slope Borough Mayor at the time, and I spent several years trying to help find a solution that accommodated the interests of critters, residents, village and regional corporations, tribal, municipal and state governments—while still allowing ConocoPhillips to go forward with a modified development program.

“At the end of a very long process, we found a solution and the project received federal permit approval. It was a classic case of compromise, and it deserved to go forward for that reason. Everybody’s concerns—including those of North Slope residents who worried about the health of the area’s wildlife—were honored.”

The bridge design was developed in conjunction with state and federal agencies and Kuukpik and Nuiqsut villagers.

Brodie says ConocoPhillips made quite a lot of modifications and design changes at a significant cost impact to address subsistence fishing concerns, adding: “We worked with elders from Nuiqsut on the bridge locations and eventually moved the bridge about two miles. Nuiqsut residents use the Nigliq for access to the Beaufort Sea, and it was important for them to know they could continue to use the river. We designed the span length and bridge height to accommodate that and we ultimately lengthened the bridge to protect the riverbank and to allow for riparian buffer.”  Gail West writes from Anchorage.

76

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

special section

Building Alaska

Crude Crossing # *

By Wesley Loy

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78

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

3 Miles

O

ne of Alaska’s biggest planned construction projects in 2014 will be largely out of sight.

That’s because it’ll be on the bottom of turbulent Cook Inlet.

The project is called the Trans-Foreland Pipeline. It’s a subsea pipeline to carry crude oil produced on the remote west side of the inlet to Tesoro’s Nikiski

refinery on the east side.

It’s an ambitious and costly project.

The main backer, Tesoro, has told regulators the cost of the cross-inlet pipeline, including materials and installation, totals $50 million.

As the magazine went to press, Tesoro was pursuing a number of government authorizations for building the pipeline.

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One of these was a right of way from the Department of Natural Resources to lay the pipe across state submerged lands.

Why Build It? Several factors play into the decision to build the pipeline. They can be summed up with three words: safety, reliability, and cost.

Pipeline backers believe a subsea pipeline would be a safer means of moving oil across the inlet. The job currently is done with tankers that fill up at the Drift River oil terminal on the west side and then sail to the refinery on the east.

Oil tankers always carry the risk of catastrophic spills, and this concern is heightened in Cook Inlet because of the prevalence of ice in wintertime.

The drifting ice, coupled with the inlet’s extreme tides, can be extremely powerful. It has even been known to rip ships from their moorings.

The Trans-Foreland Pipeline could also make oil transportation across the inlet more reliable.

Westside crude currently feeds through an onshore pipeline system to the Drift River terminal, which includes a tank farm and the Christy Lee offshore platform where ships dock to take on oil.

The terminal has worked since it was built in the 1960s, but a big threat looms nearby: Mount Redoubt, an active volcano.

In March 2009, Redoubt erupted, sending mud flows known as lahars down the Drift River. Protective berms built around the terminal saved it from a potentially disastrous inundation. But the event forced a terminal shutdown, idling west inlet oil production for months.

To restore oil shipments, operators resorted to piping crude from producers directly onto tankers, bypassing the tank farm. The Drift River terminal owner, Hilcorp, has since resumed partial use of the tank farm after beefing up flood fortifications.

Going forward, proponents see the new subsea pipeline as a more reliable oil transportation option than the tanker terminal.

Finally, pipeline supporters see potential for lower oil transportation costs. This could be true especially if efforts to increase west inlet oil production pan out.

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

79

SOURCE: Tesoro

Lay barge.

“This new pipeline would be a major achievement and would lower the transportation expenses and eliminate the risk of business interruptions due to the ice condition or volcanic activity,” David Hall, chief executive of Cook Inlet Energy, said during an investor conference call in December.

Cook Inlet Energy is a small but aggressive westside oil producer. Its properties include Osprey, the southernmost offshore oil and gas production platform in the inlet. The Anchorage-based company pioneered the subsea pipeline concept and brought it to Tesoro.

and avoid water depths greater than two hundred feet, the maximum depth for safe operation by marine divers,” a project description said.

The pipeline generally will link two land masses on either side of Cook Inlet, the West Foreland and the East Foreland: thus the name Trans-Foreland Pipeline.

In the application for the state right of way, Tesoro said the pipeline will have a transportation capacity of 62,600 barrels of oil per day—a volume far above westside production today—and a design life of thirty years.

The pipeline will have a number of safety features, including a leak detection system. It will accommodate smart pigs, devices that slide through a pipeline to test for problems such as corrosion. An epoxy coating on the pipeline, plus cathodic protection, will provide further defense against corrosion. The pipeline wall will be half an inch thick.

The pipeline will be welded on the

“This new pipeline would be a major achievement and would lower the transportation expenses and eliminate the risk of business interruptions due to the ice condition or volcanic activity.”

—David Hall Chief Executive, Cook Inlet Energy

“After completing a feasibility study in 2011, we entered into an agreement with Tesoro where Tesoro would agree to fund all the development work for the line plus pay project management fees in exchange for an option to build the pipeline,” Hall said.

Technical Details The steel pipeline, eight inches in diameter, would stretch a total of twentynine miles, with the underwater segment running twenty-two miles.

It wouldn’t cut straight across the inlet.

Rather, beginning on the west side at Cook Inlet Energy’s Kustatan oil production facility, the line would loop south and then north again, coming ashore below Nikiski on the east side. From there the line would run, buried, along the Kenai Spur Highway to the Tesoro refinery tank farm.

The U-shaped configuration will “minimize tidal stresses on the pipeline 80

deck of a lay barge and then placed on the seafloor. The line will be anchored as necessary, or possibly buried where conditions allow subsea trenching.

Tesoro in January was expected to apply to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for a certificate of public convenience and necessity.

The company indicated it wanted to commence pipeline operations by October of this year.

The project is expected to generate about 130 construction jobs, and about a dozen field and office workers will be required to operate and maintain the pipeline, Tesoro has said.

Care will be taken during construction to avoid disruption to commercial salmon fishermen, endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales, and fiberoptic cables, Jim Wentworth, capital projects manager for San Antonio-based Tesoro, told the commission in December.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Mixed Sentiment The Trans-Foreland Pipeline has generated both enthusiasm and skepticism.

The Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council, a congressionally sanctioned organization that monitors shipping activity in the inlet, has said it is “very supportive” of the project.

Environmental groups such as Cook Inletkeeper also have signaled support for a subsea pipeline over tankers for moving oil across the inlet.

But Hilcorp, the dominant oil producer in Cook Inlet, has yet to endorse the new pipeline. The Houston-based, privately held company operates most of the inlet’s offshore production platforms.

“There are far too many commercial and regulatory uncertainties surrounding the Trans-Foreland Pipeline project at this time,” said Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson by email January 22.

Among Hilcorp’s questions: ■ What hazards would the pipeline face?

■ Is the designated route the safest option?

■ Would the pipeline reduce the likelihood of an interruption in oil transportation from the west side?

■ Would it cost less to move a barrel of oil from production to the Tesoro refi nery through the pipeline?

■ Would the pipeline affect Hilcorp’s ability to sell product into a competitive market?

■ What would happen to Hilcorp oil and the pipeline if the refi nery closed?

More details about the tariff, or rate per barrel to move crude on the new pipeline, could emerge once Tesoro files with the regulatory commission for its certificate.

In its right-of-way application, submitted in late October, Tesoro said it believed it would need to attract shipping commitments of a fairly modest four thousand barrels per day to make the tariff competitive with the existing oil transportation system.  Journalist Wesley Loy writes from Anchorage. www.akbizmag.com

special section

Building Alaska

Industrial Water & Wastewater: North Slope Borough’s Service Area 10 New treatment facility improves current operations and looks to the future Part four in a series

Water and wastewater are some of the most expensive utilities to provide and the most vital to keeping a community healthy.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy says municipal water and wastewater treatment systems “are among the most energy-intensive facilities owned and operated by local governments, accounting for about 35 percent of energy used by municipalities.”

In Alaska, costs can be even higher than those national averages, especially in rural and remote communities where groundwater is brackish or soils unsuitable for building wastewater treatment facilities.

But what’s happening with water and wastewater in Alaska’s urban and industrial areas? What are the issues facing these utility providers and how is each preparing for the future? Over the course of the last few months, Alaska Business Monthly readers have learned about utilities in Alaska’s major population centers—Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Mat-Su. This month it’s about a utility provided primarily for industrial users in the Arctic.

N

orth Slope Borough is the largest municipality in the nation, if size is the determining factor—it covers nearly eighty-nine thousand square miles of land, 15 percent of Alaska. It’s also one of the least populated county-level municipalities, with a population of fewer than ten thousand

82

Photos courtesy of MWH

By Rindi White

Above top: Alaska Interstate Construction, Inc. built the pad for the new North Slope Borough Service Area 10 water and wastewater treatment plant last year to give it time to cure.

Above: Workers readying the pad.

residents. It has many more temporary residents, however: oil field workers and service providers live there in shifts.

The borough is perhaps the only municipality in the state that has a separate water and wastewater treatment plant to accommodate the temporary residents and industrial users. The municipality is working on a significant upgrade to its treatment plant that will allow it to continue meeting the needs of its customers for the next several decades.

Dubbed the Service Area 10 water and wastewater treatment plant, North Slope officials say the original plant was built in the early 1980s, not long after the borough was formed in 1975. It’s located in an industrial area, says Chris Smith, SA10 program manager for North Slope Borough.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

“There really isn’t a residential component. Our largest customers are the hotels that exist in Prudhoe Bay. The other portion of our customers is the oil companies that rely on our services, and their supporting service companies that use our raw water, potable water, and sewer treatment,” he says.

“The North Slope Borough recognizes its responsibility as the only provider of water, sewer, and solid waste services in the greater Prudhoe Bay area. In order to join the Governor and Legislature in fostering an environment which encourages responsible development within our boundaries, the borough is investing over $90 million to increase and improve the services provided by our utilities,” North Slope Borough Mayor Charlotte www.akbizmag.com

Photo courtesy of North Slope Borough

Brower stated in a September 2013 press release announcing the project.

The project cost Brower mentioned includes work planned for the twenty-fiveacre Oxbow Landfill. Bruce Robson, project manager for MWH Global, the design firm working on the water and wastewater treatment plant upgrade, says the rough construction cost of the new treatment facility is pegged at $50 million, though that number may change.

Smith says the history of dedicated ratepayers using SA10 treatment plant services allows the municipality to use revenue bonds, which are based on the guarantee of future rates, to finance construction.

In this 2009 photo, the existing water and wastewater treatment plant is visible.

The new plant will go in the foreground.

Building Deteriorating, Cramped, and Restricting Growth The existing plant is aging and the evolving needs of the municipality over its lifetime have forced workers to wedge in new equipment in an increasingly cramped footprint.

“Upgrades don’t always fit in existing spaces,” Smith says. “We’ve known for about ten years that the plant was nearing the end of its life.”

Equipment upgrades over the past three decades have incorporated different generations of technology, Smith says. Some of it isn’t compatible with other equipment, meaning it takes more man-hours to monitor the facility.

“They’ve done a good job of integrating equipment, but it’s been very piecemeal. This is designed to be a system that works well from the start,” Robson says of the new equipment.

Robson says the new facility, due to be built this year and scheduled to come online in fall 2015, includes standardized components and interchangeable parts to make it easier to make repairs if something breaks down. Being www.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

83

907.278.1877

DESIGN for the

Arctic community

Photo courtesy of Barnes Architecture Inc.

The new treatment plant will have a gas station-like canopy for drivers to pick up water or deliver waste.

far from any population centers, it can take time for parts to arrive.

Fairbanks | 907.452.1241 Anchorage | 907.276.1241 www.designalaska.com

84

New Technology in a Better Envelope The new plant, being built next to the older facility, is about sixty thousand square feet.

Robson says it will handle all three processes—raw and potable water treatment, hot water, and septage handling—within the building in three different zones.

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

The building itself is designed as a steel-frame structure with steel joists and a flat roof, with internal drainage collection to reduce snow and ice buildup that could cause injury if it were to drop on someone. The walls and roof are heavily insulated with spray-on insulation and pre-insulated panels outside to make it more efficient in the arctic climate.

Because it’s located in Prudhoe Bay atop permafrost, the design team had to www.akbizmag.com

Photo courtesy of Barnes Architecture Inc.

Photo courtesy of Barnes Architecture Inc.

Above: The new plant must withstand brutal weather conditions.

Above right: Kiosks for water fill-ups and waste delivery will be automated, unlike the simpler method used today.

take special care when creating the foundation. The passively cooled foundation, built by Alaska Interstate Constructors, is already in place, allowing the ground below to accommodate the new pad. A flat-loop thermal siphon system was used that pre-freezes the ground below using heat transfer. In the winter, the siphon system allows the ground to refrigerate, or store the cold, while in summer it insulates it against thawing.

Building the pad months before the facility is added on top allowed the ground to become stable, Smith says.

“Now the pad will have spent the better part of a year freezing, and before summer hits we’ll start pouring concrete [for the building],” he says.

Smith says the new plant will have a seamless equipment monitoring process and will include a more efficient building—energy efficient lighting, better air handling controls, better weatherization and, overall, a better working environment.

The SA10 water and wastewater treatment plant is unique in that it doesn’t have a distribution system of underground pipes. All raw or potable wawww.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

85

WATER — essential for life!

ter leaves the facility by truck, and all septage is trucked in for delivery.

The new facility includes outside kiosks designed with safety in mind, incorporating better traffic flows and including automated meters that track precise loads.

“There’s a lot of big truck traffic, so we thought from the start how truck movement happens. The majority of the traffic moves counter-clockwise through the facility with an overhead canopy system.

It’s like a filling station; they pull up to a kiosk and fill up,” Robson says.

There are five filling stations for potable water; four at kiosks and one near the building to accommodate longer trailers that need more space. On the other side of the plant there are three delivery points for waste trucks to offload septage, plus another on the side of the building for longer trailers.

Water & Wastewater Treatment Systems

Service for a Mid-Sized Alaska Community The SA10 treatment plant may not have a distribution system, but it provides about the same level of water and wastewater treatment as a community of between two to three thousand people, Robson says.

Much of the wastewater comes from the oilfield man camps and office complexes. Robson says camps try to be very efficient with their water use, so where an average community might plan on 100 to 150 gallons per resident, camps shoot for 50 to 75 or even less.

COMMUNITY

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LifewaterEngineering.com 907.458.702 4

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Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

High-Quality Water, Not Far from the Sea The water is pulled from the 250 -million gallon Nana Reservoir across the street from the treatment plant. The Sag River, in turn, constantly replenishes the reservoir, Smith says. The Sag empties into the Beaufort Sea not far from the reservoir.

Users such as BP or ConocoPhillips need raw (untreated) water to make drilling mud and for other industrial uses. Smith says that water is screened but not treated. Potable water, which comes from the same source, currently through screening, prefiltration, a sand/ media filter, and finally, ultraviolet and chlorine treatment.

“It’s a very high-quality water source.

We’re lucky to have the Nana Reservoir,” Smith says. www.akbizmag.com

As part of the project, a new pump house at the reservoir and new heated arctic piping will be installed to deliver water to the treatment plant. A new, heated effluent line from the wastewater side to the outfall at McDermott Lake will also be installed, Robson says.

The new water treatment and storage area will be able to store 240,000 gallons of potable water. Currently the plant provides about 180,000 gallons of potable water each day and around 60,000 gallons of raw water.

The new plant will also include storage for about 180,000 gallons of raw water for heated water and potable water treatment. Robson says the heated water will be heated using an efficient direct-contact heating system and will include the ability for individual companies to add chemicals specific to their needs, making it into a sort of brine.

Both Robson and Smith say the only heated water delivery system currently in place in the area is operated by BP. The company’s plant doesn’t have water service, so water must be trucked in and heated, meaning the amount of heated water is limited. The new hot water system is not meant to replace the oil company’s system, but to offer a second option for industrial users.

goes through additional treatment and dewatering then is put through a belt press, similar to a giant wringer washer, to squeeze as much moisture out as possible. The cake is taken to the landfill.

The treated water, meanwhile, is treated to tertiary standards although the municipality is only required to treat to secondary levels. The difference between the two levels is significant— effluent treated to secondary treatment levels generally removes up to 90 percent of organic matter. Tertiary treatment continues the removal process by additional filtration and “polishing.”

“They currently do produce a fairly high quality of effluent. We’re designing it to meet their current effluent quality,” Robson says.

“It is really about preparing for the future and any additional needs that come our way,” Smith says.

With the streamlined operation, Smith says it may slightly decrease the number of employees needed to operate the facility—the facility is operated by contractor Ice Services, he says. But that may not translate to fewer workers because, in addition to streamlining, the borough is expanding its services to include hot water, which will slightly increase the workload.

Indoor Waste Treatment on a Relatively Small Scale The wastewater treatment side incorporates a treatment process similar to the technology the borough is already using, Robson and Smith say.

Smith says the treatment plant will use an SBR, or sequence batch reactor, as its primary treatment method.

“It can handle a wider range of products and is less prone to fouling,” Smith says.

The SBR system generally includes two tanks, one where incoming screened waste is aerated and a second where waste is allowed to settle out before the treated liquid is piped off for more filtration. Robson says the plant will include six SBRs, with space to add a seventh if necessary. Instead of the concrete wastewater treatment basins typically used in community water systems, Robson says this system will include steel treatment tanks, at-grade or above the slab, so if the municipality wants to restructure the space it’s possible to do so easily.

Smith says the concentrated sewage

Sized to Accommodate Shifting Demand Although the facility is oversized, the sometimes-brutal weather on the slope can both delay and significantly increase use of the treatment plant. Unlike a piped distribution system, where water flows out and wastewater flows in on a fairly steady basis, Smith says extreme weather events can keep trucks parked, sometimes for days on end.

Weather conditions in Prudhoe Bay are classified as Phases 1, 2, and 3, with 3 being the harshest, Smith says.

“So when [a Phase 3 event] is over, everyone comes to the treatment plant to offload sludge and pick up potable water,” he says.

The sudden shifts in demand spurred the municipality to add storage tanks for potable water so it wouldn’t run out in the middle of that post-storm activity. 

www.akbizmag.com

Rindi White is a freelance journalist living in Palmer.

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

87

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

ABC Inc. 401 Driveway St. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-457-2221 Fax: 907-457-5045

Susan Ellison, Pres.

Alaska Dreams Inc. 2081 Van Horn Rd., #2 Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-455-7712 Fax: 907-455-7713

Meini Huser, Pres./CEO

Alaska Interstate Construction LLC 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 600 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-562-2792 Fax: 907-562-4179

Steve Percy, Pres.

Alaska Quality Builders PO Box 674 Willow, AK 99688 Phone: 907-495-6200 Fax: 907-495-6200

Karrol Johnson, Pres.

Alaska Signs & Barricades Inc 1200 E. 76th Ave., Suite 1203 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-2835 Fax: 907-344-0159

Jack Barnes, Pres.

Alcan General Inc. 6511 Arctic Spur Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-8787 Fax: 907-563-8788

Stephen Jelinek, Owner/Pres.

ASRC Energy Services Inc. 3900 C St., Suite 701 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-339-6200 Fax: 907-339-6212

Jeff Kinneeveauk, Pres./CEO

ASRC SKW Eskimos Inc. 3900 C St., Suite 308 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-339-6700 Fax: 907-339-6745

John Golick, Pres.

BC Excavating LLC 2251 Cinnabar Lp. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-344-4492 Fax: N/A

Gordon Bartel, Pres.

Brechan Enterprises Inc. 2705 Mill Bay Rd. Kodiak, AK 99615 Phone: 907-486-3215 Fax: 907-486-4889

Michael R. Martin, CEO/Pres.

Brice Environmental Services Corp.

PO Box 73520 Fairbanks, AK 99707 Phone: 907-456-1955 Fax: 907-452-1067

Craig Jones, Pres./Gen. Mgr.

Builders Choice Inc 351 E. 104th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-522-3214 Fax: 907-522-3216

Mark Larson, Pres.

CDF General Contractors Inc. PO Box 211586 Anchorage, AK 99521 Phone: 907-337-7600 Fax: 907-272-2209

Gary Murphy, Pres.

ChemTrack Alaska, Inc. 11711 S. Gambell St. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-349-2511 Fax: 907-522-3150

Carrie Lindow, Pres.

Chugach Alaska Corporation 3800 Centerpoint Dr., Suite 700 Anchorage, AK 99503-4396 Phone: 907-563-8866 Fax: 907-563-8402

Gabriel Kompkoff, CEO

CONAM Construction Co. 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 300 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-278-6600 Fax: 907-278-4401

Robert Stinson, Pres.

Consolidated Enterprises Inc. 633 E. 81st Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-4567 Fax: 907-349-6390

Destry T. Lind, Pres.

88

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

Services Services

1995

16

General contractor specializing in energy efficient remodeling and product sales.

Seamless siding and gutters, windows, doors, all remodeling. Material Sales include: Commercial doors, windows, store front, metal siding, metal flashing, door hardware, window wells.

1994

25

Design, sales and construction for fabric covered steel buildings and pre-engineered metal buildings.

1987

350

AIC provides all forms of heavy civil and arctic construction including ice and snow roads, earthworks, gravel and ice islands, bridges and culverts, structural foundations, dock facilities, dredging and more.

1994

510

Residential and commercial construction, home building, additions, remodels, garages, shops, saunas, insurance losses, custom homes and don't forget landscaping. "We Build Dreams."

1983

36

Construction site traffic control; Furnish and install permanent traffic signs.

1994

6

Construction

info@akabc.com akabc.com

sales@alaskadreamsinc.com alaskadreamsinc.com

info@aicllc.com aicllc.com

akqual@mtaonline.net alaskaqualitybuilders.com

aksigbar@alaska.net aksignsandbarricades.com

alcangeneral.com 1985

2530 Since 1985, AES has offered a full range of services, from exploration, permitting, and field development to production optimization and decommissioning, as well as offshore oil response equipment and resources. Our family of companies allows us to prepare and transition client projects for the next stage of exploration, development, or design.

1974

200

General contractor, wholly owned by ASRC Construction Holding Company. Provide commercial, industrial, heavy civil, paving, design-build and related support services.

1982

45

Complete hauling and excavation services environmental, water, sewer and storm utilities, site work and fabrication

1954

62

General contractor specializing in site work, asphalt, concrete, general carpentry and metal buildings.

1991

10

Brice Environmental is an 8(a) Native owned small business specializing in remediation of heavy metal contaminated soils, remote site demolition, environmental construction and remediation. Project history throughout Alaska and the lower 48 states and Hawaii.

1996

185

Manufacturer of modular buildings, wood and steel floor and roof trusses, full service lumber yard.

1983

3

Tenant improvements, commercial, residential, renovation and repair of damaged buildings, new construction, commercial, elevator installation and general contracting.

Focused on Green building practices. Another service we offer is construction consulting.

info@asrcenergy.com asrcenergy.com

info@achc.asrc.com

admin@bcxllc.net bcxllc.net

brechanenterprises.com

craigj@briceenvironmental.com briceenvironmental.com

sandi@builderschoice.us.com builderschoice.us.com

cdfinc@alaska.net 1973

8-35 Please check out our Statement of Qualifications at chemtrack.net/about_us.htm.

1972

586

Alaska Native Corporation.

1984

100

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

1974

30

Commercial roofing and commercial general construction.

info@chemtrack.net chemtrack.net

communications@chugach-ak.com chugach-ak.com

conamco.com

dlind@ceiak.com ceiak.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

Company Company

TopExecutive Executive Top

Cornerstone General Contractors Inc. 5050 Cordova St. Anchorage, AK 99503-7222 Phone: 907-561-1993 Fax: 907-561-7899

C. John Eng, Pres.

Davis Constructors & Engineers Inc. 740 Bonanza Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-562-2336 Fax: 907-561-3620

Josh Pepperd, Pres.

Dirtworks Inc. 3255 S. Old Glenn Hwy. Palmer, AK 99645 Phone: 907-745-3671 Fax: 907-745-3672

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

Services Services

1993

75

General contracting for commercial construction.

1976

150

Construction

Scott Johnson, Pres.

1989

9

Excavation contractor.

Door Systems of Alaska Inc. 18727 Old Glenn Hwy. Chugiak, AK 99567 Phone: 907-688-3367 Fax: 907-688-3378

Beth Bergh, Owner

2000

10

Commercial and industrial doors, rolling doors, grilles, shutter. Fire-rated rolling door and accordion fire-rated side folding partitions. Flat wall partitions, Accordion Partitions, SkyFold room separation. Dock equipment. Hangar doors. Blast-resistant doors.

GeoTek Alaska Inc. PO Box 11-1155 Anchorage, AK 99511-1155 Phone: 907-569-5900 Fax: 907-929-5762

Christopher Nettels, Pres.

2002

15

We specialize in the acquisition of subsurface data for both the environmental and geotechnical professional communities. If your needs involve the characterization of the subsurface for either environmental assessments or geotechnical data acquisition, we provide drilling and geophysical services.

Global Diving & Salvage Inc. 5304 Eielson St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-9060 Fax: 907-563-9061

Devon Grennan, CEO/Pres.

1979

23

We specialize in portable mixed gas and saturation diving with capabilities to 1,000 feet and are able to provide a variety of underwater maintenance, repair, installations and inspections. Full project management services and engineering support for undertakings that require technical underwater services.

Golden Heart Construction PO Box 72728 Fairbanks, AK 99707-2728 Phone: 907-458-9193 Fax: 907-458-9173

Craig Robinson, Pres.

1982

8

Commercial and residential remodel and new construction.

Granite Construction Company 11471 Lang St. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-344-2593 Fax: 907-344-1562

Derek Betts, VP/Region Mgr.

1922

55

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

jjolley@cornerstoneak.com cornerstoneak.com

admin@davisconstructors.com davisconstructors.com

beth@doorsystemsak.com doorsystemsak.com

ksmith@geotekalaska.com geotekalaska.com

info@gdiving.com gdiving.com

craig@goldenheartconstruction.net goldenheartconstruction.net

alaska.projects@gcinc.com graniteconstruction.com

Integrated Design-Build Solutions for 36 years ARCTIC EXPERTS | GENERAL CONTRACTING | INDUSTRIAL MECHANICAL | CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT www.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

89

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

Independent Lift Truck of Alaska 1200 E. 70th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-3383 Fax: 907-344-8366

Wayne Dick, Pres.

Jay-Brant General Contractors 460 Grubstake Ave. Homer, AK 99603 Phone: 907-235-8400 Fax: 907-235-8731

Charles A Jay, Manager/Partner

K & W Interiors 9300 Old Seward Hwy. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-344-3080 Fax: 907-349-5373

Dale Kaercher, Pres.

K-C Corp.

2964 Commercial Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-258-2425 Fax: 907-278-8018

Byron D. Kohfield, Pres.

Kautaq Construction Services 9191 E. Frontage Rd., Suite 102 Palmer, AK 99645 Phone: 907-762-0104 Fax: 907-707-1477

Thomas Antonovich, Gen. Mgr.

Ken Brady Construction 4001 Turnagain Blvd. E. Anchorage, AK 99517 Phone: 907-243-4604 Fax: 907-248-3920

Tim Brady, Pres.

Kiewit Corporation 2000 W. International Airport Rd., Suite C-6 Anchorage, AK 99502 Phone: 907-222-9350 Fax: 907-222-9380

Kevin Welker, Exec. Mgr., AK Office

Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. 2000 W. Int'l Airport Rd., #C6 Anchorage, AK 99502 Phone: 907-222-9350 Fax: 907-222-9380

Pat Harrison, Pacific NW Area Mgr.

Knik Construction Co. Inc. 6441 S. Airpark Pl. Anchorage, AK 99502-1809 Phone: 907-245-1865 Fax: 907-245-1744

Steve Jansen, Pres.

Little Susitna Construction Co. 821 N St., Suite 207 Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-274-7571 Fax: 907-277-3300

Tammie Smith, Gen. Mgr.

Loken Construction LLC 5400 Eielson Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-868-8880 Fax: 907-563-8881

Tyler Loken, Gen. Mgr.

Marsh Creek LLC 2000 E. 88th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-258-0050 Fax: 907-279-5710

Mick McKay, CEO

McGrady Steel & Supply Co. PO Box 110161 Anchorage, AK 99511 Phone: 907-562-7527 Fax: 907-562-7806

Paul Mc Grady, Pres.

NANA Construction LLC 1800 W. 48th Ave., Suite G Anchorage, AK 99517 Phone: 907-265-3600 Fax: 907-265-3699

Sagen Juliussen, Pres.

Neeser Construction Inc. 2501 Blueberry Rd. Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-276-1058 Fax: 907-276-8533

Jerry Neeser, Pres.

NORCON Inc. 949 E. 36th Ave., Suite 143 Anchorage, AK 99508 Phone: 907-349-0821 Fax: 907-275-6300

Jeff Doyle, VP

North Country Builders of Alaska 3435 N. Daisy Petal Cir. Wasilla, AK 99654 Phone: 907-373-7060 Fax: N/A

Thomas Smith, Pres.

90

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

Services Services

1982

22

Authorized Dealers and repair centers for Advance floor care machines. CAT, Jungheinrich, Mitsubishi, Manitou, Maximal, Bendi and Skyjack forklifts; GEHL and Wacker Neuson construction equipment.Full parts, sales and service for most all makes and models of equipment.

1983

30

Public works, military and commercial construction.

1985

16

K&W Interiors is a family owned business, providing Alaskans with fine quality interior finishes for over 28 years. K&W was selected as one of the top 500 Remodelers in the nation for 2012 and 2013 by Qualified Remodeler magazine. From Design to Installation your Satisfaction is Guaranteed.

1986

20

General contracting commercial/industrial. Specializing in light gage metal framing, sheetrock, taping, painting and specialty coatings.

2012

3

KCS specializes in diverse construction projects ranging from large commercial buildings to small home remodels throughout the Western United States.

1954

25

General contractor.

1884

225

Continuous Alaskan operational presence since 1949. Vertical Bldgs, Infrastructure (heavy civil, roads, bridges), Dams, Oil/Gas Facilities, Mining

1947

50

Heavy civil construction including transportation, marine, dams and resource development.

1973

68

Knik Construction is a general heavy construction company specializing in remote-site projects. Knik's experience includes heavy construction, road building, asphalt paving, foamed asphalt treated bases, airport construction and reconstruction, excavation, crushing and transportation.

1980

11

A General, mechanical and electrical contractor. Architects, civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, licensed in 12 states. Construction project management. Importer, exporter and global project consultation.

2003

16

Commercial and residential framing, steel siding, and boom truck services.

2004

140

Energy systems, environmental, construction, telecommunications.

1991

1

2008

205

NCC is a full service construction and fabrication company providing turnkey solutions for the resource development industries: Field Construction, O&M/TAR support; Fabricating of Industrial, & Blast Resistant Modules, Camps, Envirovacs, Offices Complexes & other Light Modules construction.

1974

202

NCI specializes in integrated collaborative project delivery through both design/build and CM@Risk contracting. NCI's reputation for meeting budgets and schedules while providing first rate quality is respected by clients, design professionals, and the statewide subcontracting community.

1974

317

NORCON, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CH2M HILL, is a full-service general contractor specializing in multi-craft services to the oil & gas industry. We are known for providing safe, efficient, and high-quality project managment, building trades, and general contracting services.

1998

6

barry.ilt@gci.net iltalaska.com

cjay@jaybrant.com jaybrant.com

knwinteriors@alaska.net k-winteriors.com

bkohfield@kccorporation.com

Thom.Antonovich@kautaq.com kautaqconstruction.com

kenbrady.com

kiewit.com

damian.skerbeck@kiewit.com kiewit.com/northwest

information@lynden.com lynden.com/knik/

littlesu@ak.net littlesu.com

info@lokenconstructionak.com lokenconstructionak.com

gina.heath@marshcreekllc.com marshcreekllc.com Structural and miscellaneous steel.

mcgradysteel@acsalaska.net

buzz.yohman@nana.com nanaconstruction.com

jerry_neeser@neeserinc.com neeserinc.com

Inquiries@NORCON.com norcon.com

tsmith@northcountrybuilders.com northcountrybuilders.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Commercial and residential general contractor for new, remodel and all phases of construction.

www.akbizmag.com

Company Company

TopExecutive Executive Top

North Pacific Erectors PO Box 240748 Douglas, AK 99824 Phone: 907-364-3288 Fax: 907-364-3464

James G. Williams, Pres.

Northern Dame Construction PO Box 871131 Wasilla, AK 99687 Phone: 907-376-9607 Fax: 907-373-4704

Doris Coy, Owner

Northland Wood Products 1510 E. 68th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-452-4000 Fax: 907-452-1391

James Enochs, Anchorage Mgr.

Osborne Construction Co. PO Box 97010 Kirkland, WA 98083 Phone: 425-827-4221 Fax: 425-828-4314

George Osborne Jr., Pres.

Pacific Pile & Marine 602B E. Whitney Rd. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-3873 Fax: 907-278-0306

Wil Clark, Managing Partner

Paug-Vik Development Corp.

PO Box 429 Naknek, AK 99633 Phone: 907-258-1345 Fax: 907-222-5423

Maurice Labrecque, Gen. Mgr.

PCL Construction Services Inc. 1400 W. Benson Blvd., Suite 510 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-243-7252 Fax: 907-272-1905

H. Scott Ivany, Ops Mgr.

Pfeffer Development 425 G St., Suite 210 Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-646-4644 Fax: 907-646-4655

Mark Pfeffer, Pres.

www.akbizmag.com

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

Services Services

1978

60

General contractor specializing in metal building erection. All aspects of construction from site prep to remodels. Locally owned since 1978.

1992

12

Traffic control services.

1965

30

Building supplier. Produce WWPA-graded surfaced lumber, rough lumber, large timber and house logs. Stocks materials to fulfill all building needs from the foundation piers to the roof screws.

1987

233

General contractor focusing on commercial, industrial or residential buildings, designbuild, civil, site development, utilities and engineering work. Offices located in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Kirkland, WA.

2008

20

Pacific Pile & Marine (PPM) specializes in marine construction, pile driving, dredging, and heavy civil structures. PPM is dedicated to safety and quality. In addition to performing hard bid public works PPM excels at meeting the unique needs of our private and design build clients.

1996

20

General contracting and environmental services.

1906

20

The PCL family of companies has a century-long tradition of excellence, hard work and a can-do attitude. They are construction leaders in buildings, civil infrastructure and heavy industrial markets.

2002

8

Commercial real estate developer delivering private & public-private projects including office buildings, medical facilities, retail, parking facilities, multifamily housing & more.

Services: strategic structuring, siting services, public process, project finance, designbuild, construction management, facilities management & asset management.

jim@northpacificerectors.com northpacificerectors.com

doris@northerndame.com

northlandwood@acsalaska.net northlandwood.com

occ@osborne.cc osborne.cc

jasond@pacificpile.com pacificpile.com

info@pdcnaknek.com pdcnaknek.com

alyork@pcl.com pcl.com

info@pfefferdevelopment.com pfefferdevelopment.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

91

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

Price Gregory International 301 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 300 Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-278-4400 Fax: 907-278-3255

David Matthews, VP/AK Area Mgr.

Pruhs Construction 2193 Viking Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-279-1020 Fax: 907-279-1028

Dana Pruhs, CEO

R H Development LLC PO Box 32403 Juneau, AK 99803 Phone: 907-790-4146 Fax: 907-790-4147

Richard Harris, Managing Member

Ridge Contracting Inc. PO Box 240121 Anchorage, AK 99524 Phone: 907-222-7518 Fax: 907-272-2290

Drew V. McLaughlin, Pres.

Rockford Corp.

6700 Arctic Spur Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-4551 Fax: 907-344-2130

Steve Schoeni, Gen. Mgr.

Roger Hickel Contracting Inc. 11001 Calaska Cir. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-279-1400 Fax: 907-279-1405

Mike Shaw, Pres.

Siemens Industry Inc. 5333 Fairbanks St., Unit B Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-2242 Fax: 907-563-6139

Leverette Hoover, Gen. Mgr. AK

SIKU Construction 6700 Arctic Spur Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-762-0100 Fax: N/A

Bill Polis, Gen. Mgr.

Spenard Builders Supply Inc. 300 E. 54th Ave., Suite 201 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-261-9105 Fax: 907-261-9142

Ed Waite, Senior VP

Spinell Homes Inc. 1900 W. Northern Lights Blvd., Suite 200 Anchorage, AK 99517 Phone: 907-344-5678 Fax: 907-344-1976

Charles Spinelli, Pres.

STG Incorporated 11710 S. Gambell St. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-644-4664 Fax: 907-644-4666

James St. George, Pres.

Swalling Construction Co. PO Box 101039 Anchorage, AK 99510 Phone: 907-272-3461 Fax: 907-274-6002

Mike Swalling, Pres.

The Peterson Group 3820 Lake Otis Pkwy.

Anchorage, AK 99508 Phone: 907-562-1170 Fax: 907-563-2018

Trevor Edmondson, VP

Toghotthele Corporation PO Box 249 Nenana, AK 99760 Phone: 907-832-5832 Fax: 907-832-5834

Jim Sackett, CEO/Pres.

Tunista Construction LLC 745 W. 4th Ave., Suite 306 Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-646-2214 Fax: N/A

Daniel Esparza, Pres.

Tutka LLC (Anchorage) 620 E. Whitney Rd., Suite B Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-272-8010 Fax: 907-272-9005

Amie Sommer, Member

Tutka LLC (Wasilla) 5825 E. Mayflower Ct., Suite B Wasilla, AK 99654 Phone: 907-357-2238 Fax: 907-357-2215

Amie Sommer, Member

92

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

Services Services

1974

200

Pipeline, power, heavy industrial construction, EPC and consulting services.

Infrastructure construction services provider.

1958

125

Heavy civil contractor, roads, airports, site work, underground utilities, industrial.

1992

5

Residential and light commercial construction and development. All aspects of construction and development. Certified green professional and member of SEBIA.

2000

50

Heavy civil, rural airport construction, road construction, fuel system installation and removal, contaminated sites clean up and remediation, demolition, underground construction, and remote work throughout Alaska.

1974

10

Alaska Native owned 8(a) certified general contractor, specializing in industrial mechanical work.

1995

50

General contractor; commercial and road work.

1982

100

Energy Services Company (ESCO)/Total Building Integrator: to include Building Automation/Energy Management control systems, fire alarm, HVAC mechanical systems, security (card access, CCTV, intrusion, etc.), audio and video solutions and mass notification systems.

2005

5

Offering preconstruction, construction, and post-construction services to private and public projects.

1952

700

Provides a full line of building materials and home-improvement products to fill the needs of residential and commercial contractors.

1987

25

General contractor - residential and light commercial construction.

1991

55

Renewable energy systems, tower construction, power generation and distribution facilities, pile foundations and bulk-fuel systems.

1947

8

Specializing in pile driving, bridge building, dock construction, concrete restoration, industrial coatings and other heavy, civil construction services.

1983

25

We develop high-quality condominium neighborhoods with single-family homes, townhomes, and condominium suites. Communities by The Petersen Group are well planned with homes of thoughtful design, excellent quality and long lasting value.

1973

15

Village Corporation - Project management, land development, fabrication services, oil field support services, road building, excavation/dirt work services, equipment rental, and timber sales.

2009

9

We are a commercial general contractor that offers vertical and civil construction, design-build, remote Alaska projects, and construction management. Our bonding and support from Calista Corporation allows us to do small or large projects.

1999

30

WBE/DBE (SOA), EDWOSB/WOSB, HUBZone, CCR/ORCA registered. General Contractor, heavy civil construction, environmental cleanup and consulting, oil water separator maintenance, cleaning & repair.

1999

30

WBE/DBE (SOA), EDWOSB/WOSB, HUBZone, SAM/ORCA registered. General Contractor, heavy civil construction, environmental cleanup and consulting, oil water separator maintenance, cleaning & repair.

dmatthews@pricegregory.com pricegregory.com

dana@pruhscorp.com pruhscorp.com

info@rhdalaska.com rhdalaska.com

drew@ridgecontracting.org ridgecontracting.org

info@rockfordak.com rockfordak.com

contact@rhcak.com rogerhickelcontracting.com

leverette.hoover@siemens.com siemens.com

info@sikuconstruction.com

sbsalaska.com

spinell@spinellhomes.com spinellhomes.com

info@stgincorporated.com stgincorporated.com

mswalling@swalling.com swalling.com

thepetersengroup.com

toghotthele@hotmail.com toghotthele.com

tclcon.com

amie@tutkallc.com tutkallc.com

amie@tutkallc.com tutkallc.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

UIC Construction 6700 Arctic Spur Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-762-0114 Fax: 907-762-0131

Chris Phillips, Gen. Mgr.

UNIT COMPANY 620 E. Whitney Rd. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-349-6666 Fax: 907-522-3464

Michael J. Fall, Pres.

Watterson Construction Co. 6500 Interstate Cir. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-7441 Fax: 907-563-7222

Bill Watterson, Pres.

West Construction Co. Inc. 6120 A St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-561-9811 Fax: 907-561-9844

Brice Erickson, VP of Construction

Services Services

1978

20

Commercial building and civil general contractor focusing primarily on Arctic construction through hard-dollar bid, design/build turn-key, and construction management. Services include pre-construction and planning, cost estimating, remote logistics, scheduling, and best-value engineering.

1977

50

Commercial general contractor.

1981

100

Construction.

1997

51

Bridges, docks, and heavy construction.

chris.phillips@uicconstructionak.com uicconstructionak.com

info@unitcompany.com unitcompany.com

info@wattersonsconstruction.com wattersonconstruction.com

orionmarinegroup.com

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS Top Executive Company Company

Top Executive

Bright Electric 1410 Richardson Hwy. North Pole, AK 99705 Phone: 907-479-3321 Fax: 907-488-5033

Paul Koop, Owner/Pres.

Chenega Energy LLC 6151 A St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-261-3209 Fax: 907-261-3299

Greg Porter, Pres.

City Electric Inc. 819 Orca St. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-272-4531 Fax: 907-264-6491

Gabriel Marian, Pres.

www.akbizmag.com

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

AK Estab. Empls.

AK Estab. Empls.

Services Services

1992

10

Full-service electrical provider.

2012

5

Founded in 2012, Chenega Energy LLC provides a broad range of renewable/ sustainable energy solutions, including: design and implementation of energy savings projects, energy efficient retrofits, commercial energy auditing, alternative energy solutions, efficient power generation systems and more.

1946

125

bsi@alaska.net

gporter@chenegaenergy.com chenegaenergy.com

Electrical and communications contracting NAICS; 237130, 238210.

gabrielm@cityelectricinc.com cityelectricinc.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

93

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

GENERAL CONTRACTORS

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS Top Executive Company Company

Top Executive

Fullford Electric Inc. 303 E. Van Horn Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-456-7356 Fax: 907-456-7288

Lael Fullford, Pres.

Power & Light Inc. 7721 Schoon St., # 1 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-522-5678 Fax: 907-349-5678

Todd Houston, Pres.

Raven Electric Inc. 8015 Schoon St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-349-9668 Fax: 907-522-3995

Art Stemen, Manager

The Superior Group Inc. PO Box 230387 Anchorage, AK 99523 Phone: 907-344-5011 Fax: 907-344-5094

Mark Erickson, Corporate GM/Pres.

AK Estab. Empls.

AK Estab. Empls.

Services

Services

1975

79

FEI is a full service electrical and communications contractor.

2004

11

Commercial, residential and industrial electrical installations. Automation, audio, video, CCTV security systems, fire detection and controls.

1978

32

Full service electrical company, residential commercial, industrial and generators. Tony Sellen, Dave House and Matter Lederhos are also managers.

1964

100

Full service mechanical, electrical, design support and maintenance contractor.

lael@fullfordelectric.com

toddhouston@alaska.net Powerandlight.Biz

ravenelectricinc.com

tmentzer@corp-tsgi.com superiorpnh.com

HEAVY EQUIPMENT DEALERS Company Company

TopExecutive Executive Top

Airport Equipment Rentals 1285 Van Horn Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99707 Phone: 907-456-2000 Fax: 907-457-7609

Jerry Sadler, Owner/Pres.

Automatic Welding & Supply 3038 Rampart Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-272-2457 Fax: 907-277-3919

Vern Christianson, Pres.

Construction Machinery Industrial 5400 Homer Dr. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-3822 Fax: 907-563-1381

Ken Gerondale, Pres./CEO

Craig Taylor Equipment 733 E. Whitney Rd. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-5050 Fax: 907-276-0889

Lonnie G Parker, Pres/CEO

Delta Leasing LLC 8101 Dimond Hook Dr. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-771-1300 Fax: 907-771-1380

Rudi von Imhof, Pres.

Independent Lift Truck of Alaska 1200 E. 70th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-3383 Fax: 907-344-8366

Wayne Dick, Pres.

N C Machinery 6450 Arctic Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-786-7500 Fax: 907-786-7580

John J. Harnish, Pres./CEO

Tog Rentals LLC PO Box 249 Nenana, AK 99760 Phone: 907-832-5832 Fax: 907-832-5834

Jim Sackett, CEO/Pres.

Totem Equipment & Supply Inc. 2536 Commercial Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-2858 Fax: 907-258-4623

Mike Huston, VP

TrailerCraft | Freightliner of Alaska 1301 E. 64th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518-1908 Phone: 907-563-3238 Fax: 907-561-4995

Lee McKenzie, Pres./Owner

Washington Crane & Hoist 651 E. 100th Ave., Unit B Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-336-6661 Fax: 907-336-6667

Mike Currie, VP

West-Mark Fairbanks Service Center 3050 Van Horn Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99709 Phone: 907-451-8265 Fax: 907-451-8273

Grant Smith, CEO

94

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

Services Services

1985

100

Industrial services.

1958

9

1985

114

Construction and mining equipment sales, rentals, service, and parts.

1954

55

Factory authorized dealer for: Komatsu construction and mining, Bobcat loaders and excavators, John Deere commercial and lawn tractors, Dynapac compaction rollers, Fecom land clearing attachments and carriers. Providing sales, parts and service.

2002

22

Specialized leasing of fleet trucks, SUVs, vans, & shuttle buses, as well as construction & mining equipment, oil & gas equipment. GM, Dodge & International warranty repair center. Alaskan-owned. Deadline driven. Results oriented. Anchorage/Kenai/Prudhoe Bay/Fairbanks/Remote Alaska.

1982

22

Authorized Dealers and repair centers for Advance floor care machines. CAT, Jungheinrich, Mitsubishi, Manitou, Maximal, Bendi and Skyjack forklifts; GEHL and Wacker Neuson construction equipment. Full parts, sales and service for most all makes and models of equipment.

1926

250

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

2010

3

Equipment leasing and rentals.

1961

25

Totem heaters, Frost Fighter heaters, Sure Flame heaters, Sany Excavators, Terex, Mustang, Rhino Sky Jack, Clemco, Wacker, MultiQuip, Honda, Alkota, Genie, Vector,Wyco, Weber,Wacker,Biljax,Blast-pro,Toro/Dingo, Munter heaters

1969

43

Parts, sales and service for trucks, tractors, trailers, transport equipment, snow plows and sanders.

1975

7

Crane builders, crane design, new crane sales, new hoist sales, lifting equipment design and sales. Material handling solutions for industry, hoists, job cranes, work stations, chain falls, lever hoists, crane upgrades, crane maintenance, crane inspection, crane repair, hoist repair and crane parts.

2009

12

Liquid transportation tank trailer repair.

aerinc4@alaska.net aer-inc.net

awsc.com

Cedarapids, Canica, Finlay, Simplicity, Columbia Steel, Western Wire, Berco, Spokane Steel Foundry, Fab Tec, Superior Equipment and Eagle Iron Works. Sale, manufacturer of crushing, screening, conveyor plants, and supplies.

o.prestwick@cmiak.com cmiak.com

anc.sales@craigtaylorequipment.com craigtaylorequipment.com

info@deltaleasing.net deltaleasing.com

barry.ilt@gci.net iltalaska.com

sfield@ncmachinery.com ncmachinery.com

toghotthele@hotmail.com

sales@toteminc.com toteminc.com

sales@trailercraft.com trailercraft.com

SDick@washingtoncrane.com washingtoncrane.com

wwalker@west-mark.com west-mark.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

Yukon Equipment, Inc. 2020 E. Third Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-277-1541 Fax: 907-258-0169

Roy Rank, Pres.

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

1945

45

info@yukoneq.com yukoneq.com

Services Services Sales, service, parts, rental and lease equipment, including Case, Trail King, Elgin, Vactor, Oshkosh, Etnyre, Monroe, Trackless, Bomag, Thawzall, Snow Dragon.

Fairbanks location: 3511 International St.; phone: 907-457-1541; fax: 907-457-1540.

Yukon became part of the Calista Corporation in 2010.

COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL SUPPLIERS Company Company

TopExecutive Executive Top

Alaska Concrete Casting 5761 Concrete Way Juneau, AK 99801 Phone: 907-780-4225 Fax: 907-780-4230

Dave Hanna, Managing Member

Alaska Dreams Inc. 2081 Van Horn Rd., #2 Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-455-7712 Fax: 907-455-7713

Meini Huser, Pres./CEO

Alaska Hearth Products 8600 Airport Blvd.

Juneau, AK 99801 Phone: 907-789-1332 Fax: 907-789-5132

Larry Traeger, Owner

Alaska Industrial Hardware Inc. 2192 Viking Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-7201 Fax: 907-258-3054

Mike Kangas, Pres./Gen. Mgr.

Alaska Rubber Group 5811 Old Seward Hwy. Anchorage, AK 99518-1479 Phone: 907-562-2200 Fax: 907-561-7600

Janeece Higgins, Pres.

Alaska Signs & Barricades Inc 1200 E. 76th Ave., Suite 1203 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-2835 Fax: 907-344-0159

Jack Barnes, Pres.

www.akbizmag.com

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

Services Services

2004

4

Full service precast concrete supplier, furnishing utility, traffic and retaining wall products as well as custom casting, building panels and foundation systems. Rebar fabrication and supply house stocking 20' and 40' bar in #2 through # 10 bar. Detailing, bending and cage tying services

1994

25

Design, sales and construction for fabric covered steel buildings and pre-engineered metal buildings.

1984

5

Retail and service of pellet, wood, gas, oil stoves and inserts. Pellet fuel.

1959

197

Industrial services.

1981

66

Industrial and hydraulic hose and fittings, pumps, kamloks, belting, Enerpac and Landa.

Hydraulic sales and repair. Certified wire rope and nylon slings with InfoChip Tracking technology. Anchorage, Fairbanks and Wasilla locations.

1983

36

Construction site traffic control; Furnish and install permanent traffic signs.

alaskaconcretecasting@gci.net

sales@alaskadreamsinc.com alaskadreamsinc.com

ahp@gci.net alaskahearthproducts.com

info@aih.com aih.com

info@alaskarubber.com alaskarubber.com

aksigbar@alaska.net aksignsandbarricades.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

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ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

HEAVY EQUIPMENT DEALERS

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL SUPPLIERS Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

Alcan Forest Products LP PO Box 23105 Ketchikan, AK 99901 Phone: 907-225-1710 Fax: 907-225-1709

Eric Nichols, Partner

Altrol Inc 2295 Van Horn Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-452-8680 Fax: 907-452-6778

David Bridges, Pres./Gen. Mgr.

Anchorage True Value Hardware 9001 Jewel Lake Rd., # 5 Anchorage, AK 99502 Phone: 907-248-9211 Fax: 907-248-6976

Tim Craig

Architectural Supply Co. Inc. 3699 Springer St. Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-561-1919 Fax: 907-562-5540

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

Services Services

2002

0

Timber procurement and sales.

1982

30

Heating, ventilation, air conditioning, plumbing, sheet metal, and refrigeration contractor and service company.

1949

18

Traditional retail hardware store with core departments: tools, hardware, plumbing, electrical, paint and seasonal products.

Jennifer Mattingly, AHC, Pres.

1977

8

Supplier of Division 8 & 10 - commercial doors, frames, hardware, toilet partitions and toilet accessories.

Arctic Controls Inc. 1120 E. Fifth Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-277-7555 Fax: 907-277-9295

Scott Stewart, Pres.

1985

5

Arctic Controls Inc. is Alaska's leading expert in valves, flow meters, actuators, instrumentation, and process controls for commercial oil, gas, and water management.

Providing professional expertise for all commercial applications and can assist you with estimates and recommendations.

ATCO Structures & Logistics Ltd. 425 G St. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-677-6983 Fax: 907-677-6984

Harry Wilmot, Pres./COO

1947

2

ATCO Structures & Logistics offers complete infrastructure solutions to customers worldwide, including remote work force housing, portable offices and trailers, innovative modular facilities, construction, site support services, operations support, catering and noise reduction technologies.

Aurora Construction Supply Inc. PO Box 83569 Fairbanks, AK 99708 Phone: 907-452-4463 Fax: 907-456-3414

R L "Dick" Engebretson, Pres.

1978

2

Specialty items in Division 10.

Automated Control Systems LLC 1200 E. 76th Ave., Suite 213 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-349-8456 Fax: 907-349-7126

Rick Neimann, Owner

1985

5

Sell, service and install control systems/regulators. Install service controls for commercial and government buildings. Install and service air conditioning. Service all HVAC equipment.

Bering Shai Rock & Gravel, LLC PO Box 196 Unalaska, AK 99685 Phone: 907-581-1409 Fax: 907-581-3409

Diane Shaishnikoff, Owner/Office Mgr.

2004

5

Native owned and operated business specializing in the production and placement of high-quality rock materials, as well as providing heavy equipment rentals and services for any type of small or large construction project, including airports, boat harbors and road building projects.

Builders Choice Inc 351 E. 104th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-522-3214 Fax: 907-522-3216

Mark Larson, Pres.

1996

185

Manufacturer of modular buildings, wood and steel floor and roof trusses, full service lumber yard.

Cabinet Fever Inc. 4551 Fairbanks St., #C Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-349-4871 Fax: 907-349-4891

Kurt Echols, Pres.

1999

6

Commercial & residential custom cabinet shop producing high-end custom kitchen cabinets, counter tops & installation as well as custom furniture, entertainment centers, reception desks, medical, dental & retail casework, store fixtures. Also carry two lines of manufactured residential cabinets.

Carberry Associates PO Box 242563 Anchorage, AK 99524 Phone: 907-227-1598 Fax: 907-345-2497

Tom Carberry, Owner

1994

1

Manufactures REP for commercial building products.

Central Plumbing & Heating Inc. 212 E. Int'l Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-562-2511 Fax: 907-562-2578

Jeffery Cooper, Pres.

1959

28

Retail for all types of heating appliances, bath, kitchen fixtures, faucets, and plumbing supplies. Service technicians dispatched for plumbing and heating repairs.

Collicutt Energy 12050 Industry Way # O-10 Anchorage, AK 99516 Phone: 907-929-9301 Fax: 907-929-9302

Gerry Farnich

1980

180

Collicutt Energy sells and services commercial generators. We are a dealer for Kohler generators. Collicutt Energy services all models of commercial generators. In our Anchorage warehouse we have technicians for on-site service and stock parts. We are available Monday through Sunday.

Columbia Paint & Coatings 35093 Kenai Spur Hwy. Soldotna, AK 99669 Phone: 907-262-4674 Fax: 907-262-4497

Ken Whitaker, Store Mgr.

1949

5

Paint and coatins supplies.

Crescent Electric Supply Co. 1179 Van Horn Rd. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-452-4544 Fax: 907-456-6146

Craig Thompson, Branch Mgr. Fbx.

1919

43

Electrical supplies.

Door Systems of Alaska Inc. 18727 Old Glenn Hwy. Chugiak, AK 99567 Phone: 907-688-3367 Fax: 907-688-3378

Beth Bergh, Owner

2000

10

Commercial and industrial doors, rolling doors, grilles, shutter. Fire-rated rolling door and accordion fire-rated side folding partitions. Flat wall partitions, Accordion Partitions, SkyFold room separation. Dock equipment. Hangar doors. Blast-resistant doors.

96

alcantimber@kpunet.net transpacfibre.com

dave@altrolinc.com altrolinc.com

anchoragehardware@truevalue.net truevalue.com

customerservice@arcticcouriers.com arcticcontrols.com

atco@atcosl.com atcosl.com

aurorasupply@gci.net

autocontrols.com

Dianeshai@hotmail.com beringshairock.com

sandi@builderschoice.us.com builderschoice.us.com

kurt@cabinetfever.net cabinetfever.net

carberryassociates@acsalaska.net

retail@thewarmguys.com thewarmguys.com

gerry.farinich@collicutt.com

sherwin-williams.com

Cesco.Com

beth@doorsystemsak.com doorsystemsak.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

Company Company

TopExecutive Executive Top

Glass Sash & Door Supply 500 E. Ship Creek Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-1655 Fax: 907-276-6712

Tom Dooley AHC/CDC, VP

Graybar 5501 A St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-562-2214

Mark Robinson, Branch Mgr.

Hayden Electric Motors Inc. 4191 Old Seward Hwy. Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-561-1073 Fax: 907-561-5867

Roger Saunders, VP/Gen. Mgr.

Hi-Tec Professional Paint 2375 E. 63rd Ave. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-562-6567 Fax: 907-563-9601

Michael Mc Govney, SEC-TREAS

Independent Lift Truck of Alaska 1200 E. 70th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-344-3383 Fax: 907-344-8366

Wayne Dick, Pres.

Lifewater Engineering Company 1936 Donald Ave. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-458-7024

Bob Tsigonis, Pres./PE

Magic Metals Inc. 530 E. Steel Loop Palmer, AK 99645 Phone: 907-746-7800 Fax: 907-746-7802

Joan Tolstrup, Pres.

McGrady Steel & Supply Co. PO Box 110161 Anchorage, AK 99511 Phone: 907-562-7527 Fax: 907-562-7806

Paul Mc Grady, Pres.

AK AK Estab.

Estab. Empls.

Empls.

Services Services

1952

5

Builders hardware, commercial wood and steel doors and frames, toilet partitions and accessories.

1928

35

Graybar, a Fortune 500 corporation and one of the largest employee-owned companies in North America, is a leader in the distribution of high quality electrical, communications and data networking products, and specializes in related supply chain management and logistics services.

1959

12

Sales, service and rewinding of electric motors and generators and associated equipment. On-site service calls. Re-Certification of explosion-proof motors.

1989

17

Supply automotive, aircraft and industrial paint and all the related supplies.

1982

22

Authorized Dealers and repair centers for Advance floor care machines. CAT, Jungheinrich, Mitsubishi, Manitou, Maximal, Bendi and Skyjack forklifts; GEHL and Wacker Neuson construction equipment. Full parts, sales and service for most all makes and models of equipment.

1998

8

Sewage treatment plant and drinking water treatment plant design, permitting, fabrication, training, and operation. Plants built to work in the most extreme environments and most remote places- but we do the easy ones too! Plastic tank fabrication.

1990

8

Magic Metals Inc. manufactures a variety of roofing and architectural metal products as well as custom trim and accessories. We are open to retail and wholesale customers and offer great customer service and quick turn around. Perforation on panels and trim is available.

1991

1

Structural and miscellaneous steel.

info@glasssashanddoor.com glasssashanddoor.com

graybar.com

ask@hayden-ak.com hayden-ak.Com

mike.mcgovney@gmail.com hitecautopaint.com

barry.ilt@gci.net iltalaska.com

Bob@LifewaterEngineering.com LifewaterEngineering.com

magicmetals@mtaonline.net magicmetalsinc.com

mcgradysteel@acsalaska.net

WHETHER SHIPPING A D-10 CAT TO KAKTOVIK OR SCIENCE KITS TO SCHOOLS ON THE ARCTIC COAST BOWHEAD CAN BARGE IT

SPECIALIZED VESSELS | ARCTIC EXPERTS [800] 347-0049 | 4025 DELRIDGE WAY SW, SUITE 160 | SEATTLE, WA 98106 | WWW.BOWHEADTRANSPORT.COM A

M E M B E R

www.akbizmag.com

O F

T H E

U K P E A G V I K

I Ñ U P I AT

C O R P O R AT I O N

FA M I LY

O F

C O M PA N I E S

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ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL SUPPLIERS

ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY’S 2014 CONSTRUCTION DIRECTORY

COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIAL SUPPLIERS Company Company

Top Executive Top Executive

Motion Industries Inc. (Anchorage) 611 E. Int'l Airport Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-563-5565 Fax: 907-563-5536

Matt Bailey, Anch. Branch Mgr.

Motion Industries Inc. (Fairbanks) 1895 Van Horn Rd., Unit A Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-452-4488 Fax: 907-456-8840

Brad Deweese, Fairbanks Branch Mgr.

N C Machinery 6450 Arctic Blvd.

Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-786-7500 Fax: 907-786-7580

John Harnish, Pres./CEO

Nenana Gravel LLC PO Box 249 Nenana, AK 99760 Phone: 907-832-5833 Fax: 907-832-5834

Jim Sackett, CEO/Pres.

Northland Wood Products 4000 S. Cushman St. Fairbanks, AK 99701 Phone: 907-452-4000 Fax: 907-452-1391

Jason Knoles, Sales/Ops Mgr.

Northwest Fluid Systems Technologies PO Box 230127 Anchorage, AK 99523 Phone: 907-563-5630 Fax: 907-563-4721

Mike Buttkovic, Pres.

Polar Supply Co. 300 E. 54th Ave. Anchorage, AK 99518-1230 Phone: 907-563-5000 Fax: 907-562-7001

Ed Waite, Sr. VP

Puget Sound Pipe & Supply Co. 2120 Spar Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-277-7473 Fax: 907-277-9656

Scott English, Alaska Div. Mgr.

Rino's Tile & Stone 2310 Azurite Ct. Anchorage, AK 99507 Phone: 907-743-1075 Fax: 907-743-1076

Ryan Sjostrom, Member

Rivers Wood Products 1780 Richardson Hwy. North Pole, AK 99705 Phone: 907-488-0888 Fax: 907-488-1543

Doug Scherzer, Gen. Mgr.

Specialty Products Inc. 1425 Spar Ave. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-7932 Fax: 907-279-2749

Mike Brunke

Spenard Builders Supply Inc. 300 E. 54th Ave., Suite 201 Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-261-9105 Fax: 907-261-9142

Ed Waite, Senior VP

Surveyors Exchange Co. 3695 Springer St. Anchorage, AK 99503 Phone: 907-561-6501 Fax: 907-561-6525

David Wilmarth, Owner

Totem Equipment & Supply Inc. 2536 Commercial Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907-276-2858 Fax: 907-258-4623

Mike Huston, VP

Vertex Insulation PO Box 72244 Fairbanks, AK 99707 Phone: 907-456-7361 Fax: 907-451-0362

AK AK Estab. Empls.

Estab. Empls.

Services Services

2007

7

A leading distributor of industrial maintenance, repair and operation (MRO) replacement parts (over 5.2 million parts), including bearings, power transmission, hydraulic/ pneumatic components, linear, hydraulic/industrial hose, industrial and safety supplies, seals, process pumps and material handling.

1970

5

A leading distributor of industrial maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) replacement parts (over 5.2 million parts), including bearings, power transmission, hydraulic/pneumatic components, linear, hydraulic/industrial hose, industrial and safety supplies, process pumps, seals and material handling.

1926

250

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

2011

10

Excavation, dirt work, and aggregate sales.

1965

30

Building supplier. Produce WWPA-graded surfaced lumber, rough lumber, large lumber and house logs. Stocks materials to fulfill all building needs.

1965

10

Instrumentation and fluid control, Swagelok Distributor of Alaska.

1985

29

Polar Supply is Alaska's leading supplier of industrial products and construction materials. Putting customer service first, Polar has consistently delivered for clients large and small. A Division of Spenard Builders Supply with locations in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Kenai.

1984

30

Alaska's largest supplier of pipe, valves and fittings to Alaska oilfields. Two locations in Alaska: Anchorage and Kenai.

2003

8

Custom fabrication of granite, marble, travertine and quartz surfaces for your home or business.

1984

6

Specialty siding, decking, and railing lumberyard. We supply contractors with stainless steel braided wire rope that we make in our facility that puts Alaskans to work. We sell Alaska yellow cedar, and red cedar for siding. We have the largest stock in Alaska for vinyl siding and composite decking.

1974

4

Manufacturer and distributor of polyurethane spray and pour foams, polyurea elastomer coatings, and application equipment. Solutions for: oil and gas, mining, wastewater, building insulation, marine, and many other industries. Year-round 24-7 tech support, classroom and offsite training.

1952

700

Provides a full line of building materials and home-improvement products to fill the needs of residential and commercial contractors.

1969

20

Satellite phone and two-way radio specialists, auto-desk software, surveying instruments, sales, rentals and service.

1961

25

Totem heaters, Frost Fighter heaters, Sure Flame heaters, Sany Excavators, Terex, Mustang, Rhino Sky Jack, Clemco, Wacker, MultiQuip, Honda, Alkota, Genie, Vector,Wyco, Weber,Wacker,Biljax,Blast-pro,Toro/Dingo, Munter heaters

Rick Rocheleau, Pres.

1954

15

Polyurethane foam and specialty coatings.

W.W. Grainger 6240 B St. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: 907-562-5400 Fax: 907-562-2072

David LaBarre, AK Market Mgr.

1927

Washington Crane & Hoist 651 E. 100th Ave., Unit B Anchorage, AK 99515 Phone: 907-336-6661 Fax: 907-336-6667

Mike Currie, VP

98

mksupport@motion-ind.com motionindustries.com

mksupport@motion-ind.com motionindustries.com

sfield@ncmachinery.com ncmachinery.com

nenanagravel@hotmail.com

sales@northlandwood.com northlandwood.com

info@alaska.swagelok.com swagelok.com/Nwus.aspx

dshooner@polarsupply.com polarsupply.com

senglish@pspipe.com pugetpipe.com

sales@rinostilesandstone.com rinostileandstone.com

doug@riverswoodproducts.com riverswoodproducts.com

mikeb@specialty-products.com specialty-products.com

sbsalaska.com

garza@tse-ak.com tse-ak.com

sales@toteminc.com toteminc.com

North AmericaÕs leading broad-line supplier of maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products, with an expanding global presence within 22 countries.

grainger.com

SDick@washingtoncrane.com washingtoncrane.com

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

1975

7

Crane builders, crane design, new crane sales, new hoist sales, lifting equipment design and sales. Material handling solutions for industry, hoists, job cranes, work stations, chain falls, lever hoists, crane upgrades, crane maintenance, crane inspection, crane repair, hoist repair and crane parts.

www.akbizmag.com

AlAskA nAtiVe corPorAtions

The Economic Impact of Interior-based

Alaska Native Organizations Editor’s note: Alaska Native organizations have a tremendous economic impact in Alaska. Doyon, Limited, along with the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Fairbanks Native Association, Interior Regional Housing Association, and Denakkanaaga, Inc. produced a lengthy report in 2008 and an updated presentation in 2012 detailing the extent of Interior Alaska Native organizations’ economic impact across Alaska. Jana Peirce at Information Insights, Inc. in Fairbanks prepared the detailed reports and presentations.

We’ve compiled some of the information this month to share with our readers. In the future, we intend to present information on this topic about the other regions of Alaska and welcome information from all of Alaska’s Native organizations in this endeavor. The 2008 and 2012 Interior studies are excellent models for information gathering, exchange, and presentation.

—Susan Harrington, Managing Editor

www.akbizmag.com

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

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100

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

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Reprinted with permission.

102

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

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telecom & technology

Apples to Androids Comparing and pairing devices for work

By Tasha Anderson

ple In © Ap

www.akbizmag.com

c.

T

oday’s business is no longer attached to desktop computers and landline phones as every level of employee increasingly works on or corresponds through wireless devices. The market has responded to this change, offering a wide array of smartphones and tablets that can help with increasing productivity and communication. A quick review of a few recent versions of tablets and smartphones offers a comparison for savvy business people to step up their wireless productivity.

Many of the following devices have capabilities that won’t be specifically listed. It is, by this point in time, industry standard that a smartphone or tablet have an address book, calendar, alarms/clock, one Ap or, more likely, ple , iP two cameras, voice read Ai cording, the ability to take r videos and photos, support connecting with various email clients, note taking programs, various games, and other features. All of the devices in this article have these features.

Apple, iPad Air The iPad Air is named for its extremely light weight: just one pound. The visible screen is 9.7 inches (all measurements for screen displays are diagonally from corner to corner), it has a fingerprintresistant oleophobic coating (simply meaning lacking an affinity for oils), and features what Apple calls “retina display,” a display that has a high enough pixel density that the human eye is unable to notice pixelation at a typical viewing distance, Apple claims.

The iPad Air is charged through a “lightning connector,” a feature because the end of the cable that connects to the device is symmetrical, so it cannot be inserted incorrectly.

The iPad Air currently has four storage capacities, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB, with the prices of the tablet rising respectively ($499$799). There is a “plus cellular” option that allows users to connect to the Internet through fast cellular data networks if Wi-Fi isn’t available. This is a month-to-month paid service which is set up through telecommunication service providers. This March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

103

Nokia, Lumia 2520 Š Nokia

Š Apple Inc.

option is not free and changes the range of the price of the tablet itself ($629-$929).

The iPad Air comes with iOS 7 installed, which includes the Safari web browser and access to the Apple app store. iOS 7 also includes built in security, protecting against viruses, malware, and unauthorized access through use of a passcode. In iOS 7, use of a passcode automatically encrypts and protects email and third-party apps.

Apple products are notorious for having intuitive interfaces, quick load times, and interacting seamlessly with other Apple products; if one already has an Apple device, it’s a quick, timely process to transfer calendar items or meeting dates, business

Apple, iPhone 5s 104

contacts, or other stored data. Access to cloud storage data means that documents do not need to be downloaded, saved, or updated in various storage locations, meaning that work does not need to be interrupted by travel or because the tablet was mistakenly left at home.

The iPad Air is not pre-loaded with Microsoft Office Suite compatible apps; and although there are built-in programs that can read documents there may be conversion issues. There are options in the app store that allow one to work around the issue, but most are not free. Apple does have a keyboard that is compatible with the iPad Air, allowing one to type normally for the composition of emails or other documents.

Apple, iPhone 5s At press time, the newest iPhone is the iPhone 5s, available with 16GB, 32GB, and 64 GB storage capacities ($199$399, depending on service plan). Its display is four inches. It has a Touch ID fingerprint identity sensor built into the home button.

The battery life of the iPhone 5s, as with any smartphone, varies widely depending on use. If continuously using the phone to talk, use the Internet, or play videos, the battery may last up to ten hours; for audio playback, up to forty; if it is left in a desk drawer, it may only need to be recharged approximately every ten

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

days. As with the tablet, it does come with audio, video, photo, and document apps, as well as access to the app store.

This phone works well for storing contact data and simple work tasks, though it can be clumsy for document manipulation or editing, as is any device with limited surface area. Its calendar and address book features can be easily integrated with other Apple products. It is also a just a few simple steps to sync this device with current email or social media accounts.

Of course this is a phone; its speed capabilities depend entirely on the service area and provider, which in Alaska can be limited outside of urban areas and away from towers, though this is not an issue specific to Apple products. If one is lost in the woods and happens to have service and a charged phone, it also has a compass.

Nokia, Lumia 2520 Nokia offers as a tablet the Lumia 2520 ($399-$499 depending on telecommunications provider contract and color), which weighs approximately 1.4 pounds, has a 10.1 inch HD display that comes with enhanced outdoor readability, and the glass has been manufactured and chemically treated to be more durable and damage resistant. It has 32 GB of memory, Bluetooth 4.0, and camera and video recording capabilities. Battery life depends on use, but the device can last www.akbizmag.com

© Nokia

Nokia, Lumia 925 www.akbizmag.com

© Samsung

up to twenty-five days without recharging with minimal use.

The Lumia 2520 comes with Windows RT, release version 8.1, a Windows operating system (OS) designed for mobile devices. This OS comes with a version of Microsoft Office 2013, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Microsoft Outlooks apps. It also has a cloud storage app, SkyDrive.

The Lumia 2520 is secured by a passcode and a user is able to delete data off the device remotely via the Internet from another device, a great feature if it is necessary to keep sensitive business data on a work device.

A benefit of this device are it’s several connectivity options, a standard micro USB 3.0 port and a microSD port, which can accept microSD cards with up to 32 GB of memory. The cards can be switched out when full, or data can be taken off of them and stored in a more secure or central location, if necessary.

The Lumia 2520 is a good work option.

The pre-installed Microsoft apps avoid document conversion issues. Further, the device does not contain an actual version of Microsoft Word, but a version that has been modified specifically for touch screen, mobile devices. While it may take a few minutes to become familiarized with how to manipulate the apps, they

Samsung, Galaxy Note 8.0

are similar enough to their PC counterparts that the learning curve is quite low.

The Nokia Power Keyboard can be attached to this tablet, providing a stand and ability to type regularly. There are also Bluetooth keyboards that can be connected to the device, though the lack of attachment would make some sort of stand necessary to make typing practical.

Nokia, Lumia 925 The Lumia 925 (cost varies, depending on plan) has a display of 4.5 inches.

The battery can last from eight to twelve hours, depending on whether the call takes place on the network speed; the phone can go without being recharged for approximately sixteen days if it is used minimally. It also features damage resistant glass, as well as sunlight readability enhancements. The phone comes with 32 GB of memory, Bluetooth 3.0, and has Windows Phone 8 OS preinstalled, also supporting Microsoft Office apps.

The homepage is easy, even for first time users, to organize or personalize, placing apps that are more or less commonly used in convenient locations.

Working with documents on this device is not difficult, but is restricted, naturally, by the reduced size of the screen; but, if one is only going to have one touch device and it needs to be a phone, reviewing and editing documents on this product is certainly doable, though generating them may be onerous, due mostly to the fact that one would need to use the on-screen keyboard—making

the perfect case to also have the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet as a companion sync.

Samsung, Galaxy Note 8.0 Samsung offers several tablets and phones, though one of “note” is the Galaxy Note 8.0. This is smaller than the other tablets reviewed here, but is still larger than a smartphone with a display of eight inches. It weighs approximately 0.75 pounds, and is therefore lighter than the iPad Air, though of course the display is two inches smaller. The battery life varies with use, but one can play videos for approximately eight hours without recharging. Its OS is Android 4.1, also known as Jelly Bean (Android systems are all named after sweet treats). This OS comes with Polaris Office 5 preinstalled, which is capable of opening and allowing the modification of common Microsoft Office file formats. The Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with access to the Android app store.

The Galaxy Note 8.0 comes with 16 GB of memory and a microSCHC card reader, which accepts cards with up to 64 GB of memory. The Galaxy Note is Wi-Fi only, and therefore it is not necessary to have a data plan through a telecommunications provider.

An incredibly useful feature of this tablet is the “S pen” that comes with it.

This can make hand-writing notes or annotations much easier. It also allows one to circle anything on screen to get a “screenshot.” In addition, letting the pen hover over the screen produces many useful results: while learning to use the

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

105

© Asus © Samsung

Asus, MeMo Pad

Samsung, Galaxy Note 3

tablet, hovering the pen over a button displays that button’s function; hovering over a file displays a peak of what the file contains. For those new to touch screen devices, this is an incredibly useful feature. For a work device, the S pen allows many functions, such as circling a word or phrase, that are beneficial for commenting on or editing documents. It is smaller and lighter than many other tablets, though still considerably larger than most smart phones, allowing enough of a display to work practically.

Samsung, Galaxy Note 3 The Galaxy Note 3 is a Samsung smartphone with a HD 5.7 inch display (price ranges from $300-$700 depending on contract). Its OS is Android 4.3, Jelly Bean. It has Wi-Fi capabilities and is USB 2.0 and 3.0 compatible, and it comes with Bluetooth 4.0. It is enabled for 4G LTE. The Galaxy Note 3’s internal memory is 32 GB. The battery life is six hours if the phone is in continuous use, and can last up to twenty-four hours with low to normal use.

This phone also has an S pen, with many of the same functions as with the tablet. The S pen can be used both for easier typing on the touch screen as well as hand-writing notes. It comes 106

pre-installed with a program called “Action Memo,” which allows the user to turn notes written with the S pen into text—for example, a phone number written by hand can be added to a person’s contacts.

There is an official Asus accessory for this tablet which acts as a keyboard, cover, and stand. It connects to the tablet through Bluetooth. This tablet has access to all Android apps, including Polaris Office.

Asus, MeMo Pad The Asus has a display of 10.1 inches and features “10-finger multi-touch” capability, which means that the MeMo Pad will respond to up to ten points of contact at once, unlike other touch screen devices that may respond to only one.

It weighs 1.28 pounds, just between the Apple and Nokia tablets. The battery life is approximately ten hours. It’s available in 16 GB or 32 GB, but does have a MicroSD slot that can accept cards up to 32 GB. It comes with Bluetooth 3.0 capabilities. The MeMo Pad utilizes the OS Android 4.2, Jelly Bean.

In terms of video and display, this tablet has both a Micro USB and a Micro HDMI jack, allowing higher quality video and streaming to and from the device.

This particular feature is particularly useful for meetings, presentations, trade shows, or conferences while traveling when one needs to share charts, photos, or slide shows. The two jacks mean that the tablet will be able to interface with a larger variety of electronic devices, and if the other device is HDMI compatible, will do so with a higher quality image.

The variety of devices available expands far past those mentioned here, which is useful—since the options, tools, and apps are practically endless—for anyone shopping around, as well as potentially confusing. The current trend in many companies is not for the business to supply employees with these types of work tools, but for employees to shop for, purchase, and utilize them as they see fit. It’s a benefit, in a way, to employees, as this allows them to set a budget and can ease the trouble of shopping around, if one thinks carefully about the tasks the device must perform. If one is an editor, ease of document editing is absolutely necessary. For someone traveling who needs access to email, a smartphone may work better, as it avoids the issue of having two devices to pack instead of one.

Before shopping for a smartphone or tablet, determine what the wireless device needs to do, and go from there. 

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Tasha Anderson is the Survey Manager and Editorial Assistant for Alaska Business Monthly. www.akbizmag.com

INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS

JL Properties

J

L Properties, Inc., Alaska’s largest real estate development and investment firm, announced that a partnership it led has acquired the ConocoPhillips Alaska Office Complex in downtown Anchorage.

JL partnered on the transaction with Washington Capital Management, a leading real estate investment firm active in the market, and Cook Inlet Region, Inc., an Alaska Native Regional corporation that has been a key player in the Anchorage real estate market.

The office complex has over 677,000 square feet, sits on 1.7 acres of land, and, with the tallest office building in the state, is an iconic part of the Anchorage skyline. ConocoPhillips Alaska is the primary tenant.

JL Properties is Alaska’s largest real estate development and investment firm, with a portfolio whose market value exceeds $2 billion. JL owns over 2 million square feet of office property and five thousand residential units in Alaska. The company is also active in development projects in Utah and Florida.

T

AIDEA

he Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) Board approved two loan participations for projects located in Wasilla and Fairbanks.

The first participation, to City Center Wasilla, LLC, is for $1,181,250 (90 percent) of a $1,312,500 loan brought to AIDEA by First National Bank Alaska.

First National Bank Alaska originated the loan and is participating with

Compiled by ABM Staff

$131,250. The purpose of this loan is for long term financing for one unit in a newly constructed, 10,368-squarefoot, multi-tenant retail condominium building in Wasilla.

The second participation, to Fairbanks Natural Gas, LLC and Cassini LNG Storage, LLC, is for $20 million (57.1 percent) of a $35 million loan brought to AIDEA by Northrim Bank.

Northrim originated the loan and is participating with $15 million. The purpose of this loan is for long-term financing of a 5 million gallon capacity liquefied natural gas storage and distribution facility in Fairbanks. The project will help reduce area heating costs by increasing the storage and availability of low-cost natural gas.

C

Coldwell Banker

oldwell Banker Commercial Intermountain (CBCI) announced that its Asset Services Division has been awarded the State of Alaska Office Building Portfolio in Anchorage, effectively making CBCI one of the largest commercial property management firms in Alaska, with more than 2 million square feet.

CBCI’s Alaska team is headed up by Elisha Martin, Director of Asset Services in Anchorage.

The 916,000-square-foot office portfolio includes the Atwood Office Tower, a twenty-story office building in downtown Anchorage, a ten-level parking garage, a 73,000-squarefoot office building in Palmer, and a 100,000-square-foot Geologic Materials Center in Anchorage.

CBCI will continue to grow its management and brokerage operations

in Alaska, which previously included Anchorage retail tenants Olive Garden Restaurants, PETCO, JC Penney, and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

OC Communications Inc.

O

C Communications, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ounalashka Corporation, acquired the Signature Building at 745 West Fourth Avenue in Anchorage, joining 606 E Street as downtown Anchorage investments for Ounalashka Corporation subsidiaries.

Located east of the Nesbett Courthouse, the property features 37,319 square feet, Class A/A space, and is fully leased. In 2012 the Signature Building was awarded the EPA’s Energy Star rating recognizing superior energy performance.

Ounalashka Corporation is the Alaska Native Village Corporation for Unalaska, formed in 1973 under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. Ounalashka Corporation is a real estate leasing, investment, and development company.

T

SEARHC

he SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) recently launched Healthy Living Southeast, HealthyLivingSE.org, an online lifestyle magazine that aims to provide readers with the information needed to be successful in a journey toward health, as well as to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

This new online publication will allow SEARHC to continually update and post new stories and information, including a robust calendar of events,

Your Project, Our Responsibility.

24/7 Service Pacific Pile & Marine has a robust fleet of marine equipment including our recent addition of a 600-Ton 4600 Ringer.

www.pacificpile.com I (907) 276-3878 276-3873 www.akbizmag.com

From critical lifts to platform support, PPM is sufficiently resourced to deliver a wide range of construction services.

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INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS enabling readers, both affiliated with SEARHC and those that are not, access to vital and interesting information on health and wellness, some of which will be unique to Southeast Alaskans.

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State of Alaska

he State of Alaska will pursue becoming an equity partner in the Alaska LNG project, will terminate its involvement with TransCanada as its licensee under the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, and partner with the company in a more traditional commercial agreement.

The commercial agreement, known as a Heads of Agreement, for the Alaska LNG project is anticipated to be signed

by Exxon, BP, ConocoPhillips, TransCanada, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation, and the commissioners of the Departments of Revenue and Natural Resources. The Heads of Agreement will be subject to public review by the Legislature.

Fairbanks International Airport

T

he Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, State of Alaska, is proposing to add and reconfigure vacant lease lots for general aviation and helicopter use development on the East Ramp.

Applications for these lots will be accepted no sooner than March 3, 2014, and their terms will not exceed December 31, 2048.

With limited exceptions, Title 17 requires all lease lots to be developed in full within two years from the date of lease execution.

The deadline for written comments was February 12, after which the Air-

Compiled by ABM Staff

port Manager was to determine whether or not to add these lease lots to the available inventory.

Block 104, Lots 1-4: General Aviation Development: A vacant parcel of land adjacent to the northeast end of the ski strip is now designated as Block 104.

Lots 1 and 2 are available for high-density, i.e., T-hangar development; Lots 3 and 4 are available private aircraft hangar development.

Block 109, Lots 1-3: Helicopter Lease Lots: Block 109, Lots 1-3 are reserved for helicopter hangars and are located on the most southern and eastern side of University Avenue South running parallel to Drainage Channel “A” and southeast of Block 108, Lots 1A-D, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Block 108, Lot 8: Reconfiguration: Block 108, Lot 8, has been reconfigured to include six lots of varied dimensions and sizes for general aviation development.

Lots 8-13 are located directly west of the existing developed Block 108 leased lots.

Block 103, B Lots: Change in Authorized Use: Current authorized uses for Block 103 B Lots shall be revised to include construction of hangars/structures for aviation use.

Block 100, Lot 6: Reconfiguration: Block 100, Lot 6A will be reconfigured to be compatible with future expansion plans contained in the Master Plan.

I

Wild Alaska Salmon

n a major victory for US consumers and Alaska fishermen, Walmart in late January announced an update to its sustainability policy that will ensure wild Alaska salmon, the gold standard of sustainable seafood, is back on store shelves at the nation’s largest grocery chain.

In its new policy, Walmart has agreed

to expand its sustainable seafood policy to accept certification from the United Nations Food and Agriculture-based Responsible Fisheries Management program, which currently certifies wild Alaska salmon.

F

Futaris, Inc.

utaris, Inc., a subsidiary of Calista Corporation, announces its investment in Quintillion Networks Limited.

Futaris, Inc. provides global IT and communication solutions via satellite, VoIP, broadcasting, and LMR communications and has more than thirty years of private and federal telecommunications experience. Futaris is the only approved HITRUST Common Security Framework Assessor organization in the state of Alaska and is licensed to conduct HITRUST CSF assessments nationwide.

The Calista Corporation represents approximately 12,500 shareholders of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Southwest Alaska. The region contains nearly 10 percent of Alaska’s land area. There are no 100G wired connections from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to the rest of Alaska or the world.

Alaska-based Quintillion, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quintillion Networks Limited, is a middle-mile telecommunications company with exclusive rights to develop Alaska fiber optic landing sites. Quintillion has selected seven landing sites based upon the market and feasibility analysis. The Alaska landing sites, subject to respective agency approvals, are Prudhoe Bay, Barrow, Wainwright, Point Hope, Kotzebue, Nome, and Shemya (subject to federal government approval). In addition, a new trans-Pacific extension to

Your Project, Our Responsibility. 24/7 Service

Pacific Pile & Marine has a robust fleet of marine equipment including our recent addition of a 600-Ton 4600 Ringer.

www.pacificpile.com I (907) 276-3878 276-3873 108

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

From critical lifts to platform support, PPM is sufficiently resourced to deliver a wide range of construction services.

620B East Whitney Road I Anchorage, AK 99501 www.akbizmag.com

INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS

Compiled by ABM Staff

Seattle may provide opportunity to connect a spur to Unalaska. The Fiber optic cable is buried around the Alaska coast and to the landing sites. These sites will connect via spurs to an international subsea fiber optic network that is currently in pre-construction phase and is more than fifteen thousand kilometers long, connecting Tokyo and London and other European and Asian communities via the Northwest Passage. This project is led by Arctic Fibre Ltd. The project takes advantage of international economic opportunities to route via the Northwest Passage and North Arctic.

Senate Bill 23. The bill allows the state to move forward to develop a private-public partnership to deliver liquefied natural gas through a combination of cash grants, low-interest loans, and bonds.

MWH Global

Sea Ice Atlas

C

olorado-based strategic consulting, engineering, and construction firm MWH Global announced the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority Board has selected MWH as its private sector partner for the Interior Energy Project, a state-backed program to truck liquefied natural gas to Fairbanks by late 2015. The board unanimously approved the proposal.

“MWH has been serving the people of Alaska for more than thirty-five years,” said Alan Krause, chairman and CEO of MWH Global and a born and raised Alaskan. “We are pleased to continue that relationship with this groundbreaking selection by Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority to bring private financing to the Interior Energy Project. We look forward to being part of the team that lowers the cost of energy for the people and businesses in Fairbanks and the surrounding area.”

The Interior Energy Project was introduced in 2013 by Governor Sean Parnell’s

I

AHFC

n response to increasing use of mobile devices for accessing the Internet, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s website now automatically adapts to various mobile platforms (devices), making navigation easier and more user friendly. Check it out on all your devices! ahfc.us

N

ew sea ice atlas puts 160 years of data online. University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers and the Alaska Ocean Observing System have released the first digital atlas of historical sea ice concentrations in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and Bering seas.

This web-based tool allows users to view and download sea ice concentration data from 1850 to the present.

The university’s Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy and the Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning created the sea ice atlas.

With funding support from AOOS, John Walsh, chief scientist at the UAF International Arctic Research Center, and Sarah Trainor, IARC’s ACCAP director, led the project during the past two years. They worked in partnership with the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. IARC’s SNAP maintains the data behind the sea ice atlas, which is complementary with

other data available at AOOS. The atlas uniquely provides digitized historical sea ice data compiled from more than ten sources, including the satellite record, various US Naval and National Ice Center compilations, Canadian records, Danish and Norwegian ship records, and whaling ship reports.

The interactive map allows users to select a date or a location to visualize how open water seasons have varied in a particular place. An animation shows changes in ice extent and concentration through time—year by year and decade by decade.

The atlas also offers a glossary that defines different types of sea ice and provides information about the original data sources and how the data were compiled.

One objective is to offer researchers a reliable tool to find time scales of variability.

“Is there a 20-year cycle in sea ice?”

Walsh asked. “That is a research question. Researchers want to know about it scientifically. If you only have 30 years of data, it’s really hard to say there is a 20year cycle. But when you get to 160 years, you can start to see if any cycles hold up over time, whether they are reliable, robust enough to be considered real.”

Researchers are not the only ones who will benefit from the atlas. It provides coastal communities, industry, and state and federal agencies, among others, an objective, historical record of sea ice conditions during the past 160 years. The atlas is also a potential educational tool in the classroom. Anyone with a modern web browser and Internet access is able to use it.

The sea ice atlas was presented in a webinar hosted by ACCAP in February.

The atlas is found online at seaiceatlas. snap.uaf.edu. 

• General Contracting • Marine Infrastructure • Design Build

Dutch Harbor - Unalaska, Alaska

www.pacificpile.com I (907) 276-3873 www.akbizmag.com

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RIGHT MOVES Dowland-Bach

Dowland-Bach announced that Reed Christensen, currently Vice President and General Manager, would become President and General Manager of the company on January 1, 2014. He succeeds co-founder and longtime President Lynn Johnson.

Christensen joined Dowland-Bach in 1995 as Controller, became General Manager in 1998, and Vice President in 2009. He has a bachelor’s degree in accounting with a business minor and master’s degree in accounting information systems, both from Brigham Young University.

Fairweather, LLC

Fair weath e r, L LC ha s announced the appointment of L o ri Davey as th e company’s new General Manager. Davey will be responsible for directing all of Fairweather’s business activities and overseeing the company’s expansion and management of Deadhorse Aviation Center.

Davey Davey joined Fairweather in 2012 as Director of Business Development. She graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 1992 and earned an MBA in 1998. She currently serves as a trustee on the boards of the Nature Conservancy in Alaska and the Anchorage Rotary Club.

USKH

Compiled by Tasha Anderson environmental science from Alaska Pacific University in 2011 and earned her bachelor’s degree from Southern Oregon University.

Noble works closely with USKH clients to ensure the most appropriate funding strategy for their short-term and long-term community needs. She is a graduate of Gonzaga University.

AGC

Molly Marler has joined the Associated General Contractors of Alaska (AGC) as the Assistant Executive Director effective January 6, 2014.

Marler comes to AGC from American Fast Freight where she was a transportation consultant Marler responsible for growing and maintaining a significant account base of customers needing freight solutions to move goods and materials from the Lower 48 to and throughout the state of Alaska.

Marler has been connected with AGC staff and active in the events for many years and was awarded the prestigious Stan Smith volunteer of the year award at the 2013 AGC dinner dance in November.

NANA Management Services

David Spring gate has been appointed President of NANA Management Services. Springgate ha s b e e n w ith N A N A Development Corporation since 2007, most recently Springgate serving as Senior Vice President of Performance.

Golder Associates

Larquier

Noble

USKH, Inc. is pleased to announce that Ann Marie Larquier joined the multi-disciplined architecture and engineering firm earlier this year as a Water Resources Specialist, and Meredith Noble has joined as USKH’s first Funding Specialist.

Larquier joins USKH’s Environmental and Water Resources Division. She received her master’s degree in

Golder Associates, Inc.’s Anchorage office welcomes new hire Tabitha Trosper, Engineering Geologist, and announces Peter Calvin has recently earned his Professional Engineers Registration (PE) and Eric Cannon has recently earned his Certified Professional Geologist (CPG) certification.

Trosper is a graduate of Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, with a Bachelor of Science and master’s degree in Geology.

Calvin, a Project Geotechnical Engineer, has worked for Golder since 2011. Calvin is a 2010 MS Geological Engineering graduate of the University of Fairbanks and a BS Civil Engineering graduate of the University of Colorado.

Cannon is a Senior Project Geologist and has worked with Golder since 2006. He is a 1999 MS Geology graduate and a 1997 BSc Geology with Geophysics Minor graduate of the University of California at Davis.

SEARHC

SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) announced that Eric Gettis joined the organization as the new Director of Practice Management in January. Gettis will lead improvement efforts, front end office processes, appointment scheduling, registration, health information management, provider schedule optimization, customer service, and quality monitoring. Gettis has over twenty years of healthcare leadership.

Jolt Construction & Traffic Maintenance, Inc.

Matt Ketchum has joined Jolt Construction as Operations Manager. Ketchum has twenty-two years of experience in the Alaska civil construction market. He will be responsible for growing Jolt’s entry into the prime contracting market as well as improving Jolt’s current business activities. He will be Ketchum responsible for all aspects of pre-construction and project construction execution.

Ketchum previously worked since 1992 for Wilder/Granite Construction. He graduated in ‘89 from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK, with a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management Technology. Jolt Construction is located in Big Lake and specializes in highway sign manufacturing and installation, traffic control and maintenance, and hydroseeding. Jolt is a certified WBE contractor.

UIC Construction Services

Michael Collins has joined UIC Construction Services, LLC (UICCS) as HSE Manager. Collins will ensure regulatory compliance, accident prevention, spill response, and the implementation of project safety and health programs for the five construction companies of

SLED DOGS & SOFAS & MILK

OH MY!

WE’RE OFF TO RURAL ALASKA

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Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

www.akbizmag.com

RIGHT MOVES UICCS. Collins earned bachelor’s degrees in geology and science education from Oregon State University along with Construction and General Industry Safety & Health Specialist Certificates from the University of Washington.

Northrim Bank

Northrim Bank announces the hiring of Larry Cooper, Vice President, Commercial Loan Unit Manager. Cooper joins Northrim with over thirty years of banking and financial industry experience. He has extensive experience working with Alaska Native Corporations and the oil support industry, Cooper as well as a wide range of other industries.

Compiled by Tasha Anderson UMIAQ

Cindy J. Titus, PE has joined U M I AQ ’s En gin e e rin g Department as a Civil Engineer and will be based in Barrow. Titus is a Colorado State University graduate and a registered Professional Engineer in Civil Engineering.

Titus’s experience includes ten years engineering over- Titus sight, planning, permitting, design, and construction oversight of water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Thompson & Co. Public Relations

KABATA

Mt. McKinley Bank

Mt . McKinley Bank is pleased to announce the promotion of Patty Mongold to the position of President and Chief Operations Officer.

Mongold began her career at Mt. McKinley Bank as a Teller Trainee in January of 1976, making her the longest serving employee of the Bank. She has been Mongold a part of the banks’ Senior Management team for the past several years.

Gordon

Kurn

KABATA appoints Judy Dougherty, PE as Acting Director for Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority.

Dougherty brings over twenty years of experience building transportation infrastructure in Anchorage.

She has previously served as the Authority’s Deputy Executive Director for Project Development. Prior to joining KABATA, Dougherty served as the Central Region Highway Design Group Chief, in which she was responsible for the delivery of the state and federal highway program throughout Southcentral Alaska.

Department of Revenue

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has named James Harty as its first Alaska-based Small Business Administration Business D evelop m ent O f f icer.

Harty will work with Alaska small businesses to provide SBA financing options that best suit the needs of their business.

Harty has more than ten Harty years of financial services experience and holds a master’s degree in human relations from the University of Oklahoma.

Alletson recently earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Arizona with a minor in sociology.

McLaughlin and Nokelby joined Thompson & Co.’s Anchorage team as interns in early fall 2013. Nokelby holds a bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis in public relations from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. McLaughlin earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and public communications from the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Gordon and Kurn have risen through the agency ranks. Since joining Thompson & Co. in July 2011 as an account coordinator, Gordon has worked primarily on the agency’s State of Alaska Tourism account. Kurn joined the agency in February 2013 as an account coordinator and soon began contributing to new business efforts by designing winning RFPs as well as client newsletters, collateral materials, and logos.

Alletson

McLaughlin

Thompson & Co. Public Relations recently expanded its Anchorage and New York teams with the addition of Megan Alletson, Emily McLaughlin,andTaraNokelby, who were hired as Account Coordinators. In addition, the agency promoted Bri Gordon to Junior Account Executive and Emily Kurn to Art Director Nokelby and Junior Account Executive.

The Department of Revenue announces that Michael Pawlowski is now the deputy commissioner for strategic finance, Pamela Leary has been chosen to lead the Treasury Division as the state treasurer, and Scott Jones is now state comptroller.

Pawlowski graduated from Alaska Pacific University.

He previously worked for Alaska Permanent Capital Management Company, the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority, and as an aide specializing in oil and gas, energy, and finance issues for the Alaska Legislature. Pawlowski will lead special projects and teams within the department.

Leary has served as State Comptroller since 2007.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and is a certified public accountant in the State of Alaska.

Jones has held the position of Assistant Comptroller since 2007. Jones has also served as an auditor. Jones holds a degree in business with an emphasis on accounting from the University of Alaska Southeast.

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AGENDA March

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Annual Governor’s Safety & Health Conference

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March 4-6—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: The conference includes recognition of the recipients of the Governor’s Safety Award of Excellence and the Governor’s Special Achievement Award and offers training, education, and the latest tools and technology for workplace safety and health. labor.alaska.gov/lss/asac.htm

Compiled by Tasha Anderson

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March 6-7—Hotel Captain Cook, Anchorage: The Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference’s annual summit and membership meeting. swamc.org

Alaska Anthropological Association

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March 5-8—Wedgewood Resort, Fairbanks: The Alaska Anthropological Association 2014 conference theme is “Anthropology and Art.” Workshops will be held March 5, and the conference will include artistic events. alaskaanthropology.org

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National Congress of American Indians Mid-Year Conference June 8-11—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: The National Congress of American Indians, founded in 1944, is an American Indian and Alaska Native organization serving the broad interests of tribal governments and communities. ncai.org

July

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National Conference of Earthquake Engineering

May 7-9—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: This conference provides opportunities to complete CLE requirements as well as an opening reception, several luncheons, and an awards reception and Dinner for 25, 50, and 60 year recognition. alaskabar.org May 3-11—A weeklong combined conference-fieldtrip with the Joint International Geological Correlation Programme and the Seismological Society of America in the 50th anniversary year of the 1964 Mw 9.2 Good Friday earthquake. coastal-change.org

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Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

May 12-13—Sheraton Hotel, Anchorage: Over two hundred human resources professionals, office managers and administrators, directors, and adult educators representing both public and private industry come together from around the state to learn more about their responsibilities as HR Professionals. alaska.shrm.org

NACo WIR Conference May 21-23—Egan Center, Anchorage: The National Association of Counties’ Western Interstate Region conference focuses on public lands and issues critical to the western region of the United States, providing county officials with the opportunity to

July 20-26—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: This conference is comprised of the 2014 EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute) Annual Meeting and the NEES (Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation) Quake Summit, as well as the 10th Anniversary of NEES, the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami, and an undergraduate seismic design competition. eeri.org | 10ncee.org

August 2014

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IEA World Congress of Epidemiology

Alaska State HR Conference

AMA 24th Biennial Mining Conference April 7-13—Carlson Center, Fairbanks: “Growing Alaska: Can you dig it? Catch my drift?” is theme of the Alaska Miners Association 2014 conference. There will be technical sessions, short courses, a trade show, and field trips to local mines and projects. alaskaminers.org

May 1-2—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: The conference provides a venue for attendees to learn about and share information on the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Alaska and to network with those working in these fields. bceaconference.com

May 31-June 2—Anchorage: The theme of this year’s conference for the Higher Education Teaching & Learning Portal is “Innovative Learning-Scapes: e-Scapes, play-Scapes and more.” The aim is to examine the impacts that social and mobile media and networks are having on learning environments in higher education. hetl.org

June

Joint IGCP 588 and SAA Meeting

Top 40 Under 40 April 4—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: Sponsored by the Alaska Journal of Commerce, this event is a recognition of the state’s top young professionals younger than the age of forty who have demonstrated professional excellence and a commitment to community. alaskajournal.com

April 30-May 2—Egan Center, Anchorage: A stimulating exchange of research on a wide range of topics with colleagues from all over the world. Oral presentations, poster sessions, exhibits, field trips, business meetings, and social gatherings all provide participants the opportunity to meet and share with their peers. seismosoc.org

Alaska Bar Convention

Alaska Native Village CEO Association April 1-2—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: Sixth annual ANVCA Mining & Resource Development Conference includes professional development workshops, US Senate and gubernatorial lunch forums, more than two dozen speakers and presenters. anvca.biz

International HETL Conference

Business of Clean Energy in Alaska Conference

April

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Southeast Conference Mid-Session Summit March 12-14—Centennial Hall, Juneau: The Summit is an opportunity for Southeast leaders to discuss issues vital to the region including energy, resource development, transportation, tourism and economic development, and provides members a chance to meet with lawmakers. seconference.org

April 11—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: A celebration of the industry’s successes of the past year. Special award presentations will be made to Visit Anchorage partners whose exceptional efforts have made these achievements possible. anchorage.net

Seismological Society of America Annual Meeting

SWAMC Annual Economic Summit

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hear speakers, discuss legislation, and network with other officials. naco.org

Visit Anchorage Seymour Awards Banquet

August 17-21—Dena’ina Center, Anchorage: The theme for this year’s congress is “Global Epidemiology in a Changing Environment: The Circumpolar Perspective.”

The congress is an opportunity to visit with and listen to prominent researchers in epidemiology and public health. ieaweb.org

September 2014

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Alaska Oil & Gas Congress September 15-18—Anchorage: This comprehensive four-day conference is the place to meet the players, forge new relationships, and get the information you need to capitalize on changes taking place in Alaska.

This year is the 10th anniversary event and planning is already underway to make it a memorable and valuable experience. alaskaoilandgascongress.com

www.akbizmag.com

ALASKA THIS MONTH

By Tasha Anderson

dining

Villa Nova Restaurant Giorgio, Villanova Owner and Chef.

AN ALASKAN ORIGINAL

Photo courtesy of Villa Nova Restaurant

H

ungry Alaskans looking for fresh, home-made Italian fare should drop by Villa Nova Restaurant, located at the northeast corner of Arctic Boulevard and International Airport Road in Anchorage.

Owner and Chef Giorgio was born in Sicily and pursued his life’s passion for cooking at the Culinary Institute of Milan, Italy, and the Cordon Bleu in France. After moving to Alaska, he opened Villa Nova in 1983, and sold it in 2001 to retire. But he realized that the retired life wasn’t for him, repurchasing the restaurant in 2004.

Everything on the menu is made from scratch with fresh ingredients, local when possible. The menu consists of Italian foods: pasta, like the house-made lasagna, layered with extra lean ground beef, homemade marinara, blended herbs, and an emulsion of four cheeses; salad, including Giorgio’s Salad with tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, onions and fresh basil in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing; filettini alla veneziana, which is tender filet medallions with fresh mushrooms in a cream sauce; and a variety of desserts, such as domo, two homemade Spanish style sponge cakes dipped in orange liqueur, layered with chocolate mousse, and drizzled with raspberry coolis. The online menu lists items that the restaurant usually has, though there are daily specials that constantly change on the appetizer, dinner, and dessert menu.

For those visiting from out of town, this location is down the street from the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, making it a great opportunity to sample true Alaskan Italian fare. Reservations can be made on their website or by phone 907-561-1660. Villa Nova also hosts private parties and does catering.

The restaurant is only open for dinner, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. villanovaalaska.com 

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113

ALASKA THIS MONTH

By Tasha Anderson This classic comedic opera has been re-written just for Anchorage! See this brand-new reboot for yourself and enjoy “only in Alaska” parodies as well as local characters we all know and love. One weekend only, get your tickets early!

trAVel

Homer: Winter King Salmon Tournament Leszek Kuligowski, Anchorage, 2013 winner, caught a 35.1 pound salmon. © Jim Lavrakas/ Far North Photography

F

The Perfect Checkpoint IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN ANCHORAGE!

114

■ ■ ■ ■

All Non-Smoking Suites Free Airport & Train Shuttle Free Hot Breakfast Buffet Dog Sled Parking Available

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

© Jim Lavrakas/ Far North Photography

Proud Sponsor of Iditarod Musher Aliy Zirkle

or those itching to shake off some winter stillness, head to Homer for the annual Winter King Salmon Tournament taking place Saturday, March 22 at the end of the spit. The tournament is outside of the tourist season and comprised mostly of locals, says Meldonna Cody, events coordinator for the Homer Chamber of Commerce. “It’s the first really fun time to dig that boat out and celebrate the coming of spring—it sort of beats the regular tourism. It’s heavily Alaskan, primarily a sort of insider thing.”

One of the most exciting aspects of the tournament, Cody says, is the drawing for bell-ringer prizes. “Those are prizes announced over the VHF radio—it’s all random drawings.

They happen, roughly, depending on the amount of prizes, every fifteen minutes or so. You hear the ship’s bell ring over the radio, and then the person who won it is announced.”

Since every fisherman and every boat must be registered to be in the tournament, every person is eligible for the prizes. “I think it’s one of most fun things about the bell ringer prizes, that you do have to enter, but you don’t really even have to catch a fish to win a prize,” Cody laughs.

Often businesses and private citizens will throw impromptu parties after the tournament, and chowder is provided during the weighing and awards at Coal Point Trading. “It’s Homer’s party for Alaskans to celebrate the coming of spring,” Cody says.

The tournament entry cost is $100 per person and requires that participants have a current fishing license with a king salmon stamp.

Lines go in at 9 a.m. and must Mike Walls, Homer, 2011 be pulled out at 4 p.m. winner, caught a 30 pound homerwinterking.com  salmon. www.akbizmag.com

ALASKA THIS MONTH

By Tasha Anderson

entertAinment

© Anthony Lee Photography

RAW: The Journey

Underground Dance Company and guest dancers will perform at “RAW: The Journey.”

U

nderground Dance Company (UDC), founded by Gabe Harvey, an Alaskan dancer, is proud to invite Anchorage to its second public production, “RAW: The Journey,” taking place March 7 and 8 at the Dena’ina Center, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Harvey founded UDC to fill a gap in opportunities for adult dancers in Alaska. “I noticed in the dance community, once you got out of high school there wasn’t really much. There was a class here or a project there, and that’s it.”

After moving down south for a period of time and expanding his hip hop education, he returned to Alaska in 2005.

Harvey and Irenerose Antonio, one of UDC’s members, explain that the show features a fusion of dance genres including elements of hip hop, jazz, modern, and street dancing. “We’re super excited to have DJ T-Ray, who’s always been a huge supporter of UDC, who is going to be on stage, mixing live,” during the performance. “It’s just a five or six minute spot, but there’s a true art to mixing, and I think it will open people’s eyes,” Harvey says.

During the final number of the night, the dancers will wear traditional Native Alaskan kuspuks. “One thing I love about our company is we always try to represent Alaska the best way possible… we want to make sure we pay tribute to where we live; it’s our home.”

Harvey says the show is subtitled “The Journey” because “it’s not about getting to a destination. It’s about changing, and getting better.”

Tickets are $25 and are available through Ticketmaster. com or at the door. danceudc.com  www.akbizmag.com

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

115

EVENTS CALENDAR Anchorage 1

Iditarod Race Start

This annual race is essentially a reconstruction of the freight route to Nome and commemorates the part that sled dogs played in the settlement of Alaska. The race starts in downtown Anchorage. Fourth Avenue, 10 a.m. iditarod.com

8

Empty Bowl

This is the annual spring fund raiser for Bean’s Café, a not-forprofit organization with the mission to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. Purchasing a ticket allows the attendee to selection one locally made and donated bowl to take home, as well as enjoy soup and cornbread. Egan Civic and Convention Center, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. beanscafe.org

12

Anchorage Museum Gala

The theme for this year’s annual event is “Repurpose, Reuse, Reinvent.” The evening includes performances, artistic experiences, fine dining, and auctions of art, travel packages, and other items. Dress is black tie, but following the theme, recycled and vintage fashion are encouraged. Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, 6 p.m. anchoragemuseum.org

15-22

ASAA March Madness Alaska

This is the Alaska state basketball championships hosted by ASAA (Alaska School Activities Association). Sullivan Arena, games at various times. See website for schedule. asaa.org

19

Alaska’s Baby and Toddler Expo

This is a free educational and entertaining expo geared towards new parents and families with small children and is an opportunity to speak with health care professionals and buy toys, clothes, furniture, and more. Egan Civic and Convention Center, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. alaskaparent.com

29

Anchorage Symphony- Electric Nights

This performance features Tracy Silverman on electric violin for Embrace: Concerto for Electric Violin. This energetic piece is described by composer Kenji Bunch as “an interactive performance work.”

Audiences will hear a second ASO premiere at this concert—its first performance of Schumann’s towering Symphony No. 4. Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. anchoragesymphony.org

Bethel 21-23

Cama-i Dance Festival

This annual dance festival welcomes peoples from around the world to share culture and a love of dance. Participation in the dance is through invitation only, and the majority of the dances are from Alaska Native villages, though international dance groups are invited every year. The event also includes Heart of the Drum, a celebration of all the Cama-i participants that remembers those who have passed during the year. Bethel High School, various times. bethelarts.com

Fairbanks 8

Art Expo

This is celebration of the arts. Artisans from the area vend their handmade, local work and the affiliate organizations and committees of FAA (Fairbanks Arts Association) present crafts, projects, and information tables to inform the public of their ongoing work. Performers are invited to the stage—and dance, theatre, and music round out this wonderful day of arts programming. Exhibit Hall, Pioneer park Centennial Center, all day. fairbanksarts.org 116

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

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Compiled by Tasha Anderson 14-16

Sitka

The Color of Gold

The discovery of gold in Interior Alaska was the inspiration for this season’s world premiere of The Color of Gold. Composed

by Emerson Eads on a libretto by Cassandra Tilly, The Color of Gold takes the audience through the discovery of gold, the first year of life in boomtown, and the founding of a community to stand the test of time. Pioneer Park Centennial Theatre; Friday and Saturday 7:30 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m. operafairbanks.org

15-22

Arctic Winter Games

1-15

Arti Gras

Regional artists and musicians gather together with workshops, live music, the Sitka Spring Gallery walk, and the Wearable Art show, along with other community events. Various locations and times. sitka.org

Skagway 14-16

Back Country Bash & Ball

The games include traditional winter and summer sports, including alpine skiing, arctic sports, badminton, basketball, biathlon-ski, biathlon-snowshoe, cross country skiing, curling, dene games, dog mushing, figure skating, gymnastics, hockey, indoor soccer, snowboarding, snowshoeing, speed skating, table tennis, volleyball, and wrestling. They will also include several cultural events, including a folk art festival and expo. Various locations and times. awg2014.org

Spend time over the weekend cross-country or back-country skiing, learning outdoor safety at the Avalanche Awareness clinic, and enjoying the Backcountry Film Festival and live music a local eateries during this celebration of winter in the north.

Various locations and times. skagway.com

Homer

Mood is a two-time Juno Award winning singer-songwriter from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is the founding member of the internationally renowned, Billboard-charting trio The Wailin’ Jennys, and former lead singer of the Canadian roots band Scruj MacDuhk. Valdez Civic Center, 7 p.m. valdezartscouncil.org

8

KHLT 25th Anniversary Celebration Beach Bash

KHLT (Kachemak Heritage Land Trust), the oldest land trust in the state, is celebrating its 25th year of helping to preserve over three thousand acres of the Kenai Peninsula by hosting a celebration which will include hors d’oeuvres catered by Two Sisters Bakery, pre-concert piano music, conservation highlights, information on current conservation efforts, a cake presentation, and a commemoration of the KHLT founders. Down East Saloon, 7 p.m. homeralaska.org

Ketchikan 7-8

March of Dimes Scrapathon

Valdez 12

Ruth Moody

Willow 2

Iditarod Race Re-Start

Competing mushers gather in Willow for the re-start of the Iditarod, leaving in the same order that they left Anchorage.

This is the start by which a musher’s total elapsed race time will be calculated. Willow Lake, 2 p.m. iditarod.com

This event focuses on raising funds for the March of Dimes, and this year’s theme is “The Tsunami Scrapping.” It includes lunch, community scrapbooking and crafting time, vendors, and an auction on Saturday. Entrance to the event and the auction on Saturday are free to the public, though tickets are required for the lunch, table space to craft, and to receive an event packet.

Ted Ferry Civic Center. Search “March of Dimes Scrapathon” on facebook.

Nome 16

Iditarod Awards Banquet

This awards banquet celebrates the winner and other contestants of the Iditarod. Tickets can only be purchased after the first musher completes the race and are available at the Mini Convention Center. Nome Rec Center, 3:30 p.m. iditarod.com

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March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

117

What’s Next April in Alaska Business Monthly CORPORATE 100 ■ ABM’s 2014 Corporate 100 ■ Company & CEO Profiles ■ Making an Economic Impact ■ Trends in Corporate Giving ■ Business Classifications

CONVENTIONS & CORPORATE TRAVEL ■ Convention Planning ■ Corporate Travel ■ CVB’s Economic Impact

FEATURE ARTICLES

■ ANC’s: Energy development activity ■ Construction: Modular man camps ■ Entrepreneurs: Path to Prosperity ■ Financial Services: Retirement plans ■ Health & Medicine: Industrial accidents ■ Mining: Interior mines update ■ Mining: Donlin Gold’s progress ■ Oil & Gas: Alaska LNG Project ■ Oil & Gas: Cook Inlet Update ■ Oil & Gas: Oilfield maintenance ■ Telecom & Tech: Business services ■ Transportation: Logistics & scheduling

DEPARTMENTS ■ From the Editor ■ View from the Top ■ Legal Speak ■ Right Moves ■ Inside Alaska Business ■ Agenda ■ Alaska Trends ■ Alaska This Month Dining Travel Entertainment Events Calendar

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ALASKA TRENDS

By Amy Miller

Mean annual wages by occupation, Alaska and the U.S. $120,000

Alaska

$100,000

U.S.

$80,000 $60,000 $40,000 $20,000

Production

Transportation/Materials

Construction/Extraction

Installation/Maintenance

Farming, Fishing, Forestry

Sales/Related

Office/Administrative Support

Personal Care/Service

Building/Grounds Cleaning, Maintenance

Protective Service

Food Preparation/Serving

Healthcare Support

Healthcare Practitioners

Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, Media

Legal

Education, Training, Library

Community/Social Service

Life, Physical, Social Sciences

Computer/Mathematical

Architecture/Engineering

Management

$0 Business/Financial Operations

M

ost Alaskans know, or have heard, that household income, a major social and economic indicator tracked by the US Census Bureau, is higher in Alaska than it is in the rest of the United States. From 2008 to 2012, the median household income for Alaska was $69,917 compared to $53,046 for the United States as a whole, according to the US Census Bureau USA QuickFacts.

How do wages in Alaska stack up compared to those in the same industry elsewhere in the United States? For workers in some occupations, Alaska is a much better place to work.

In other fields, average wages are higher in the Lower 48.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics program compiles detailed occupational data for approximately eight hundred occupations, comparing mean annual wage, mean hourly wage, and median hourly wage, among other statistics. The data are compiled based on surveys of employers in all industries in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in all states and the District of Columbia. Overall, Alaskans compare favorably in terms of wages earned, with all occupations reporting a 12 percent advantage over the United States as a whole, but specific fields were particularly lucrative for Alaska workers. For example, Alaskans in the farming, fishing, and forestry occupational class earn 52 percent more than their peers elsewhere in the country; transportation and materials moving workers earn 33 percent more; construction and extraction and healthcare support both earn 26 percent more; and installation, maintenance, and repair workers earn 21 percent more. Fields in which Alaskans earn less than their peers outside Alaska in-

Alaska Trends, an outline of significant statewide statistics, is provided by the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development.

All Occupations

Alaskans Earn More Than US Peers in Most Occupations

clude arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations, where Alaskans earn 19 percent less; sales and related occupations and computer and mathematical, which are both 12 percent lower; and management, which is 9 percent lower.

The latest figures reported by the BLS come from May of 2012. Detailed reports, including wages for hundreds of occupational subcategories and wages by metropolitan area, are available on the BLS website (bls.gov) for viewing or download. For Alaska, wage reports are also available for Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Southeast Alaska nonmetropolitan area, and the Railbelt/Southwest Alaska nonmetropolitan area. 

SOURCE: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics program

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119

ALASKA TRENDS

Indicator

GENERAL Personal Income—Alaska Personal Income—United States Consumer Prices—Anchorage Consumer Prices—United States Bankruptcies Alaska Total Anchorage Total Fairbanks Total EMPLOYMENT Alaska Anchorage & Mat-Su Fairbanks Southeast Gulf Coast Sectorial Distribution—Alaska Total Nonfarm Goods Producing Services Providing Mining and Logging Mining

Oil & Gas Construction Manufacturing Seafood Processing Trade/Transportation/Utilities Wholesale Trade Retail Trade Food & Beverage Stores General Merchandise Stores Trans/Warehouse/Utilities Air Transportation Information

Telecommunications Financial Activities Professional & Business Svcs Educational & Health Services Health Care Leisure & Hospitality Accommodation Food Svcs & Drinking Places Other Services Government

Federal Government State Government State Education Local Government Local Education Tribal Government Labor Force Alaska Anchorage & Mat-Su Fairbanks Southeast Gulf Coast Unemployment Rate Alaska Anchorage & Mat-Su Fairbanks 120

By Amy Miller

Units

Period

Latest Report Period

Previous Report Period (revised)

US $ US $ 1982-1984 = 100 1982-1984 = 100

3rdQ13 3rdQ13 2nd H13 2nd H13

36,923 14,180,492 213.91 233.55

36,557 14,032,587 210.85 232.37

36,123 13,683,809 206.61 230.34

2.21% 3.63% 3.53% 1.39%

Number Filed Number Filed Number Filed

November November November

35 20 4

45 22 6

52 38 10

-32.69% -47.37% -60.00%

Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands

November November November November November

331.80 177.60 39.00 34.30 29.30

329.70 178.60 39.90 35.75 30.30

335.10 178.30 39.00 34.70 28.95

-0.98% -0.39% 0.00% -1.15% 1.21%

Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands

November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November November

320.9 41.5 279.4 18.1 17.5 14.7 16.7 6.7 2.9 61.5 5.6 35.7 6.1 9.5 20.2 5.5 6.1 4.0 13.4 27.9 47.2 33.5 28.0 5.7 18.6 11.8 83.5 14.1 26.3 8.7 43.1 24.2 3.3

327.4 45.4 282.0 18.5 17.9 14.7 19.3 7.6 3.6 62.3 5.7 35.8 6.3 9.7 20.8 5.7 6.1 3.9 13.5 27.8 47.2 33.7 29.6 6.6 19.2 11.7 83.8 14.5 26.4 8.6 42.9 23.7 3.3

323.6 41.1 282.5 17.3 16.8 13.6 16.2 7.6 3.9 62.5 6.1 35.7 6.1 10.1 20.7 5.6 6.2 4.0 13.0 28.1 47.2 33.3 28.8 6.7 18.3 11.7 85.0 15.3 26.8 8.7 42.9 24.4 3.4

-0.83% 0.97% -1.10% 4.62% 4.17% 8.09% 3.09% -11.84% -25.64% -1.60% -8.20% 0.00% 0.00% -5.94% -2.42% -1.79% -1.61% 0.00% 3.08% -0.71% 0.00% 0.60% -2.78% -14.93% 1.64% 0.85% -1.76% -7.84% -1.87% 0.00% 0.47% -0.82% -2.94%

Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands Thousands

November November November November November

363.99 203.18 46.71 37.67 38.26

362.98 199.88 46.83 38.23 38.48

363.02 203.00 46.82 37.91 37.77

0.27% 0.09% -0.23% -0.63% 1.30%

Percent Percent Percent

November November November

6.5 5.2 5.4

6.5 5 5

6.7 5.3 5.6

-2.99% -1.89% -3.57%

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Year Ago Period

Year Over Year Change

www.akbizmag.com

ALASKA TRENDS

By Amy Miller

Units

Period

Latest Report Period

Previous Report Period (revised)

Percent Percent Percent

November November November

6.7 7.7 7

6 7 7.3

6.7 8.1 7.8

0.00% -4.94% -10.26%

Millions of Barrels Billions of Cubic Ft. $ per Barrel

November November November

16.07 7.51 101.28

16.14 7.72 104.82

16.60 8.84 105.24

-3.19% -15.05% -3.76%

Active Rigs Active Rigs $ Per Troy Oz. $ Per Troy Oz. Per Pound

November November November November November

9 1756 1275.82 20.76 0.96

10 1744 1316.18 21.92 0.94

8 1809 1,746.68 32.44 0.95

12.50% -2.93% -26.96% -36.00% 1.05%

Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $

November November November

29.71 10.57 19.14

35.48 11.58 23.9

15.32 8.20 7.12

93.93% 28.90% 168.82%

Total Deeds Total Deeds

November November

682 150

871 241

1462*GeoNorth 283

-40.42% -47.00%

VISITOR INDUSTRY Total Air Passenger Traffic—Anchorage Total Air Passenger Traffic—Fairbanks

Thousands Thousands

November November

320.58 65.64

360.58 75.12

334.11 65.79

-4.05% -0.23%

ALASKA PERMANENT FUND Equity Assets Net Income Net Income—Year to Date Marketable Debt Securities Real Estate Investments Preferred and Common Stock

Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $ Millions of $

November November November November November November November

48,770 49,396 215.5 439.9 -58.4 26.5 270.6

48,263 49,163.50 125.5 1162.7 77.1 34.6 852.7

42,978.90 43,598.90 176.2 1,568.0 5.3 1.50 239.8

13.47% 13.30% 22.30% -71.95% -1201.89% 1666.67% 12.84%

2,294.35 47.20 133.97 1,209.88 5.45 2,011.97 1,953.62 637.64 1,315.98

2,186.18 47.55 133.58 1,185.98 6.38 1,907.74 1,852.29 588.36 1,263.92

2,191.15 61.20 169.47 1,137.65 8.01 1,917.02 1,863.43 599.95 1,263.48

4.71% -22.88% -20.95% 6.35% -31.96% 4.95% 4.84% 6.28% 4.16%

100.21 1.05 0.62 0.74 6.13

97.81 1.04 0.62 0.73 6.13

80.86 1.00 0.63 0.78 6.28

23.93% 5.00% -1.59% -5.13% -2.39%

Indicator

Southeast Gulf Coast United States PETROLEUM/MINING Crude Oil Production—Alaska Natural Gas Field Production—Alaska ANS West Coast Average Spot Price Hughes Rig Count Alaska United States Gold Prices Silver Prices Zinc Prices REAL ESTATE Anchorage Building Permit Valuations Total Residential Commercial Deeds of Trust Recorded Anchorage—Recording District Fairbanks—Recording District

BANKING (excludes interstate branches) (excludes federally chartered banks) Total Bank Assets—Alaska Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Cash & Balances Due Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Securities Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Net Loans and Leases Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Other Real Estate Owned Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Total Liabilities Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Total Bank Deposits—Alaska Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Noninterest-bearing deposits Millions of $ 3rdQ13 Interest- bearing deposits Millions of $ 3rdQ13 FOREIGN TRADE Value of the Dollar In Japanese Yen In Canadian Dollars In British Pounds In European Monetary Unit In Chinese Yuan

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Yen Canadian $ Pounds Euro Yuan

November November November November November

Year Ago Period

Year Over Year Change

March 2014 | Alaska Business Monthly

121

Advertisers Index Alaska Air Cargo.............................................29 Alaska Air Transit..........................................115 Alaska Dreams Inc.........................................93 Alaska Miners Assoc.....................................13 Alaska Rubber .................................................34 Alaska Traffic Co..............................................73 Alaska USA Federal Credit Union.......23 Alaska USA Insurance Brokers.............23 Alaskan Brewing Co....................................113 American Fast Freight..................................33 American Marine/PENCO.....................119 Anchorage Chrysler Dodge ....................15 Anchorage Opera.........................................114 Anchorage Sand & Gravel........................86 Arctic Office Products (Machines)....................................................56 AT&T ...................................................................... 41 Avis.........................................................................115 Bezek Durst Seiser........................................ 67 Bowhead Transport Co..............................97 Brand Energy & Infrastructure.............81 Calista Corp.......................................................63 Carlile Transportation Systems...............3 Chris Arend Photography......................122

122

City Electric Inc...............................................83 Clarion Suites | Quality Suites . ..........114 Colonial Life.......................................................22 Construction Machinery Industrial LLC................................................2 Cook Inlet Tug & Barge Inc.......................61 Cruz Construction Inc.................................55 Davis Constructors & Engineers Inc. .91 Delta Leasing LLC..........................................62 Delta Rental Services.................................. 67 Design Alaska..................................................84 Dino’s Donuts Inc.........................................118 Donlin Gold........................................................ 76 First National Bank Alaska..........................5 Fountainhead Hotels, Sophie Station Suites.............................53 GCI...............................................................49, 124 Granite Construction..................................87 Hawk Consultants LLC..............................84 Historic Anchorage Hotel........................117 Holmes Weddle & Barcott........................35 Horizon Lines....................................................66 Island Air Express........................................116 Judy Patrick Photography.........................51

Alaska Business Monthly | March 2014

Kinross Ft. Knox..............................................59 Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP.............13 Lifewater Engineering Co.........................86 Little Red Services Inc................................47 Lynden Inc. ........................................................25 MFCP (Motion Flow Control Products Inc.)...........................61 N C Machinery................................................. 77 NALCO Champion..........................................75 NCB......................................................................... 57 Northern Air Cargo.........................110, 111 Northland Services.......................................28 Northrim Bank.................................................65 Northwest Ironworkers Employers Assoc.....................................62 Oxford Assaying & Refining Inc..........117 Pacific Alaska Freightways......................36 Pacific Pile & Marine........107, 108, 109 Paramount Supply.......................................118 Parker, Smith & Feek.................................... 21 Peak Oilfield Service Co. . .........................53 Pen Air...................................................................27 Personnel Plus................................................116 Price Gregory.....................................................75

Primary Care Associates / US HealthWorks..............................................24 Ravn ALASKA...................................................31 Remax / Dynamic Properties Matt Fink........................................................11 Remote Access Technology (RAT) Intl............................19 RSA Engineering Inc.....................................63 SeaTac Marine Services..............................35 Shred Alaska......................................................68 Span Alaska Consolidators......................64 Spenard Builders Supply . ......................123 Stellar Designs Inc.......................................118 Tulalip Casino Resort....................................37 Tutka LLC.............................................................72 UIC Construction Services......................89 UMIAQ..................................................................49 Unit Company...................................................72 Visit Anchorage............................................... 14 Washington Crane & Hoist.......................17 Waste Management . ..................................85 Watterson Construction Co...................95 Wells Fargo ..........................................................9 Yukon Equipment............................................71

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