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The
By Tracy Barbour
Identity
Alaska
By Amy Newman
Tracking
Alaska
By Rindi White
Delivering
By Vanessa Orr
Green Eyeshade Hard Hats Support
Herring Fishery Heralds Spring A bait, gourmet, and traditional catch By Dimitra Lavrakas 90
Remote
Maria Benner
Greatland Studios
Melina Glover
Security for Your Next Step
For Lyle and Heidi Wilder, growing Lake and Peninsula Airlines means looking ahead with confidence. With help from customized and reliable banking solutions from First National, they have the financial security to expand and invest in their future.
Discover how First National helps power success for Lake and Peninsula Airlines, a lifeline for Southwest Alaska.
CONTENTS
SPECIAL SECTION: TRANSPORTATION
42 IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE, IT’S A… FISH?
From nose to tail, aircraft livery tells a story
By Rachael Kvapil
48 WHIRLYBIRDS OF A FEATHER
The collective and cyclic business of helicopter services
By Terri Marshall
60 ROAD AND HARBOR CONNECTIONS
Federal grants to revitalize Alaska
By Vanessa Orr
66 ALASKA MARINE HIGHWAY UPDATE
Funding innovations and fleet renewal
By Alexandra Kay
36 SECOND LIFE
The sixty-year startup of Kenai Aviation
By Nancy Erickson
54 THE VALLEY’S NEW MVP
Mat-Su Borough gets its own Metropolitan Planning Organization
By Rindi White
ABOUT THE COVER
Clouds parted, weather cleared, and schedules aligned. Joel and Jacob Caldwell’s flight paths criss-cross Alaska most of the time, but for a precious moment they intersected at Kenai Municipal Airport, allowing father and son to pause for a pose. The Caldwells have been at the controls of Kenai Aviation since 2018, spreading the wings of the venerable oil industry transport provider into new routes and ranges. This month’s cover story, “Second Life,” chronicles the flyboys as they nurture Bob Bielefeld’s baby, now one of the oldest family-owned businesses on the Kenai Peninsula.
Photography by Ron Levy
How we prove our identity and when we should have to prove our identity are highly contentious but necessary questions; as a society, we need to try to find a balance between the need for public safety and individual privacy. Interestingly, many of our attempts to safeguard the public have resulted in close ties between identification and transportation, largely because most individuals in the United States use a driver’s license as their primary form of state-issued ID.
Last month marked the implementation of the REAL ID program after years of planning and delay after delay; it sets standards for the ID cards that people can use to access certain federal facilities, enter nuclear power plants, and— significant to Alaskans—board federally regulated commercial aircraft.
If you don’t currently have a REAL ID or passport and intend to fly, the multiple grace periods are over; it’s time to get real (haha).
The REAL ID Act passed Congress in 2005 and initially aimed to take effect in 2008. However late, the intention of the 2005 act is still important: improving public safety and security through establishing nationwide minimum standards for license issuance and production.
On the other side of the scale, this year the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles launched an ID program to enhance privacy: the mobile identification card (mID). As explained in the article “Identity Opportunity,” mID is a voluntary initiative to allow Alaskans more control over what information they provide to individuals and organizations.
For example, if a thirsty fairgoer and a beer garden vendor both participate in the mID program, the vendor can verify that the fair-goer in question is over the age of 21 through an app without needing to see a driver’s license or state-issued ID that also displays the fair-goer’s address, birth date, or other personal information. Commerce can proceed, and essential, private information need not be turned over to a stranger.
As transportation has evolved over the last century, so too has transportation safety—and how we define safety. Adding seatbelts, controlling carbon emissions, and making sure everyone on an airplane is identified correctly are all part of the complex tapestry of how we stay safe while moving around Alaska and the world.
Tasha Anderson Managing Editor, Alaska Business
VOLUME 41, #6
EDITORIAL
Tasha Anderson, Managing Editor
Scott Rhode, Editor/Staff Writer
Rindi White, Associate Editor
Emily Olsen, Editorial Assistant
PRODUCTION
Monica Sterchi-Lowman, Art Director
Fulvia Caldei Lowe, Production Manager
Patricia Morales, Web Manager
BUSINESS
Billie Martin, President
Jason Martin, VP & General Manager
James Barnhill, Accounting Manager
SALES
Charles Bell, VP Sales & Marketing 907-257-2909 | cbell@akbizmag.com
Janis J. Plume, Senior Account Manager 907-257-2917 | janis@akbizmag.com
o ngass Trading Company in Ketchikan has supplied Alaskans and visitors for decades with everything from mining gear to prom tuxedos to vacation mementos. From its earliest days as a mining supplier, maturing to match the needs of evolving regional industries, and growing into its multi-layered modern presence today, it has spent 125-plus years planting roots and growing strong into its identity as an essential player in the Southeast economy.
Now big changes are ahead for this Ketchikan staple. In January 2026, Tongass Trading Company will split its business into two operations, retaining curio sales under the longstanding Tongass Trading Company banner and standing up a new business called Tongass Outfitters that will sell all other items under the operations umbrella.
It’s the latest significant move for a company that has strived and thrived over decades by continuing to change and adapt to consumer needs and behavior, says President and General Manager Chris Parks.
“We’ve always survived by changing for the times, adapting for what’s needed, and we’re going forward as two different entities,” Parks says. “It’s been two years in the planning. It’s a lot that goes into it to make it work, but it’s going to be cool, and we’re all excited.”
Gold, Fish, and Wood
Tongass Trading Company may be the oldest continually operating business in the state, according to its team (if several reorganizations of Alaska Commercial Company since 1867 can be said to have interrupted its continuity).
“We think it’s the oldest business in general,” Parks says. “We started
in 1898 in Wrangell, and within six months, they realized they were in the wrong town and moved to Ketchikan. We opened the store here in 1899.”
Founded by Ketchikan pioneers Henry C. Strong and Frederick C. Johnstone, the entity was first titled Strong and Johnstone Co. They renamed it to Tongass Trading Company in 1900 and incorporated in October 1901.
“So we actually incorporated when Ketchikan became a city,” says Parks, who has been with the company for thirty-seven years. “It was the largest town in Alaska until 1915 or so. They called it the First City because the traditional way to get here in the old
“We’ve always survived by changing... and we’re going forward as two different entities… It’s been two years in the planning. It’s a lot that goes into it to make it work, but it’s going to be cool, and we’re all excited.”
Chris Parks President and General Manager Ton gass Trading Company
days was by steamship, and the first town they arrived in was Ketchikan.”
In those early years of the 20th Century, the store made its mark supplying the eager miners who headed to camps across Southeast.
“Basically, it started out as a trading company supplying the gold miners going to the Klondike Gold Rush,” Parks says. “Mining supplies, work clothes, and groceries—supplies you would need to get over the Chilkoot Pass and meet the Mounties’ requirements to come into Canada.”
Tongass Trading Company was there to supply and sell the prospectors gold pans, picks, blasting powder—practically anything they needed. As the local
Melina Glover
economy and population grew, so did the store, catering to locals with housewares, boosted by the acquisition of a competing merchant’s furniture store in the 1920s.
Times were changing in the region, and as the flashy Gold Rush faded to routine mining, in came the fisheries. Ketchikan boomed as a hub for commercial halibut and salmon fishing, and Tongass Trading Company was there for it, outfitting the fleet with halibut hooks, flashers, and hoochies, and stocking clothing and equipment for cannery workers too. The company also took care of its local clientele, maintaining inventories of household goods, clothes, and groceries.
In 1937, Tongass Trading Company was purchased by Ward
Cove Packing, a longtime local cannery owned by the Brindle brothers. The acquisition was a sensible business move designed to manage the inventory that would support their thriving cannery business. They sold stock shares in Tongass Trading Company and, at one time, there were dozens of shareholders; Parks says the business today counts eight shareholders, and he’s one of them.
Parks calls A.W. Brindle a visionary entrepreneur who remained president of the Tongass Trading Company, as well as Ward Cove Packing, until his death in 1976.
“They built an empire,” Parks says. Ketchikan again saw economic evolution in the second half of the century with the arrival of the lucrative timber industry. Tongass
Trading Company pivoted yet again, building up an in-demand inventory of clothing and logging supplies for lumberjacks across Southeast. Floating logging camps were entirely built from Tongass Trading Company wares: furniture, bedding, plumbing pipe, and galvanized steel pins that kept the log base of the camp together.
“In the 1950s, they built the pulp mill here, so we provided the supplies they needed for that as well,” Parks says. “About the time we lost our timber economy, the cruise industry kind of exploded. That’s our main driver now.”
Eleven Departments, Six Buildings
Today, colorful Ketchikan’s downtown is a National Historic
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Menswear Building and Ladies Loft contains three levels of apparel and shoe departments.
Melina Glover
Landmark District, a cruise ship hot spot, and Alaska’s sixth-most populous city with around 8,100 year-round residents. Tongass Trading Company is a dockside fixture in Ketchikan, where its main store operates year-round, and its 180,000 annual customers depart carrying iconic red Tongass Trading Company shopping bags.
The company’s website says, “If you need a trinket, if you want to see what Alaskans really wear, or you just want to visit a store whose history goes back to before Ketchikan was incorporated—stop by Tongass Trading Company.”
But the big dockside shop is not the company’s only store.
“We’re a specialty department store with eleven departments in six different buildings,” Parks says.
Clothing layers sell quickly in summertime when cruise ship tourists arrive in Ketchikan and find 55°F to be chilly.
Melina Glover
Sometimes called the Tongass Trading Company Triangle, the company’s three main stores are in the heart of town, between Docks 2 and 3 and on Dock 4.
The flagship Dock Store at 201 Dock Street stands on the site of the original Tongass Trading Company marine store, which burned down in 1970. Its location means it’s often tourists’ first shopping stop. The Inside Passage Curio Store fills the first floor’s sprawling 10,000 square feet. It’s the largest curio store in Alaska. Souvenirs range from quintessential Alaska items such as tiny totem poles and ulu knives to hoodies, hats, and T-shirts.
The Dock Store’s second floor houses the Alaskan Outdoor Outfitters and Sporting Goods departments, with high-end brands
like North Face, Patagonia, Under Armour, Marmot, Vuori, Helly Hansen, Pendleton, and more.
“We are name-brand driven,” Parks says. “It is more expensive, but our motto for years and years is ‘quality costs no more.’ It costs more initially but lasts four times as long. We have some value-priced stuff as well. If someone comes off a ship and needs cheap rain gear or boots, we have everything from a $1.99 poncho to a $600 Arc'teryx jacket.”
The Dock Store also stocks gear for hunting, fishing, and camping.
Kitty corner to the Dock Store, at 312 Dock Street, is the Menswear Building and the Ladies Loft, in a building listed on the National Historic Register that dates to 1913. This three-level building includes men’s fashion and footwear in the
basement, menswear on the ground floor, and the women’s clothing and footwear section upstairs.
A block away, completing the triangle, is Inside Passage Curios and Gifts in the Ingersoll Building, an old hotel and restaurant. This space also houses Tongass Trading Company offices and warehouse space.
“We do have a Walmart [in Ketchikan], so if you need clothing or footwear, your choices are Walmart or us or online,” Parks says. “We’re wellpriced for what we have. It’s pretty much all name brand stuff.”
Less than a mile away is the Tongass Marine and Outdoor store on Marine Works Way and The Furniture House on Tongass Avenue.
Tongass Marine “is a full commercial marine sporting goods store: rubber boots, waders, Ace
With the reorganization of Tongass Trading Company's diversified interests, President and General Manager Chris Parks (left) will lead the outfitting division with General Merchandise Sales Manager Karl Biggerstaff (right), while the curio branch will continue under the leadership of Vice President Shane Greaves. Melina Glover
Hardware boat repair gear, guns, and ammo,” Parks says. The furniture store runs the gamut of supplies, including living room, dining room, bedroom, and home office furniture.
These businesses operate under the Tongass Trading Company canopy and cater mainly to locals, continuing the business’ long tradition of providing locals with essentials for living and working in Southeast.
Filling a Need
As consumer behavior and economic needs have evolved over Tongass Trading Company’s 127-year history, the store has adapted its identity and services to remain viable and useful.
The upcoming reorganization continues that evolution. The change coming next year will separate the souvenir division from the non-souvenir division.
Tongass Trading Company will deal solely in curio sales at the main Dock Store, the Inside Passage shop, and an outlet store.
What won’t change, Parks says, is Tongass Trading Company’s longstanding ability to advise shoppers seeking outdoor gear and clothes.
“The outdoor stuff is more specialized, and you need expert advice on how it works,” he says. “I tell people we aren’t salespeople, we’re problem solvers, and we’re filling a need. It could be people off the cruise ship or people here for the summer working or people passing through on a yacht; they have different needs and expectations for what they want.”
TUG
Eighty percent of Tongass Trading Company’s business is between May and September, which is nothing new: even when its sales were primarily driven by the logging industry, the heaviest sales were April to September, Parks says.
“People aren’t making and spending money in the winter,” he says. “It’s a seasonal summer economy here.”
The cruise ship industry will deliver a predicted 1.47 million people to Ketchikan in 2025 and 1.6 million in 2026. The town has two cruise ship ports—four big berths downtown and another port 5 miles up the road at Ward Cove that can hold two megacruise ships. More than 1 million will come ashore at the downtown ports and flood Ketchikan streets.
“They like Ketchikan because it is a real working town, a blue-collar working town,” Parks says. “The marinas are full of fishing boats. It is very much the real Alaska.”
While cruise ship tourists are mostly in the market for souvenirs, they sometimes need gear they neglected
to pack, and that’s where Parks and his team are prepared to help.
“You need hiking shoes? What kind of hiking are you going to do? Oh, you’re going on a glacier hike and walking around Juneau and going back to Alabama? I’ve got a pair of hiking boots for $99,” Parks says. “Another guy could say, ‘I’m going to the Chilkoot Trail with this 60-pound pack.’ Well, let me get you a pair of shoes that will support that trip and support that backpack weight and keep you safe.”
Tongass Trading Company today employs about 50 people during the winter and grows to about 130 staff members in the summer. Like many Ketchikan businesses, the company has built employee housing to account for the seasonal surge.
Looking ahead, the cruise ship industry is expected to grow, Parks says. More visitors is good news for Tongass Trading Company’s sales across all its sectors.
“They’ll buy shoes, better socks, better hats and gloves,” Parks says.
“If it’s 55°F, it feels like winter to them. We sell tons of fleece-lined jackets in the souvenir shops.”
With its impending division into two freestanding businesses still bonded by a beloved brand, Tongass Trading Company is once again realigning to meet consumer needs. Parks will head Tongass Outfitters, working with Karl Biggerstaff; Shane Greaves will serve as general manager of the Tongass Trading Company curio branch.
“We’re still a small business, but we’re a larger small business,” Parks says. “We’re a mediumsize fish in a small pond. We’ve evolved over the years and done pretty much everything in the retail business except for alcohol and tobacco. We had a grocery store for years. At one time we had an outboard [motor] store, a cable shop, and a gas shop, even carpeting. We’ve truly evolved throughout the years. You have to be changing and innovating or you’ll get left behind.”
Ketchikan locals have the option of shopping at Walmart, but Tongass Trading Company boasts that its inventory represents "what Alaskans really wear."
Melina Glover
The Language of Business
Professional accounting services, by the numbers
By Tracy Barbour
Pr ofessional accounting firms are vital components of Alaska’s business environment, providing bookkeeping, auditing, tax preparation, financial advisory, and a host of other offerings.
The variety of beans in a beancounting salad includes accounting solutions to help clients optimize operations, comply with regulatory standards, and thrive. Accounting and bookkeeping services range from general ledger and financial statement preparation to computerized payroll and business tax report preparation. Auditing ensures financial records are accurate and comply with regulatory standards, thereby enhancing transparency and trust among stakeholders. Tax preparation
services help businesses navigate the complexities of tax legislation, optimizing tax liabilities, and ensuring timely filing to avoid penalties. And financial advisory services offer strategic insights and guidance in areas like investment opportunities, risk management, and longterm financial planning.
Full-service accounting firms in Alaska range from global entities such as BDO USA and KPMG to homegrown Alaska-based companies like Altman, Rogers & Co.; Thomas Head & Greisen; Swalling & Associates PC; and Namtvedt Northcut & Associates.
Altman, Rogers & Co. is Alaska’s largest locally owned certified professional accountant (CPA) firm, with about sixty employees in the state. The company provides comprehensive accounting, auditing,
and consulting services, positioning itself as having the experience of a large accounting firm with the personal attention of a small firm.
The bread and butter of Altman, Rogers & Co. is audits of governments, Alaska Native corporations, nonprofits, and forprofit organizations, particularly single audits. A single audit includes two key components: an audit of an entity’s financial statements and an audit of its compliance with federal program requirements. “At one point in time, we were performing more single audits than most other firms in the United States just because of the extensive
Katie Stachow Altman, Rogers & Co.
ChayTee
amount of the federal funding up here,” says Katie Stachow, a principal and shareholder at Altman, Rogers & Co. “Close to 80 percent of all of our audits involve a single audit.”
Altman, Rogers & Co.’s tax practice is also a key aspect of its solutions. The company primarily provides these services through its Anchorage and Juneau offices, where nonprofits comprise the bulk of its clientele. “We serve close to 100 nonprofits across the state and do 95 percent of their tax filings combined with the audit services,” Stachow says.
Global Firm, Local Bench
Part of the fifth-largest accounting firm in the world, employee-owned BDO USA has approximately seventy employees in Alaska. BDO serves clients of all types and sizes, including large Alaska Native corporations and government clients. Its list of capabilities itemizes roughly 250 different services.
In Alaska, some of BDO’s more common services include grant assistance, cost segregation studies, international tax, and mergers and acquisitions consulting. “I think our biggest strength is that we have a broad depth of knowledge here locally and the resources nationally and globally to bring to the Alaska market,” says Chad Estes, tax practice leader for BDO’s Anchorage office.
According to Joy Merriner, BDO’s assurance practice leader in Anchorage, the firm is proud that it has a very strong “local bench” in every industry. That local bench works with clients in Alaska to provide audit, tax, and advisory/
“It helps your business grow if you’re getting good, accurate information… You need somebody who's willing to tell you the truth about what they see on your books and records.”
Children Largest Percentage Increase in Participation
Programs for
Infants and
Thank you for stepping up in United Way’s 2024 campaign!
Chad Estes, Tax Office Manag ing Partner, BDO USA
From left, PIC Finance Manager Stacey Winslow, United Way of Anchorage President and CEO Eric Utraq Billingsley and PIC Executive Director Amy Simpson.
consulting services to ensure its clients are well-served.
BDO connects businesses with specialists to address specific needs, whether it be valuation, cybersecurity assessments, AI development, or other services.
For example, when BDO recently assisted an Alaska Native corporation with a federal grant, an industry specialist for its public sector group worked with the client to ensure proper compliance with the grant’s requirements.
“We want to make sure that whatever service we provide is relevant to the client,” Merriner says. “And if we're bringing in somebody who's a national technical resource, we ensure that person is meeting that technical need but still maintaining a local relationship.”
Advice for Choosing a Provider
With older accountants retiring and looking to transition their clients elsewhere, companies must be proactive—and patient— when seeking accounting services providers. Whether their service provider is retiring, they're not happy with their provider, or they have outgrown them and need more help, clients should act early.
Estes explains, “They need to look sooner rather than later because all of
us only have a limited amount of time to do the work that we have to do. So the more lead time we have, the more of a chance we would have to bring a new client into the fold and make sure they're taken care of properly.”
Companies seeking accounting services should partner with a firm that will be a good fit for their specific needs. Doing business internationally, for example, can add a layer of complexity, so they may need to engage a large accounting and advisory firm. On the other hand, a company operating only locally might hire a small accounting practice to help with bookkeeping and other basic needs.
“You may get rejected multiple times or you may get passed along,” Estes says. “But I think the community of accountants up here do a pretty good job of supporting businesses. If there’s something they can’t help with, they know who to refer and will help get those people to the right places.”
Companies should also carefully contemplate their long-term vision when choosing an accounting provider, assessing factors like operational scope and growth plans. Merriner lists a variety of considerations: whether businesses want to manage with just themselves, their family, friends, and staff; whether they want to be a franchise; and whether they envision opening locations outside Alaska. “I think that's where people need to be thinking about the bigger picture; working with somebody who can come alongside them and help them navigate the path forward,” she says.
According to Stachow, building a strong relationship with a reliable accountant who offers clear and confidential advice is essential for effective business planning and growth. “If you’re wanting to expand or take a different route, maybe that's not something you generally want the public to know,” she explains. “Or maybe you haven't told your spouse or business partners about it yet; you're just exploring business ideas. So you want to have a good person there, someone you feel confident about and who gives you good, reliable, and timely advice. A good accountant is worth their weight in gold.”
Helping Clients Navigate Complex Issues
Beyond the typical services, accounting firms also provide specialized solutions—either directly or through professional partners— to help clients navigate complex compliance and financial issues. Tax and accounting regulations are inherently complex, so clients need the right answers for their business. Doing so is especially important for new businesses, according to Estes. “It helps your business grow if you’re getting good, accurate information,” he says. “A trusted business advisor can be a makeit or break-it resource. You need somebody who's willing to tell you the truth about what they see on your books and records.”
Clients often hire CPAs on a contract basis for quarterly, monthly, or periodic assistance with complex transactions. This can enable the company to receive the benefit of
Chad Estes BDO USA
Joy Merriner BDO USA
independent reviews, which can ensure proper operations and identify potential issues. Professional accountants can detect discrepancies that business owners might miss, such as inadvertent or intentional errors in financial records.
Staffing is one of the most common challenges Alaska businesses face with managing their financial records. From Merriner’s perspective, turnover is a major issue, particularly the retirement of experienced staff. “The number of years of experience that our clients have has decreased significantly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future,” she says. “Maybe they still have the same staffing level, but the amount of experience in that staffing level is far reduced since COVID.”
Estes has noticed the same issue. Recently, he had a large client mention having dozens of finance accounting positions that were unfilled. And the challenge is not only for public accounting firms but across the board. Estes says, “We know folks in the market that are looking to make a change. But there's not enough accountants anywhere, let alone in Alaska.”
With a high number of Baby Boomers in accounting, more people are retiring than are entering the industry, Stachow says. This exacerbates the staffing shortage, especially for smaller organizations without a CPA in house. “The challenge is finding competent help for either filling your full-time employee positions or finding a
“You want to have a good person there, someone you feel confident about and who gives you good, reliable, and timely advice. A good accountant is worth their weight in gold.”
Katie Stachow
Princ ipal and Shareholder Altman, Rogers & Co.
contractor to help with higher-level accountin g duties,” she says.
Streamlining Processes with Technology
Technology is transforming the way accounting firms operate. Accounting software, automation, and, more recently, AI-driven tools are simplifying data processing and other routine tasks.
Automation enables BDO to optimize its audit and tax work, significantly improving outcomes. At the same time, AI is enhancing the effectiveness of audits and data analysis. Instead of sampling a small percentage of data sets to detect potential inconsistencies, BDO can use automation tools to evaluate 100 percent of the data and find outliers. It can provide clients with a summarized version of their data as well as a graphic depiction of exactly how it is processed. Merriner explains, “I think it helps our clients identify ways they can be better or more efficient and see their business data in a new lens.”
On the tax side, BDO employs optical character recognition technology to convert printed documents into digital image files. It automatically transforms scanned documents into machine-readable PDFs that can be edited and shared. The software continually updates to read common IRS forms and inputs information directly into clients’ tax returns. “This eliminates keying errors and the human element of taking ten pages of information and typing it in,” Estes says.
Besides reducing human mistakes, automation speeds up internal
“I think the community of accountants up here do a pretty good job of supporting businesses. If there’s something they can’t help with, they know who to refer and will help get those people to the right places.”
Chad Estes Tax Off ice Managing Partner BDO USA
processes—a huge benefit, given the shortage of accounting professionals. “As we struggle for human help, we have to find ways to help streamline the process,” Estes says. “AI, automation, and tax technology all help bridge the gap. We still need people, but technology helps.”
Stachow agrees. Although automation and AI can significantly enhance data processing, there will always be a need for human involvement in accounting, she says.
For example, AI can conduct legal research, but it cannot interpret the meaning of the information the way a human being can. AI cannot effectively advise a business about a property purchase and its potential impact on their bottom
line. And AI does not possess the necessary judgement to audit a financial statement or fully process payroll. Stachow explains, “You'll still need a person to check it and make sure it's correct because the output is only as good as the input. And there still needs to be controls on that input: someone who knows what they're doing to make sure that input is correct and who knows enough information to determine if the output is correct.”
Accounting firms are adamant about staying up to date with the latest technology, federal regulations, tax laws, and industry requirements to help clients remain in compliance. Staff members at BDO complete training and continuing professional education (CPE) requirements on an ongoing basis. Internally, there are also constant updates on the latest companyrelated and industry information. “We have specific groups of people inside of BDO who are tasked with nothing but keeping us informed, whether it's tax law changes or new audit updates that have to be followed,” Estes says. “So we all have more than enough opportunities to stay current on the latest and greatest things.”
At Altman, Rogers & Co., professional staff complete at least forty hours of CPE each year. Staff members who are not required to have CPE are involved in ongoing professional development. The firm also applies information from the American Institute of CPAs, professional conferences, and its various partners to stay on top of the latest industry standards.
Future of Accounting
How do accounting firms envision their profession evolving? In the next decade, technology will increasingly permeate the field, eliminating lowlevel tasks and transforming entrylevel roles. Stachow predicts the use of even more automation, reducing full-time positions dedicated to bookkeeping. “I can definitely see some of the low-level accounting going away or at least being a lot more automated than it is right now, to where you may have had two or three full-time employees doing bookkeeping work, and you might be able to cut it down to one.”
In addition, perceptions about the accounting work environment are shifting. Accounting professionals are starting to realize that it’s not just the big firms that can provide
valuable experience, Stachow says. “It used to be a big thing where, out of school, you would go work for one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms because that's where the opportunity was, and that's just not true anymore,” she says. “A small- to medium-size firm is where you learn so much more because you're exposed to a larger variety of accounting tasks, and I think that also makes accounting more exciting.”
Stachow emphasizes that accounting is fun and interesting in Alaska. “There are new things all the time and sort of adventurous work that makes accounting, specifically auditing (due to the travel), pretty exciting in the state,” she says. “AI won’t be able to understand the context and culture of doing business in say, Kodiak or Bethel,
but we will because we’ve been there and understand it.”
Merriner also emphasizes the dynamic and rewarding nature of accounting, particularly in Alaska, with opportunities for solid pay, job security, and valuable foundational business knowledge. It’s a profession that she thinks many people should consider.
Plus, it's the language of business. Merriner says, “We've had people who've come here, worked for us for several years, and then gone out and started their own businesses—and those businesses don't fail. They know what a good business means, and they know how to do it correctly when they leave here. And I think that's really important for somebody thinking about a profession or thinking about starting a new business.”
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Identity Opportunity Alaska DMV leads the way on mobile ID
By Amy Newman
Al askans now have the option to put their ID at their fingertips with the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV) new mobile identification card (mID). The mobile credential, which became available to the public in March, is a digital representation of the information included on an Alaska driver’s license, state-issued ID card, or permit that is accessed through an app on the ID holder’s smart device. The mobile credential enhances security and privacy by putting the user in control of the information shared when verifying their identity with third parties.
“Instead of handing over your driver’s license to strangers—which has your name, address, date of birth, all this information—with the mobile credential, you will be able to simply verify that you’re over the age of 18 or over the age of 21,” says DMV Division Operations Manager Lauren Whiteside. “You don’t have to share additional information if you don’t want to.”
Identification, Your Way
For an agency oft-maligned for its lack of speed and efficiency—“Oh, we know all the jokes,” Whiteside says wryly—the creation of the Alaska mID was remarkably swift. The three-person team that guided the app from its inception— Whiteside, DMV Acting Director Kathy Wallace, and Driver Services Program Manager Kate Lampert— began writing the request for proposal in January 2023 and had selected a vendor to design the app by mid-year. Work on the project stretched from late 2023 to early 2024, with most of last year spent in “development and testing, development and testing. Rinse and repeat,” Whiteside says. “Essentially we’ve been working on it a little shy of two and one-half years.”
The Alaska mID app has two versions, both available for download through the Apple App Store or Google Play. The personal mID app is for individuals, also called holders; the verifier app is for businesses, government agencies, and other organizations that choose to accept the mID as a valid form of identification. Both are free to download and use.
“This is the way of the future… It’s not often that DMV gets to be part of a technology initially and kind of be on the forefront, so we were really excited to get to do that this time.”
Lauren Whiteside
Divisio n Operations Manager Alaska Divisi on of Motor Vehicles
Whiteside believes both apps are “pretty self-explanatory.”
“We’ve tried to make it as userfriendly as possible, so [users] don’t have to come to a DMV office, they don’t have to call us,” she says. “You should be able to completely enroll independently, and for the most part, that is what’s happened.”
The entire process, from download to verification of credentials, which requires scanning an ID document or manually uploading the information, takes less than five minutes. Once uploaded, the information is stored in a secure, standalone digital wallet—the mID is not currently integrated into Apple Wallet or Google Wallet—that only the holder can access. The app can be accessed via a six-digit passcode, Face ID, or fingerprint.
Using the mID is even easier. Opening the app displays an abbreviated version of the ID
document—name, driver’s license or identification number, date of birth, signature, and photo; tapping the card expands it to show all the information included in the physical ID. Below that is a “verify credential” button that creates a QR code for the verifier to scan using the verifier app; the QR code confirms the holder’s identity, age, and any driving restrictions.
Card Companion
While the Alaska mID is convenient and eliminates the need to share irrelevant information with verifiers, Whiteside stresses that it is a companion to the physical card, not a replacement.
“Think of it kind of like your Apple Pay or your credit card on your phone,” she says. “When I use it, I still have my credit card in my purse. I still have it on me.”
There may come a point in the future where the Alaska mID eliminates the need to carry the physical card, Whiteside says, but it’s hard to know when it could happen.
“It kind of depends on the next few years, nationally, what happens with this movement,” she says. Even then, there are logistical reasons why leaving home without the physical card is not advisable.
“The phone does need connectivity to keep real-time updates, so if you’re out in remote communities,” you may be unable to access the Alaska mID, Whiteside says. “If the phone is dead, that hard card still needs to be on backup. There are pros and cons to both, so that’s why we’re very [clear] about it being a companion credential.”
On the Forefront
The use of digital IDs is a national movement, with all but four states— Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nebraska—in varying stages of implementation, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, a nonprofit that develops model programs in motor vehicle administration for member programs in the United States and Canada and, through its mobile driver’s license Digital Trust Service, supports member jurisdictions working to deliver mobile credential programs to their residents. The Motor Vehicle Administrators Digital Trust Service also aggregates member jurisdictions’ public keys and makes them available for download to verifiers, which could allow for the acceptance of the Alaska mID outside the state’s borders. Alaska is one of the first
states to have its mID included in the digital trust service, putting the state ahead of the curve.
“This is the way of the future,” Whiteside says. “It’s not often that DMV gets to be part of a technology initially and kind of be on the forefront, so we were really excited to get to do that this time.”
Because the mID is voluntary, verifiers—whether those verifiers are government agencies, businesses, or organizations—are not required to accept it as a valid form of identification.
“As of right now, it’s not a requirement for anybody to use this,” she explains. “This is purely a consent-driven application. DMV encourages people to download the app, but it is an option to download at their leisure.”
Whiteside says the DMV is “doing everything we possibly can to get
Unlike physical ID, which displays personal details beyond what's necessary for a routine carding, mobile ID shares only what users want. Alaska State Troopers and Alaska Wildlife Troopers accept it; Anchorage Police Department does not at present, but may in the future. The Alaska DMV is urging businesses to accept mobile ID, too.
the word out” to encourage Alaskan residents to download the app and to urge businesses, agencies, and organizations to integrate the verifier app into their systems.
“We have talked about it to as many branches of law enforcement, as many retailers as we can get our hands on,” Whiteside says. “We’ve got emails out to lots of state agencies, spoken with the Alcohol[ic] Beverage Control Board. We have done our due diligence in trying to educate as many groups as possible.”
Adapting to Advancements
Whiteside says the DMV is not at liberty to confirm which government organizations or agencies, if any, have decided to accept the mID. Big box stores like Target and Home Depot, she says, will decide whether to accept digital IDs en masse rather
than piecemeal, meaning the retailers will either accept it at every store nationwide or not at all.
As for law enforcement, the Alaska Department of Public Safety and the Anchorage Police Department (APD) were at different stages of acceptance, as of this spring.
“The Alaska Department of Public Safety, including the Alaska State Troopers and Alaska Wildlife Troopers, accept a State of Alaska mobile ID as a valid form of government identification,” Alaska Department of Public Safety Communications Director
Austin McDaniel wrote in an email. “[It is] currently accepted by Troopers in the same manner that physical Alaska identification cards are accepted.”
The APD had yet to approve the mID as a valid form of identification, but APD Deputy Director, Community Relations Christopher Barraza said in an email that the department remains in talks with the DMV about the mobile credential.
“The Anchorage Police Department is always adapting to advancements in technology that enhance public safety and improve efficiency,” Barraza wrote. “We are working with the DMV to ensure we can maintain security and verification standards. Our priority remains ensuring that officers and the public can rely on identification methods that are secure, accessible, and effective.”
Whiteside says that the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is expected to accept Alaska’s mID at TSA checkpoints that support digital
IDs by late 2025. Already, airports in fourteen states and Puerto Rico currently accept some form of digital ID, according to the TSA website.
The mID is catching on with the public, too. Within one month of its March rollout, Whiteside says more than 650 Alaskans had downloaded the holder app. As that population continues to grow, she
says, the DMV expects the verifier community to grow with it.
“Everyone understandably is hesitant,” she says. “It’s new, it’s technology. Those are all things that scare people for the most part. But the numbers are showing a slow burn of acceptance [and] growth is happening every day. We’re really excited about that.”
Tracking Progress
Alaska Railroad marks four decades as a unique model
By Rindi White
Forty and a half years ago, Alaskans packed the Nenana Civic Center to witness the January 5, 1985 ceremonial transfer of ownership of the Alaska Railroad from the federal government to the State of Alaska.
The transfer was rare, in that the railroad did not become a department within state government; the Alaska Legislature instead set it up to operate like a business, but with a quasi-public board of directors guiding it.
“The railroad will be run on a business-like basis. The board and the president of the railroad will make the decisions,” said then-governor Bill Sheffield at the time. Sheffield later served as president and CEO of the railroad.
Three Presidents, 500 miles, Lots of Change
The Alaska Railroad started as the privately owned Alaska Central Railway in 1903, a fifty-mile line that began in Seward. Seven years later, it reorganized as the Alaska Northern Railway Company, and twenty-one miles were added to the track, ending at Kern Creek, a gold panning settlement near Girdwood. When the federal government took over the line under President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 for mining and military use, it agreed to pay for construction of a rail line to Fairbanks for an estimated $35 million (approximately $1.1 billion today). Along the way, the railroad headquarters were moved from Seward to Anchorage, which in 1915 was just a tent city.
The roughly 500-mile Seward–to–Fairbanks line was completed in 1923, with the ceremonial golden spike driven by President Warren G. Harding in Nenana. History records the trip as Harding’s last; he died of food poisoning a few weeks later in San Francisco.
The railroad struggled to turn a profit until it began hauling military and civilian supplies and materials during World War II. The military push in 1943 prompted construction of two tunnels through the Chugach Mountains, and in 1944 Whittier opened as a second, military-focused port and fuel depot.
Passenger service between Anchorage and Fairbanks improved with the introduction of the Aurora Streamliner in 1947. In 1962, the railroad began car-barge service between the Pacific Northwest and Whittier, allowing
goods to be shipped from any rail point in the Lower 48 to any railroad stop within Alaska. That move proved vital to Trans Alaska Pipeline System construction in the ‘70s, as the railroad shipped and stored pipe in Valdez, Seward, and Fairbanks.
Although President Ronald Reagan in 1983 signed legislation authorizing the transfer of the Alaska Railroad from the federal government to the State of Alaska—sixty years after the Seward–Fairbanks route was completed—the act of carrying out the transfer took a little time. In that time, the Alaska Railroad Corporation invested in telecommunications equipment along the Railbelt, boosting communications along the line. And in 1984, the Alaska Railroad developed passenger services connected to the cruise ship industry; it was then that the superdome, double-decker luxury coaches began service.
Also that year, Governor Sheffield signed legislation creating the Alaska Railroad Corporation and establishing its seven-member, governor-appointed board of directors. The formal transfer of ownership, including the Nenana
ceremony and another in Seward, happened the next year.
Creating A Unique Entity
Alaska Railroad Board Chairman John Shively had a front-row seat to the transfer of ownership and how the process played out. Or rather, to extend the metaphor, he was part of the orchestra: Shively was Sheffield’s chief of staff when the negotiations took place.
“It was interesting. It was challenging in some ways. There was always a fair amount of tension between the governor and the legislature—that was not unusual— but what we came up with was pretty unique; there’s nothing else like it in state government,” Shively says. “The one thing we all agreed upon was [that] if we made the Railroad Corporation a political body, it would fail.”
To that end, the Alaska Railroad Corporation’s budget isn’t approved by the legislature, the way the Alaska Marine Highway System budget is, by contrast. Shively says the concern was that the budget-setting focus might be turned from economic to political.
“I think that model has worked well,” he notes. “It has been controversial. From time to time, the legislature has talked about undoing that.”
Shively says when the federal government decided it no longer wanted to be in the railroad business in Alaska, Sheffield agreed with US Senator Ted Stevens and US Congressman Don Young that losing control of the railroad—or having
it slip into private hands where its future might be uncertain—could be a major hit for the state.
“They took a big risk, when you think about it, because the place was kind of in shambles. There had been no money put into it for years,” Shively says.
Passengers, Freight, and Real Estate
Alaska Railroad officials believe the risk taken in 1985 has more than paid off.
“I’m being admittedly biased about this, but I think this has been a tremendous success for the state of Alaska. The railroad owes a debt of gratitude to not only the congressional delegation at the time—Stevens and Young— and to Bill Sheffield, John Shively in the governor’s office, and to the legislature at the time,” Alaska Railroad President and CEO Bill O’Leary says. “The planning was great, the execution was great, and I think the result was very positive for the state.”
As Sheffield indicated in 1985, the corporation operates as a business driven by both mission and profit. It’s charged with economic development of the state.
“We need to be self-sustaining; we need to make a profit,” O’Leary says. Any profits go back into the corporation for infrastructure to keep the railroad operating in what is essentially an inhospitable environment for many months of the year. These internally generated funds also allow the railroad to
Then-governor Bill Sheffield with the $22.3 million check.
leverage additional federal funding, supporting a 2025 capital investment budget of $166 million, substantially driven by a comprehensive bridge repair program and track rehabilitation work.
The railroad has three primary sources of revenue: freight, passenger service, and real estate. Freight brings in roughly $120 million each year, representing about 50 percent of the railroad’s revenue. Passenger service brings in a little more than $50 million each year, about 20 percent of overall revenue. Real estate—typically in the form of long-term leases—brings in about 15 percent, or around $30 million. Grants and other revenue round out the pie, O’Leary says, but those three are the big pieces.
Freight First
Alaska is the last railroad in the nation responsible for moving both freight and passengers. But as the biggest revenue source, freight hauling has a significant impact on the state economy.
“Our freight has really enabled a number of Alaska companies— Alaska businesses—to grow and
Below, an Alaska Railroad train is loaded with barged freight in Whittier. At right, a gravel train
operate. If you were trying to move these products, and move them by road, in some situations it wouldn’t be commercially feasible, in my opinion, and Alaskans would notice. If you were moving gravel trucks along the Parks [Highway] and Glenn [Highway], that could be a huge impact to Alaskans,” O’Leary says.
Trains that carry gravel from Palmer to Anchorage throughout the summer make up the bulk of tonnage hauled by the railroad. In 2024, gravel trains accounted for nearly 1.5 million tons, or nearly half the freight hauled by rail that year. Coal, traveling from Healy north to Fairbanks, was the second-largest category, comprising 647,000 tons of freight. Interline freight—items shipped from some point in the Lower 48 (frequently beginning the journey in Canada or Mexico), barged to Alaska, and placed on trains to a destination somewhere along the Alaska Railroad—accounted for another 644,000 tons. Bulk petroleum—460,000 tons of it— made up the fourth-largest sector of hauled freight in 2024. “Other” freight, which the railroad describes as specialty movements of “very
large or oddly shaped equipment and materials, as well as in-state shipments of cement, scrap metal, military equipment, and pipe” made up 446,000 tons last year, the fifth and final category of freight hauled.
Shively says the economics of moving freight by rail brings a benefit to Alaskans, both in terms of reduced shipping costs on everyday items, such as lumber and gravel, and by reducing freight traffic on Alaska roads.
A 2024 “Railroad at a Glance” fact sheet notes that one freight train can carry the load of more than 280 trucks. In 2023, the 25,466 hopper and tanker railcars that carried gravel, coal, and petroleum from one place to another on the railroad offset an estimated 174,000 trucks traveling 18.1 million highway miles.
“Rail by its nature—especially freight rail—is the most efficient form of transportation,” O’Leary says.
Tourism Titan
Then there’s the passenger piece of the pie. While passenger service is not the largest revenue source for Alaska Railroad, it’s inarguably
rumbles along the track between Palmer and Anchorage.
Judy Patrick | Alaska Railroad
the vehicle for a significant driver of the state economy: tourism. Of the 529,000 Alaska Railroad passengers who boarded trains in 2024, nearly 232,000 ride in the dedicated train cars that cruise companies such as Princess Cruise Lines or Royal Caribbean Group contract with the Alaska Railroad to operate.
“I doubt that Denali [National Park and Preserve] would have developed the way it has without the railroad. I’m not saying there would have been no development out there—there has always been some development,” Shively says. But the volume of cruise industry travel to Denali would be significantly lower, he explains.
Fewer travelers would mean less development around the park entrance and fewer jobs supporting those travelers and the businesses they support. The implications would ripple outward; many cruise travelers stop in Talkeetna on their way north or extend their vacation with a visit to the Golden Heart City after a visit to Denali.
The National Park Service reports that Denali welcomed 499,000 visitors in 2023. Those visitors spent an estimated $599 million on everything from camping, hotels, gas, transportation, and groceries to recreation, restaurants, and retail purchases. The economy around the park accounted for 7,790 jobs and $306 million in labor income, according to the Park Service.
The partnership between Alaska Railroad and the cruise ship industry has only grown stronger since 1984. It got a boost last year when the Alaska Railroad Corporation board approved the purchase of a $137 million cruise
PISTIL HOKA KEEN HAIKU PRANA SOFFT
ship terminal to be built in Seward, financed by the railroad’s bonding authority and paid back through a thirty-year pier usage agreement with Royal Caribbean Group. The facility is scheduled to open in time for the 2026 cruise season.
Not all who board Alaska Railroad passenger cars are cruise ship passengers; the railroad operates daily summer runs between Anchorage and Seward, Anchorage and Whittier, and Anchorage and Denali/Fairbanks for noncruise passengers as well. It also operates the last flagstop service in the nation, carrying riders to roadless areas where thousands of people live and recreate. Passenger service slows in the winter, but weekend trains still travel between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
“Our passenger service is what we are best known for. It is also a significant contributor to our bottom line and a tremendous asset to the state,” O’Leary says.
The passenger service is valuable to the railroad in another way, he notes. The railroad relies on federal grant funding for track improvements. “Without passenger services, we would not be eligible for the vast majority of those grants,” he says.
Real Estate, the Unsung Hero
Alaska paid $22.3 million (approximately $68 million today) in 1985 for the railroad. In addition to the tracks, locomotives, cars, and other related infrastructure, the purchase included more than 36,000 acres of land. About half of that, O’Leary says, is used directly in
railroad operations: rail lines, rightsof-way, and rail yards in Seward, Whittier, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. The other half, he says, is generally available for the railroad to lease or permit other governments and private-sector entities to use.
“Given that the state really grew up around the railroad, these are desirable places to lease land, especially if you have industrial activities or require freight service,” O’Leary says. “The business goes up and down, but real estate has always been a very consistent performer for us.”
The railroad offers long-term leases at fair market value, providing a solid revenue stream that has helped offset other fluctuations, such as when coal exports, which had spiked from 2009 to 2013, stopped in 2016. Or when Flint Hills Resources shuttered its North Pole oil refinery in 2014. At the time, freight trains were operating
five days a week, carrying thirty tank cars filled with Flint Hills fuel from North Pole to Anchorage.
“At one point, moving petroleum was over 50 percent of our freight revenue. That was a huge part of our entire structure, and that went, maybe not to zero overnight, but it was decimated. That took a significant amount of restructuring,” O’Leary says.
The 2010s were lean times, he says, and then came the hit of the COVID-19 pandemic, which dropped passenger service from a robust average of 500,000 passengers a year to only 32,059 passengers in 2020.
“We don’t call those the good old days,” O’Leary notes.
But the consistency of the real estate holdings helped during the lean times, and the past few years have seen a rebound of passenger service and a marked uptick in freight activity related to development on the North Slope, leading to stable income from those sources.
Retooling to meet market changes is what any CEO is expected to do, and O’Leary, with nearly twentyfour years at the railroad and nearly twelve years at its helm—the longest tenure of any of the six CEOs since it became a state-owned corporation— has learned flexibility.
The model that the Alaska Legislature created allows that flexibility in ways a state-run railroad might not have. Hopefully, it will prove flexible enough to continue for another forty years.
“This is a tremendous asset for the state. It really is,” O’Leary says. “It needs to be there for future generations.”
Alaska Railroad has partnered with the cruise industry since 1984.
Alaska Railroad
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Alaskans don’t take transportation for granted. Even the state’s population centers, which have the advantage of robust road systems and relatively quick access to air or sea transport, must contend with the cost and time required to transport people and goods in and out of the state. It’s not surprising that Alaskans invest heavily in ways to move around the state, whether that’s owning boats and planes as individuals or budgeting carefully to take advantage of commercial services.
Alaska’s commercial transporters know the significance of the service they provide, transporting people to essential services and delivering critical materials and supplies. They, in turn, rely on runways, ports, and roads to serve Alaska’s large and small communities.
In this special section we sample a range of transportation companies and projects that are indispensable to life in Alaska.
Second Life
The sixty-year startup of Kenai Aviation
By Nancy Erickson
Jo el Caldwell was passionately focused on serving his community in Kenai with local scheduled commuter airline service when he purchased Kenai Aviation in 2018 with his son Jacob. Actually, the Caldwells were just breathing a second life into the oldest family business in Kenai, dating to the year of Alaska statehood.
Bob Bielefeld left California for Alaska in 1959, lured by lucrative work on the Swanson River oil find. The young pilot soon saw a need for aviation support in oil field services. He purchased a Piper Tri-Pacer in 1961 and began performing pipeline surveys and hauling passengers and materials for oil companies in the Cook Inlet region under his new company, Kenai Aviation.
“His entire business was based on oil field service from the time he started in 1961 until his passing,” recalls Kenai Aviation co-owner and CEO Jacob Caldwell. “He was the first. Others came in, but he was the pioneer.” Bielefeld eventually grew his business into a fleet of multiple aircraft.
However, the financial crisis of 2008 and the 2012 expansion in Cook Inlet of Hilcorp Alaska, with its own air transport department, left Kenai Aviation on the brink of shuttering its almost sixty-year legacy when the Caldwells came on the scene.
Continue the Legacy
Since they both had an extensive background in aviation, father and son were debating whether to start a local airline of their own when they read a newspaper article published after Bielefeld’s 2016 death mourning
the possible demise of Kenai Aviation.
Joel had been a customer of locally owned South Central Air, riding back and forth between Kenai and Anchorage when he first came to the community in 1997. That all changed when South Central went out of business a few years later.
The elder Caldwell recalls the devastating blow of losing an airline. “We watched the airport kind of fizzle and people from that great little airline getting phased into other jobs outside the community,” he says. “So I, my son, and my wife wanted to give Kenai its own local airline again. When the founder of Kenai Aviation passed away and we heard the heirs were shutting it down, that was our opportunity to take a local airline and grow it up into a real airline.”
The Kenai Aviation purchase agreement basically consisted of the small airline’s good reputation and one six-seater, single-engine aircraft.
“It was a big deal to us, to be able to save that local business and carry on its legacy,” Jacob says. “It really was a startup because it had gone down to almost nothing, and we’ve built it back up again. It’s like, yes, we’re a sixty-plus-year-old business, but we’re also kind of a new business. It’s a little of both.”
Flexible Schedules
The Caldwells went to work realizing their dream of providing scheduled community air service, by Alaskans for Alaskans, with the addition of a nine-passenger, twin turboprop airplane in March 2020, with the intent of a second to follow. The same month, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down travel.
“We went from, literally in about two to three weeks, hauling about 600 passengers a month in the Kenai–Anchorage market to 3,700… It was a lot of growth really quick and a lot of overhead, so now we’re just having to grow markets to increase revenue to be able to cover that overhead.”
Joel Caldwell Chairman and Owner Kenai Aviation
“It was really an up and down adventure getting through 2020 and the COVID era. We buy big expensive business stuff and then get handed that,” says Jacob. The Caldwells pivoted from scheduled commuter service to on-demand charters, primarily serving the commercial fishing industry. Having limped through the pandemic, the company added three nine-seat Tecnam P2012 Travellers within the next three years and returned to the original business model.
In addition to providing a scheduled community service so anyone can get to town whenever needed, a small airline also needs to support industry and businesses by providing charters.
One example that stands out for Joel is the day Kenai Aviation got a call
from a commercial fishing company with a boat idled for maintenance in Saint Paul in the Pribilof Islands, with a price tag of $15,000 a day. The needed part was in Sand Point, almost 400 air miles away—and almost 500 miles from Kenai. The phone call came in: “Is there any way you can pick up this part and get it to us? And oh, by the way, we need it by the end of the day.”
“Because we had that ability to be flexible, my son called me at home on a Sunday, and we made it happen,” Joel recalls. “With scheduled service, that means the person who bags your groceries at Safeway needs to fly up to Anchorage for a doctor’s appointment or whatever else, but they’re not the kind of people who will ever be able to afford a charter. Both
are needed, so we focus on making sure we stay strong on both sides.”
Survival of the Fittest
The commuter airline market is often red in tooth and claw. The Kenai Peninsula has been especially competitive in the last few years.
Grant Aviation and Ravn Alaska were already serving the Kenai Municipal Airport when Kenai Aviation began flights between Kenai and Anchorage in 2022. Seeing Homer was only served by Ravn Alaska, the Caldwells added that destination to their schedule. Then Aleutian Airways started up and, in 2023, began service to Homer with fiftypassenger airliners in competition with Ravn’s thirty-seaters, ushering in a contentious airfare war. Kenai
Joel Caldwell credits Kenai Aviation's resurgence to the diverse backgrounds of its more than fifty employees, focused on serving Peninsula communities.
Kenai Aviation
Aviation pulled out of Homer to concentrate on daily flights to Anchorage. Then, in a surprise move, Ravn announced in November 2023 it was pulling out of Kenai.
It was a windfall for Kenai Aviation.
“We went from, literally in about two to three weeks, hauling about 600 passengers a month in the Kenai–Anchorage market to 3,700,” says Joel. “It forced us to accelerate and add a lot more flights and a lot more staffing and infrastructure. It was a lot of growth really quick and a lot of overhead, so now we’re just having to grow markets to increase revenue to be able to cover that overhead.”
Opportunities continued to surface. In addition to regular flights and charters in and out of Homer, Kenai Aviation began two flights a day between Anchorage
and the Western Alaska village of Unalakleet at the end of April, following Ravn’s announcement to pull out of that market. The airline also recently received the contract for scheduled service between Anchorage and Seward that started May 1, a service long in coming.
A Family Affair
On the Kenai Aviation website, Joel’s biography tells all about his days flying humanitarian aid workers in the Russian Far East and rural Alaska villages and his current gig as captain on Alaska Airlines’ Boeing 737s. But it doesn’t say anything about the three-year-old boy who flew toy cars with his older brothers.
“My brothers would be upset because they would be building these little road systems on the carpet and
“When the founder of Kenai Aviation passed away and we heard the heirs were shutting it down, that was our opportunity to take a local airline and grow it up into a real airline.”
Owner
Joel Caldwell Chairman and
Kenai Aviation
I would fly mine,” Joel recalls. “They would say, ‘You can’t do that,’ and I said, ‘Mine can fly.’”
At the age of 16, with a $50 birthday check in hand, Joel drove his Pinto to a little airport in northern Wisconsin to find a flight instructor. It took most of the day, but he finally found an old guy working on an airplane and asked if anyone could give him a flight lesson. When asked if he had any money, he proudly produced the birthday check and asked if that was sufficient. “It is today,” said the old guy. “He got up, cleaned his hands off. We walked out and got into a 1956 Tri-Pacer, and I took my first flight lesson. It went from there,” Joel relates. Whenever his tip jar from waiting tables in the summer collected enough for another lesson, he drove his Pinto back to the little airport.
Son of a preacher, Joel began going on mission trips to Paraguay while still in high school, and he became captivated by a pilot who routinely landed his Cessna 206 on a little strip in the middle of the village to deliver supplies.
That was Joel’s introduction to the concept of a missionary pilot. After graduation, he did just that, but first he had to get his aviation mechanic’s license.
“They expect you to be dropped in the jungle somewhere while flying and maintaining your own airplane and taking care of people,” he adds.
At the age of 24, he moved his young family to Alaska in 1997 and began his aid worker flights out of the Kenai airport.
The rest is Caldwell family aviation history. Jacob, age 30, started working
“It was a big deal to us, to be able to save that local business and carry on its legacy… It had gone down to almost nothing, and we’ve built it back up again. It’s like, yes, we’re a sixty-plus-yearold business, but we’re also kind of a new business.”
Jacob Caldwell CEO and Co-owner Kenai Aviation
in the commercial aviation industry alongside his father when he was 15. His brother Caleb helped start Kenai Aviation’s flight school in response to a nationwide pilot shortage. He is now a first officer for Delta Airlines and a C-17 pilot in the Alaska Air National Guard. Younger sister Tacy joined the business as resource manager last year. And Joel and his wife Karin, who is a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines, continue to subsidize the growth of their airline whenever needed and apply what they learn from Alaska Airlines at their smaller company.
Unique Team
Joel credits their airline’s success to the diversity of its more than fifty employees.
“We’ve pulled together a team with so many different backgrounds,” he says. “We have professionals that come from small on-demand operations. We have leadership in our team from major airlines. We have leadership who come from military aviation.”
But Joel gives most of the credit to Evan Veal, Kenai Aviation’s director of operations. “He’s our secret sauce behind the scenes.” Joel says the head of an airline is, in an official sense, the director of operations, responsible for overall operational control of all flights as well as safety and compliance of the airline as the primary liaison with the FAA and other government entities.
Veal worked for the original founder of Kenai Aviation from 2009 to 2017 and returned to the airline last year to “work with the Caldwells’ newly expanded operations, helping to ensure the highest level of travel safety to our community as we continue to improve and expand our s ervices,” says Veal.
“I’ve known Joel for most of my aviation career—I’ve even hired him as a pilot in the past—and I share his vision for serving the Kenai Peninsula and beyond,” Veal adds.
“Our goal above all is to do it safely,” Veal says, regarding Kenai Aviation’s operation. “With these attitudes and initiatives, we’ve positioned ourselves for unlimited growth and expansion without compromising safety.”
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a… Fish?
From nose to tail, aircraft livery tells a story
By Rachael Kvapil
Li very is a uniform. In Medieval Europe, clothes delivered to servants as part of room and board marked them as part of the household. Before long, horses wore the same colors, and then carriages. By extension, livery refers to the unifying paint scheme of any vehicle fleet, allowing planespotters, for instance, to identify an airline by tail markings.
At its core, aviation livery is a marketing tool that communicates the essence of an airline carrier. However, liveries also tell stories about location, collaborations, and culture. Some air carriers have changed their designs very little over the decades, while others have
special graphics used for a limited time and purpose. In all cases, the goal is to have a lasting impact on customers and the communities in which the plane flies.
Curved Canvases
Livery featuring an Alaska Native, first featured in 1976, has defined Alaska Airlines’ brand for decades. Even with updates to color, typeface, and design modification, this main element remained the key component and literally served as the face of the company.
In addition to its standard livery, Alaska Airlines has a collection of special liveries created for promotions, collaborative
recognition, sporting events, cultural appreciation, mergers, and company anniversaries. Marilyn Romano, Regional VP Alaska for Alaska Airlines, says special liveries are common among all airlines and are used to highlight something specific about a carrier’s activities.
“Airplanes are incredible canvases where you can tell a story,” says Romano.
In 2023, Alaska Airlines decided to retire the original “Salmon Thirty Salmon” livery, a nose-to-tail realistic design of a salmon on a 737-800 plane. After several discussions, Romano says Alaska Airlines decided they still wanted a salmon design but one that also honored
indigenous art forms. Around that time, Alaska Business published an article featuring Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl, among other Alaskan artists (August 2022, “The Big Picture”). Worl, who graced the cover, caught Romano’s attention as a celebrated designer known for creating Northwest Coast formline art, a traditional two-dimensional art style that dates back thousands of years to the region. In 2022, Worl had begun a wall-sized mural in Anchorage but had completed designs of all sizes that were applied to many media. To Romano’s surprise, when she contacted Worl sometime later, the artist had already been expecting the call.
“She had apparently posted a plane design on her Instagram account with the caption ‘Alaska Airlines, I’m ready for you,’” says Romano. “I explained I hadn't seen the post, but I was definitely calling about designing a plane.”
Worl completed her design for the 737 quickly, and by the end of April 2023, the plane was in Texas, ready to receive its makeover. According to an Alaska Airlines press release, it took twelve days from landing to take-off to paint the plane using 117 gallons of midnight blue, Atlas blue, white, and pink, topped off with a protective clear coat. The result was Xáat Kwáani (Salmon People), the first aircraft of any domestic airline
fleet to be named in an Alaska Native language. The livery is a nose-to-tip tribute to the ancestral importance of salmon through Northwest Coast formline art.
Worl, who grew up in Juneau, understands how important planes are to Alaska communities. In many road-inaccessible areas, airplanes are one of the few ways to travel and transport cargo. She says that she dreamed of having her artwork displayed on a plane for years, and as of May 12, 2023, when Xáat Kwáani took flight, that dream became a reality.
“Every time I looked at an Alaska plane, I couldn’t help but visualize the salmon being in formline or having
Watch the Xáat Kwáani plane being painted.
Courtesy of Alaska Airlines
Joe Nicholson
some sort of design that represents identity. I can’t help but look at things and see how to Indigenize them,” said Worl in an Alaska Airlines press release. “I have high hopes this project will encourage people to learn and embrace Indigenous culture and values.”
Because Xáat Kwáani would remain in service for several years, the livery was painted, Romano says. However, liveries can also be applied with adhesive for quick removal. She says adhesives are often used for shortterm promotional liveries.
Puffins at Heart
There is something awe-inspiring about glancing out at the tarmac of an international airport and seeing aircraft displaying colorful designs. The connection between people and planes is a narrative of wonder and fascination, a feeling most people have experienced at some point in their lifetime. However, there is a functional purpose for these visuals: they identify the airline carriers that own the planes and give a general sense of gate location within an airport.
“The livery is essentially a flying billboard,” says Wendy Rose, marketing and corporate communications manager for Sterling Airways, the Florida-based parent company of Aleutian Airways. “It’s often the first physical interaction a customer has with an airline’s brand, especially at the gate or on the tarmac. In a world of lookalike aircraft, a distinctive livery helps an airline stand out. Colors and symbols can evoke regional pride, nostalgia, and loyalty.”
“Our aircraft are more than just a means of transportation… They’re flying representations of our mission to connect people, places, and possibilities across Alaska with pride and precision.”
Wendy Rose Marketing and Corporate Co mmunications Manager Sterling Airways
There are no set rules for aviation livery, but they generally include any combination of the airline's name, logo, color scheme, and additional markings to communicate a specific message. Smaller airlines like Aleutian Airways have one or two liveries affixed to all their planes. Larger operators, like Alaska Airlines, have one main livery with a collection of additional designs as needed.
As a regional airline in Alaska, most of Aleutian Airways’ Saab 2000 fleet wears livery inspired by the natural beauty of Alaska and the state flag, says Rose. The blueand-gold livery uses clean, modern lines of design to evoke clarity, direction, and purpose, symbolizing commitment to reliability, progress, and a streamlined travel experience.
She describes a deep respect for the people and communities that Aleutian Airways serves.
“Our aircraft are more than just a means of transportation,” says Rose. “They’re flying representations of our mission to connect people, places, and possibilities across Alaska with pride and precision.”
Since launching in 2022, Aleutian Airways has proudly maintained its original livery, with one exception: a Saab 2000 featuring a puffin on the fuselage. Rose says the puffin, native to Alaska and especially prevalent in the Aleutian Islands, is the symbol of Aleutian Airways and a representation of the company’s values.
“It's more than just a charming bird,” says Rose. “Puffins are resilient, resourceful, and uniquely suited to thrive in the rugged coastal environments of Alaska. They’re strong fliers, expert navigators, and deeply connected to their communities, returning to the same nesting grounds year after year. Much like our team, they are small but mighty, facing challenges head-on with determination and purpose.”
As a symbol, Rose adds that the puffin reflects Aleutian Airways: built for Alaska, proud of where they come from, and driven by a mission to connect and serve. Whether people see the standard livery or the puffin proudly in flight, she says Alaskans will always know it’s Aleutian Airways flying with heart.
Worth a Thousand Words
Everts Air Cargo takes a different approach when it comes to livery. While its aircraft have identifiable markings, the focus isn’t on flashy
designs or modern branding. Instead, the look is more a reflection of a deep appreciation for Alaska aviation. Many Everts planes are vintage aircraft with rich pasts, and in many cases, their livery tells the story of where they came from or what role they once played.
The primary color scheme includes a sleek gray background accented with navy and gold stripes along the fuselage. The tail of each plane displays the Alaska flag, with the Big Dipper set against a deep navy blue background.
“It’s a tribute to the state we serve and the skies we navigate every day,” says Susan Hoshaw, assistant general manager at Everts Air Cargo.
To add a personal touch, many aircraft showcase unique nose art— each hand-painted by an Everts employee. Hoshaw says these illustrations give every plane a bit of character and help celebrate the individuality in the fleet. In some cases, aircraft are dedicated in honor of key employees who were instrumental in shaping Everts Air but are no longer around. She says it’s the company’s way of honoring their memory and ensuring their contributions continue to fly with Everts.
“Our livery isn’t just about style,” says Hoshaw. “It’s about pride, history, and the people who’ve made this airline what it is today.”
Customized liveries include the Curtiss C-46 “Maid in Japan 514” purchased from the Japanese civil air defense in 1977. After serving in postWorld War II recovery efforts, the aircraft made its way to Alaska, and its name honors that legacy.
In addition to uniform livery, Everts Air retains individual nose art to honor the long histories of (above) a DC-6 that belonged to Howard Hughes and (below) a C-46 integral to the seafood supply chain.
Everts Air
Another standout is the Douglas DC-6 “Howard Hughes,” which once belonged to the famed aviator. Originally purchased for Hughes Air West, the aircraft flew only around 16 hours before being sold.
The C-46 “Dumbo” earned its name in honor of its early role as a dedicated fuel tanker, known for its strength and reliability during the foundational days of the fuel delivery business. Another of the ‘40s vintage twin-engine transports, the C-46 “Hotstuff,” was acquired in the early ‘90s from an insurance company in Canada after sustaining fire damage on the left wing. It was transported from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Alaska and restored to service.
Other aircraft in the fleet carry Alaska-specific stories. “Salmon Ella,” another C-46, received its name in memory of the many beach landings it made in Egegik and Cape Yakataga,
transporting fresh salmon to Kodiak and King Salmon. The DC-6 “Spirit of America” was named following the events of 9/11, symbolizing the strength of US-manufactured aircraft and the enduring spirit of the country. Likewise, the DC-9 “Todd Peterson” was dedicated in memory of one of Everts Air’s esteemed maintenance employees, a tribute to his lasting impact on the company.
“Though nose art is no longer added to current aircraft due to the cost and skill required, these designs remain an important part of Everts Air’s identity,” says Hoshaw. “They celebrate the aircraft themselves and the people who have been part of their journey.”
Everts Air aircraft designs, particularly the signature nose art, are created in-house. One of the company’s captains is also a talented artist and has been responsible for most of the artwork. Hoshaw says his
creativity and deep appreciation for aviation are evident in each custom design, giving every aircraft its own unique character.
One example of in-house design was a DC-6, N151, sold and flown to a museum in Norway shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic that featured nose art commissioned to commemorate its final journey. The livery captured the spirit of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, as N151 had transported Norwegian musher Thomas Waerner’s winning sled dog team, stuck in Alaska due to travel restrictions imposed during the 2020 race, from Fairbanks to Stavanger, where it was already bound to become a museum display.
Hoshaw says each design, whether crafted in-house or created for a special occasion, reflects Everts Air’s love for aviation and dedication to preserving the legacy of these remarkable aircraft.
One special Saab 2000 in the Aleutian Airways fleet diverges from the simple livery with the addition of a resilient, resourceful, and rugged puffin.
Aleutian Airways
Dutch Harbor / False Pass / Homer / King Cove / Kodiak
Larsen Bay / Old Harbor / Port Moller / Sand Point
Seward / Sitka / St Paul / Valdez
Whirlybirds of a Feather
The collective and cyclic business of helicopter services
By Terri Marshall
Th wump-thwump-thwump.
The noise from rotor blades is hard to ignore as choppers fly overhead. They could be on their way to any number of important jobs. Helicopters play a critical role in emergency services, including search and rescue, medical evacuations, and firefighting. Helicopters transport equipment and provide access to remote construction sites. They are employed in logging operations, aerial surveys, and geological studies. Helicopters facilitate the study of Arctic environments, wildlife, and various scientific fields. Helicopters are vital in the travel and tourism industry, offering distinctive scenic tours and access to remote locations such as glaciers and wildlife observation sites. Alaska’s oil and gas industry also relies on helicopters. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company engages aviation providers for integrity surveillance and emergency preparedness along the 800-mile route.
The multidimensional maneuverability of rotorcraft suits them to tasks that fixed-wing airplanes can’t match, so helo drivers have set up shop to satisfy that demand. Here are some examples.
Alpha Aviation
One of the contractors Alyeska Pipeline relies on is Alpha Aviation. Based in Anchorage, Alpha Aviation’s mission is “fueled by a pursuit of excellence to deliver specialized comprehensive helicopter services with the utmost professionalism
Roberto Caucino
| Envato
and commitment to safety of flight,” according to the company.
It operates a diverse fleet to meet the needs of each client. Models include the AS350 A Star B2 and B3 (the latter capable of summiting Mount Everest), the tall-masted Robinson R44 and R66, and the ol’ reliable Bell UH-1H Huey.
Alpha Aviation can inspect infrastructure efficiently within a single day while minimizing environmental impact. Utility services encompass powerline patrol, installation of lightning arrestors, tower construction, emergency response, equipment hauling, crew transport, and bird deterrence.
Biologists utilize Alpha Aviation’s services for fish and wildlife studies and population surveys. Helicopters serve scientists with camp setup, wildlife tracking, and environmental cleanup.
For land management across the state, Alpha Aviation provides support for aerial mapping and surveying, road mapping and planning, and aerial tree seeding and fertilizing.
Alaska attracts filmmakers and photographers, and Alpha Aviation provides them with a bird’s-eye platform. Alpha Aviation partners with production crews for commercials, documentaries, extreme ski films, feature films, local news reporting, and music videos.
Adventure brings tourists to remote rivers and lakes where trout and salmon abound, so Alpha Aviation offers heli-fishing services. Alpha Aviation also caters to helihiking, helicopter flightseeing, glacier dogsled tours, glacier hiking, wildlife tours, and custom adventures from
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its home base at Merrill Field in Anchorage as well as Talkeetna and the Knik Glacier valley.
Soloy Helicopters
Based at Wasilla Airport, Soloy Helicopters has a long history of operating helicopters in Alaska and the Lower 48. The company founded by Jan and Chris Soloy in 1979 focuses on working closely with clients to ensure a successful outcome for every project.
Soloy Helicopters operates the AS350 B2 and B3, Robinson R44, the civilian Huey variant Bell 205, the “flying egg”-shaped MD 500D, and the twin-engine Kawasaki BK 117 B2. The company has received approvals for more than twenty-five modifications
to its aircraft, such as cargo racks, seating installations, darting or shooting windows, and tundra pads. Soloy also has experience adapting customer installations, including airborne geophysics platforms, camera and film installations, antennas and trackers, and litter kit installations.
Soloy Helicopters takes pride in precision long-line work. Soloy’s pilots who oversee the long-line work average more than 7,000 hours of experience with dangling loads.
Other specialty services include helicopter support for wildland firefighting covering more than 70 million acres of Alaska wilderness. Soloy also specializes in mineral exploration support, from claims
staking and drilling to construction, development, and production.
Soloy partners with two premier heli-ski companies in Southcentral to serve adventurous passengers. Private charters are also available and often utilized for filming projects of various sizes.
Northern Pioneer Helicopters
Jim Acher, the owner of Northern Pioneer Helicopters in Big Lake, has flown helicopters in Alaska for more than thirty years. The company’s fleet includes the AS350 A Star B3, the UH-1B Huey, its US Marine Corps cousin the UH-1E, and the big lifter: a Sikorsky UH-60A, otherwise known as the Black Hawk. Northern Pioneer Helicopters specializes in external load and passenger hauling throughout the state. Additionally, Northern Pioneer is available for a range of helicopter services including transport, firefighting, and aircraft salvage.
When a fixed-wing or rotor aircraft goes down, chances are the accident scene is reachable only by helicopter. Regardless of severity, the wreckage must be packed out. Northern Pioneer’s professional aircraft salvage services are available to rescue and retrieve planes. The company properly secures and slings the airplane for helicopter transit even in remote locations.
Northern Pioneer’s comprehensive cargo transportation service can accommodate loads up to 8,000 pounds. One of the company’s noteworthy jobs involved the transport of a 30-foot custom-built catamaran for the Kodiak Brown Bear Center. The client needed the
An R44 helicopter can haul discarded fuel pods out of a national park. Rangers have learned to lash branches to the dangling load, creating drag to stabilize it.
Linda Jeschke | National Park Service
catamaran delivered to Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island, so Northern Pioneer carried the load in three 4,000-pound segments on the final leg of the journey from the shipyard in Port Angeles, Washington.
For decades, Northern Pioneer has provided aerial firefighting services in collaboration with state and federal agencies, operating in challenging environments. With the capability to transport 4,000 pounds of water per trip and deliver it with reliable precision, the company’s proficient crew expedites turnaround times, maximizes the number of drops per hour, and minimizes flight time.
Alpine Air Alaska
Since 1991, Alpine Air Alaska has promoted “the great Alaskan experience” to adventure-seeking tourists from around the world. From glacier landings and dogsledding to flightseeing, weddings, and special events, Alpine Air caters to its customers’ needs.
In addition to flying R44s, Alpine Air Alaska maintains the local Robinson Helicopter Service Center. From its base in Girdwood, the company also flies charters in Valdez for utility services across various industries.
These include government and private industry support services; cargo and equipment transport; environmental studies support; external loads and precision longline; fuel transport; mapping and surveying; telecommunications; and photo, film, and video production.
Helicopter services enable aerial inspection of sand vents on the tidal flats near Earthquake Park in Anchorage.
Adrian M. Bender | US Geological Survey
company operates the Bell 206 LongRanger, capable of flying 274 miles, and its four-bladed derivative, the Bell 407, with a range of 337 miles. The fleet also includes the agile twin-engine Bo 105 with a stretched fuselage and a range of 287 miles.
Established in 1973, Maritime takes jobs in the Interior, the North Slope, Southeast, and in the Western Aleutians.
Maritime’s main base at the Homer Airport features a lighted helipad, a 4,800-square-foot heated hangar, 2,000-gallon jet fuel truck, and 24-hour jet fuel service. A second customer service facility is located on the north side of Metro Field in Fairbanks with a lighted helipad, 12,000-square-foot heated hangar, and a 10,000-gallon, above-ground jet fuel tank. Satellite locations include Akutan, Kenai, Kodiak, Valdez.
and gas industries, as well as assisting volcano studies and wildlife survey and capture.
Coastal Helicopters
Coastal Helicopters in Juneau started as a division of Alaska Coastal Airlines in 1988, providing services to the US Forest Service with a Bell 206. Jim Wilson joined the company later that year, flying air taxi jobs during winter months, and subsequently became a partner in the business. Jim and his wife Dot then acquired the assets of Alaska Coastal Helicopters to establish Coastal Helicopters.
Coastal Helicopters currently operates a fleet of thirteen helicopters: Bell 206s and AS350s. The company provides helicopter tours catering to the travel and tourism sector. Additionally, Coastal Helicopters offers local support services, including work for the US Forest Service, AT&T, Alaska Electric Light and Power, and Alaska Power & Telephone.
In addition to tour excursions, Coastal Helicopters offers private helicopter charter and contract services. Coastal Helicopters’ pilots and mechanics are available for contracts including avalanche mitigation, construction projects, firefighting, remote site access, surveying, and scientific research.
For his service to Southeast, Jim Wilson was awarded a special honor from his fellow rotorheads.
Maritime Helicopters
Long range is a specialty at Homerbased Maritime Helicopters. The
Maritime provides support for construction, environmental, film, medical, surveying, and oil
In 1996, the Helicopter Association International (now Vertical Aviation International) named him “Pilot of the Year,” marking the first time since 1960 that an Alaskan received this recognition.
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The Valley’s New MVP
Mat-Su Borough gets its own Metropolitan Planning Organization
By Rindi White
Co nsistent growth led, in 2022, to a new designation for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough’s core area: urbanized instead of its long-held “rural” designation. The designation affects transportation planning as well as other federal funding sources, including US Department of Agriculture housing loan programs.
To be fair, it’s been a long time since the Mat-Su Borough, known for affordable homes on one-acre lots with decent commute times to lucrative jobs in Anchorage, has been truly rural. Never mind that it’s not uncommon to see residents out for a Sunday horse ride or dust plumes from four-wheelers ripping down trails beside heavily traveled roads. The urban/rural designation when it comes to transportation planning has little to do with these things—it’s strictly a numbers game.
Topping 50,000
The Mat-Su Borough’s population has grown steadily in the past few decades. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, the number of residents grew from 89,000 to more than 107,000. Exceeding the 100,000 mark didn’t lead to the designation, though. Borough planner Kim Sollien says the threshold was that the population exceeded 50,000 people in a contiguous area, or about 1,000 people per square mile.
“We’re up to 57,000 people in our core area,” Sollien explains. “That growth triggered the requirement to form a metropolitan planning organization.”
The 2020 census was certified in 2022, she notes, and the Mat-Su
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Public Affairs
Borough received word in December 2022 that it would be designated as an urban area. A map defines the urban zone as Palmer and Wasilla, the land between them, and the densely populated periphery, stretching north to include the area where Wasilla and Palmer Fishhook roads intersect, and spreading south to include the Settlers Bay subdivision along Knik-Goose Bay Road.
When the urban designation was announced, it triggered action on the parts of the governments within the new urban zone to create a metropolitan planning organization (MPO). It’s one of about 450 MPOs in the nation. In Alaska, Fairbanks and Anchorage also have MPOs: Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation, or FAST Planning, and Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions, better known as AMATS.
For the Mat-Su urban core, it’s MVP— short for Mat-Su Valley Planning for Transportation. Sollien was named MVP’s first coordinator.
A Historic Board
Local governments within the designated zone established a policy board charged with the decisionmaking duties of the new MPO and establishing a technical committee that acts as an advisory committee for technical decisions. Fortunately, the Mat-Su Borough and Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) were anticipating the designation and had already begun discussing who should be included, Sollien says. Naturally, leaders in Palmer and Wasilla would take part, as would the MatSu Borough and DOT&PF.
“In my twenty years with the tribe, when I first started, we didn’t get along with the state very well. Now we’re all working together, trying to pull funding from different pots.”
Brian Winnestaffer Tra nsportation Director
Chickaloon Village Traditional Council
The two tribal organizations in MatSu, the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council and the Knik Tribe, have boundaries that split the borough, so it made sense to include them, Sollien says. In doing so, MVP became the first MPO in Alaska to have tribal governments on its policy board.
“The State of Alaska has not always recognized tribes as governments, so it was historic when our pre-policy board decided that MVP’s policy board would include all of the regional governments. The fact that the State of Alaska agreed that Chickaloon and Knik tribes were recognized at an equal level to the other regional governments made the decision even more historic,” Sollien says.
Brian Winnestaffer, transportation director for Chickaloon Village Traditional Council, says Chickaloon’s involvement is in keeping with its
efforts to secure grants that will benefit tribal members and those who live in its area.
“In my twenty years with the tribe, when I first started, we didn’t get along with the state very well. Now we’re all working together, trying to pull funding from different pots,” he says.
Requiring a Local Voice
MPOs were created to ensure regional cooperation in transportation planning. During the ‘40s and ‘50s, state highway departments across the Lower 48 gobbled up transportation dollars to develop the massive Interstate Highway System, reshaping communities with little local input.
Then came the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, which included a section establishing new planning rules for urban areas.
The section included a directive that the Secretary of Transportation could no longer approve transportation projects in urban areas with 50,000 or more residents unless the projects were part of a list developed through a “continuing, cooperative, and comprehensive” transportation planning process that included local and regional governments and state transportation departments that came to be known as MPOs. The goal is to ensure federal transportation funds meet local needs and address local priorities.
Now, Sollien says, state transportation officials must consider the transportation planning priorities of local governments.
“Having an MPO gives local governments and the state a seat at the same table,” she says, explaining
A
that the MPO can consider essential questions: Where is the population growing? Where is the greatest need for upgrades? How can we make sure we’re on the same page to make sure growth is addressed?
Sollien says city, borough, and tribal representatives are working together in ways they have not in the past. If Mat-Su did not form an MPO and carry out its duties, it would forfeit eligibility for federal surface transportation funds that would normally be used in its area.
A 2023 frequently asked question sheet Sollien and her team prepared states that there was $190 million of proposed federal transportation funding for the Mat-Su that year, and around $725 million proposed for the next four years.
“In the absence of these federal funds, communities in the Mat-Su would need to support transportation projects with other revenue, such as tax dollars,” the sheet states.
To receive the federal funds and become an MPO in good standing, MVP completed several steps: formalize a policy board, finalize an operating agreement, decide on an organizational structure, decide who is on its policy board and technical committee, develop a Metropolitan Transportation Plan (a long range plan with a twenty-year outlook), and create a transportation improvement plan (TIP), which is a fiscally constrained list of transportation priorities that covers four years.
The federal government pays local MPOs between $400,000 and $600,000 per year to conduct the planning processes required by the urban designation. However, a local match of 9.03 percent in non-federal funding is required—that’s the amount the policy board members must pay through membership dues. That 9 percent match is in effect for the transportation projects the MPO puts forward as well, Sollien says.
The MPOs for Fairbanks and Anchorage operate under the umbrella of their respective municipalities. But as a second-class borough, the Mat-Su Borough does not have the power to host an MPO, and the cities of Wasilla, Palmer and the tribes did not have the capacity to
crew works on a neighborhood road project in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The new transportation planning organization will allow local leaders to have more say in how road funding is spent.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Public Affairs
host or sponsor the organization. So MVP’s policy board chose to form as a nonprofit, Sollien says.
A Planning Organization Needs a Plan
The MVP MPO is now up and running, having secured its policy and technical committee boards and obtained nonprofit status.
Now it’s developing a metropolitan transportation plan that addresses likely needs for the area across multiple modes over the next twenty years. Once that is complete, MVP can develop and adopt a TIP, which is the key to unlocking federal transportation funding.
The Federal Highway Administration takes MPO input seriously. When the agency
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough received about $190 million in state and federal road funding in 2023. The new transportation planning organization will be able to direct how about $7 million of that is spent in future years.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Public Affairs
rejected the DOT&PF Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) in February 2024, the first reason stated for its rejection was that the STIP included projects located within MPO areas that the MPOs themselves had not included in their own TIP.
“Specifically, the DOT&PF excluded the Metropolitan Planning Organizations in the development of the draft STIP provided for public review. This has resulted in programming decisions that did not originally go through the MPO planning processes, including long-range planning in the metropolitan transportation plans, air quality conformity reviews, and consideration for the MPO’s transportation improvement
programs,” states a Federal Highway Administration/Federal Transportation Administration Federal Planning Finding document that outlines the reasons the Alaska DOT&PF 2024–2027 STIP was initially rejected.
One of those decisions related to eight bridge replacements, totaling nearly $302 million, along the Alaska, Richardson, and Steese highways. The bridges were linked to hauling gold ore from the Manh Choh mine about 250 miles to be processed at Kinross’ Fort Knox mine site.
FAST Planning stated that, although it supported the bridge replacement projects, those replacements were not on the MPO’s list of priorities.
Ben White, the Central Region DOT&PF planning chief, says it’s
not uncommon in STIPs to insert projects that are outside an MPO’s TIP list. “We’re a small state; everyone knows everyone. It becomes a political football. There are always a few projects that get stuck in the STIP that leave folks scratching their heads,” White says.
The Knik Arm Bridge is one of those footballs, he notes—a longdiscussed megaproject that AMATS didn’t include on its project list. Having an MPO in place helps “avoid situations of concern or surprise,” he says.
The MVP MPO wasn’t fully in place when the STIP was submitted in 2023, so MVP members didn’t have full-fledged input. Although it is still developing a Metropolitan Transportation Plan and the resulting TIP, MVP’s policy board asked that federal funding earmarked for Mat-
Su be allocated to projects that were already in the works.
“We developed a program of projects, like a mini TIP, for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, to take our allocation, which is about $7 [million] to $8 million in 2024 and 2025, and to put our dollars toward projects that are already existing,” Sollien says.
All of the projects that the MVP MPO allocated funding for are in the amended STIP, Sollien says— although those projects are currently in the design phase.
Highlighting Local Needs
While having an MPO doesn’t necessarily open the door to more federal funding statewide, it should mean projects of local importance within the MPO will have a higher priority on the statewide list.
“There are a few big legacy projects in there now that we’re contributing to, like the bike path along Palmer-Fishhook [Road], which really makes my heart sing. The borough agreed to do that even though it’s a state road. The borough bonded for it, and they also applied for a CTP [Community Transportation Program] grant… so that project was awarded,” Sollien says.
MVP also requested planning funds to assess pavement conditions on roads throughout the MVP boundaries, and for funds for both a streetlight and road sign management plan.
“We are setting aside about $1 million a year of our funding for an ‘improvement program’; those funds will be available annually to replace signs, streetlights, and
The transportation planning organization plans to use about $1 million each year to replace missing or damaged street signs and traffic lights and pave unpaved local roads.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Public Affairs
upgrade the pavement of roads. It will be a revolving program. As soon as these three asset management plans are complete with a list of prioritized projects, the community will start seeing projects happening,” she says. “Hopefully we’ll get those [plans] finish ed within the year.”
DOT&PF strives to get community feedback on transportation projects and to incorporate community needs even without MPOs, White says. But there are a lot of community needs throughout the state.
“Without the MPO, that money [the $7 million to $8 million now designated for Mat-Su through the MPO] might go wherever the state might want to put it,” White says.
With the MPO, projects that might rank lower on the state priority list can be addressed. “For example, we have sections of road out there [in Mat-Su] where the crash data and traffic counts might not rise to the height of something in Kenai… We can put that $8 million toward that project” if the MVP policy board decides it is a priority, he says.
It’s a part of the job White says he likes least: telling people that DOT&PF is unable to deal with a road problem because there have not yet been enough accidents to require action.
“It’s one of those things that breaks my heart. Transportation sometimes can be very cold—that’s the hard part. This allows us to prioritize projects within the MPO boundary,” White says.
Road and Harbor Connections
Federal grants to revitalize Alaska
By Vanessa Orr
Fr om the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, a conduit of federal funding has plugged municipalities and tribes into a pot of money for transportation infrastructure. Prior to the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, US Department of Transportation (USDOT) grants were reserved mainly for states or transit agencies.
The program known as TIGER was rebranded in 2017 as BUILD, or Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development. Another rebranding followed in 2021, when it became the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant program. In that form, Alaska communities tapped into funding for highways and ports.
Alaska is expected to receive more than $47 million from the latest round of RAISE grants to invest in critical transportation projects. Some of those are shovel ready, but others might see additional bureaucratic hurdles before the money can be spent.
City of Saint Paul
Disadvantaged Communities
Although mainly for local-level projects, the RAISE program does not shut out state governments when they are part of multi-jurisdictional applications and for disadvantaged communities. That’s how the State of Alaska qualified for a grant. In July 2023, the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities secured a $25 million RAISE grant for the Shakwak Project, which will revitalize the highway corridor within Canada that connects Alaska to the Lower 48.
The project focus is a 128mile stretch north of Destruction Bay on Kluane Lake to address roadway maintenance, emergency preparedness, and safety features. The location in a designated rural area made the project eligible.
By the terms of a 1976 international agreement, the United States pays for the work in Canada. The project cost is $37.6 million, and the biggest portion of the funding comes from the RAISE grant. Another $12.6 million comes from the state’s share of the federal highway funding formula.
Two RAISE grants were also awarded to sites earmarked as areas of persistent poverty or historically disadvantaged communities.
Kawerak, the tribal nonprofit for the Norton Sound region, received $16 million to construct roads for the future relocation of homes and buildings affected by flooding in Golovin. The project, which is expected to begin construction in March 2027, will help to relocate the entire village out of the 500-
year floodplain that is increasingly threatened by sea level rise and extreme weather events.
In addition to improving the quality of life by reducing climate-related threats to Golovin, the relocation is meant to improve public health and general safety. The site will also provide wider roadways, with pathways adjacent to new roads.
Bristol Bay Native Association was awarded a rural planning grant of $3 million to evaluate road, rail, and water routes that could connect thirty-one Bristol Bay communities, the Alaska Marine Highway System, or possibly the state’s surface highways.
The grant will help identify yearround travel routes to provide
access for critical emergency services and help residents reach essential services, job and education opportunities, healthcare, and more. The project is also expected to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions by shifting freight to lower-carbon travel modes.
The grant will fund a communitydriven planning study that will include a desktop data review, geotechnical report, mapping and land status, environmental analysis, cost estimation, economic analysis, public involvement, alternative analysis, and final project reporting. Time will tell exactly what form the transportation links among Bristol Bay villages might take.
Planning in Homer
At the end of the road, Homer needs a new beginning for its surface
The US DOGE Service is reviewing a $4 million grant to plan improvements to Saint Paul's docks and harbormaster’s office. City of Saint Paul
transportation. The City of Homer was awarded a $2 million planning grant for safety improvements along the Sterling Highway and its adjacent arterial routes and busy connector roads serving the central business district, state-owned airport, and working waterfront.
“Homer's rate of serious pedestrian injury exceeds the national average, with 86 percent of crashes in the city involving pedestrians on narrow, high-traffic volume roads with minimal shoulders,” says Jenny Carroll, the city’s special projects and communications coordinator. “These dangerous conditions force pedestrians to share space with not just cars but semi-trucks, sidedumpers, and boat trailers. The planning and design activities will target improvements delivering maximum public safety return.”
Homer applied for RAISE funds in FY 2023 and finally won the grant for FY 2025. The project builds on prior public engagement, and systemwide planning will prioritize routes for completing permitting, utility investigation, benefit-cost analysis, and 75 percent design for selected routes.
“Previous and robust transportation planning in the community have identified several critical incomplete street priorities, considering crash history and traffic volumes,” Carroll says. The preconstruction funds help Homer advance the most critical projects to shovel-ready status.
“The city has made safe, complete streets a goal since developing our first non-motorized transportation plan in 2004 through today, when the city is completing a
Comprehensive Safety Action Plan in coordination with the Kenai Peninsula Borough,” Carroll says.
Beyond safety, Homer expects an economic boost by better connecting local businesses, multi-modal transportation infrastructure, and tourist destinations.
Harbor Grants
With a $13 million rural capital RAISE grant, the City of Nome plans to dredge approximately seven acres at the Snake River Moorage Facility and add approximately 1,700 feet of floating dock. The project, which is expected to begin construction in June 2026, will also develop a portion of the shoreline to include a bulkhead at the Port of Nome.
According to Port Director Joy Baker, the goal is to push
lighter-draft vessels to the new river facility, improving safety at the small boat harbor.
“Our goal is to reduce incidents and accidents caused by overcrowding and congestion with all vessel types, large and small, operating in the same small space,” she explains. “The City of Nome will also receive increased business and job opportunities by expanding port facilities and generating more maritime commerce.”
The Snake River Moorage Facility project has been a goal for Nome since 2015, yet it is not quite ready for construction. “Right now, we are waiting for USDOT staff to confirm pre-award requirements in order to execute a grant agreement,” Baker says. “At that point, we will contract with our engineering team
to finalize the conceptual design and update permitting.”
The project includes dredging the footprint, constructing the shoreline with armor stone and sheet pile, developing uplands, and purchasing and installing floating docks. In addition to the $13 million RAISE grant, there is a match component of $3.3 million, which is expected to be made up of city funds and other partnering funds that are bei ng actively pursued.
“Right now, we are hopeful that the grant agreement, conceptual design, and update permitting are completed by October 2025, when we will go out to bid with hopes of completing most of the work in 2026,” says Baker. “The floating docks would be shipped and installed in 2027, with
an estimated final completion date of September 15, 2027.”
Construction is set to start this summer in Petersburg, where the borough was awarded a rural capital grant of $8.8 million to improve the Scow Bay small vessel haulout area. The project will build a new ramp in deeper water, add a dedicated boarding float, install a wash-down pad, connect utilities to the haul-out, and extend the existing breakwater.
Petersburg Borough intends the haul-out project to improve environmental sustainability by reducing waterborne pollution through a dedicated haul-out with a washdown pad, filtration system, proactive storm water management, and pollution prevention system. The new haul-out will be constructed at a previously filled shoreline location to minimize shoreline impacts.
Scow Bay currently utilizes an old concrete ramp originally built for seaplanes that depends heavily on the tides because of its shallow slope, making it useable for only a few hours a day. For this reason, local users often take their vessels to another town for out-of-water work.
Pause for Review
While Round 1 communities have already been notified of their grants, there may be a delay in implementation, and not just because the RAISE program is no more, at least in name. As of February, the returning Trump administration revived the BUILD branding. Then in March, all projects without fully obligated grant agreements or cooperative
agreements were paused to undergo review to align with the Trump administration’s executive orders on climate, energy, diversity, and equity projects.
Homer’s road planning grant, announced in January, is among those subject to agency review. Carroll says, “The project delivers clear public safety value and economic benefits, and we are hopeful that federal officials will recognize the life-saving and economic benefits of these improvements as they complete their review process.”
In the Pribilof Islands, the City of Saint Paul is likewise in limbo, waiting for the US DOGE Service to review a rural planning grant of $4 million to make improvements to Saint Paul Harbor. These include changes to the Harbor Road, docks, piers, mooring capacity, and harbormaster’s office.
“A number of years ago, we received a grant from the [US] Economic Development Administration to undertake a feasibility study focusing on harbor improvements and expansion,” explains City Manager Phillip A. Zavadil. “Now that the study has been completed, we’ve been trying to find money for the design and construction of what was recommended in the study.”
The project, also funded by a grant from the USDOT Port Infrastructure Development Program, will improve safety by removing the North Dock and piers and installing berthing dolphins that are in line with the South Dock, with access ramps to the dolphins so vessels can safely
moor and access the shore. These improvements will also allow more than just fishing vessels to use the harbor and make it less dependent on a single fishery.
“We’re also planning to relocate the harbormaster’s office, which is currently located below the main breakwater, to another location within the harbor,” Zavadil explains. “During intense storms, waves crash over the top of the breakwater, on the office, and this move will prevent the building from sustaining more damage as well as increase visibility into all areas of the harbor.”
He adds that upgrades to Harbor Road, including rerouting part of it, will help improve traffic flow and make it safer for heavy equipment.
“This road was never designed for heavy equipment traffic, and due to climate change and warming temperatures, we’re seeing muddy, soft spots in the road,” says Zavadil. “All of our large items, including fuel and construction items, come by barge and are transferred from there using heavy equipment.”
The $4 million grant will cover benefit/cost analysis, all National Environmental Policy Act requirements and environmental permitting, as well as 65 percent of the design on the harbormaster’s office.
“The idea is to set us up to apply for another grant to finish up the design and actually do the construction,” says Zavadil. “We’re looking forward to getting funded and getting started.”
By the time the RAISE money is spent, Saint Paul and other communities will be facing the next round of BUILD grants.
Alaska Marine Highway Update Funding innovations and fleet renewal
By Alexandra Kay
The Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) continues to adapt and evolve as it fulfills its crucial role connecting coastal communities across Southeast. Recent developments in funding mechanisms, fleet renovations, and service schedules highlight both the challenges and innovations that keep this essential transportation network afloat.
Toll Credits as Financial Tool
A significant development for the AMHS has been the strategic utilization of toll credits to maximize federal funding opportunities.
“Toll credits are not actual cash; rather, they’re a financing tool that allows the state to cover the required match for federal transportation grants without having to put up state funds,” explains Sam Dapcevich,
Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Public Information Officer for Southcoast Region and AMHS. “Thanks to a recent approval by the Federal Highway Administration in April 2024, Alaska now has a formal toll credit program in place.”
Toll credits function as a budgetary multiplier, allowing every state dollar invested to draw down significantly more federal support. The credits accrue when an agency applies toll revenue toward building, maintaining, or improving its facilities, as opposed to other expenses.
The toll credit program specifically benefits the AMHS by reducing the local match requirement for federal transit grants from 20 percent to just 9 percent in many cases. This innovative funding approach has allowed Alaska to
secure approximately $84 million in federal funding for AMHS operations in the current fiscal year, representing a 15 percent increase over previous allocation levels.
Technology Upgrades
The AMHS has recently embraced technological innovations to enhance both operational efficiency and passenger experience. A new reservation system launched in January 2025 has streamlined the booking process, offering passengers more flexibility and providing system managers with better data for capacity planning.
The implementation of realtime vessel tracking has improved transparency and helped communities better prepare for arrivals and departures. Passengers can now track their vessel’s location
Frank P. Flavin
through the AMHS website and mobile app, reducing uncertainty during winter weather disruptions.
Onboard connectivity has also seen improvements, with satellite internet now available on major routes. This upgrade particularly benefits business travelers and remote workers who increasingly rely on digital connectivity even while traveling. Local schools have utilized this improved connectivity for educational field trips, allowing students to remain engaged with classroom activities even during multi-day ferry journeys.
Fleet Renewal and Vessel Updates
Basic ferryboat technology— deck, hull, and engines—is not so easy to upgrade. The AMHS fleet—
with several vessels more than fifty years old—has faced increasing maintenance challenges, but strategic investments are extending service life while new vessels are in development.
“As of early 2025, the Alaska Marine Highway System continues to manage an aging fleet with several vessels undergoing maintenance or awaiting upgrades,” notes Dapcevich. “The MV Kennicott is currently out of service for the year, undergoing generator replacements and steel repairs to meet federal emissions standards.”
MV Matanuska, in service since 1962 and refit in 2019, has faced ongoing challenges. “The Matanuska remains in layup due to extensive steel deterioration. A decision on its future is pending,” Dapcevich says.
MV Tustumena , serving the Southwest route since 1964, just
“Right now, AMHS is at a turning point… With an aging fleet and workforce shortages, we’re working to maintain service while also planning for the future.”
Sam Dapcevich Public Information Officer
finished her annual overhaul at the JAG Alaska shipyard in Seward, but over the longer term the vessel is fated for replacement. Dapcevich expects construction bids in September, with the replacement vessel joining the schedule by summer 2028.
Meanwhile, MV Columbia , once the flagship of the fleet, continues its limited summer-only operations after extensive renovations completed in late 2024. Columbia now serves the mainline route between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast. Dapcevich notes that plans to replace controllablepitch propellers were canceled to keep the vessel operational until a new mainliner is built.
Perhaps most promising is the progress on the Alaska Class Ferry program, with MV Tazlina and MV Hubbard now integrated into the Southeast route structure since joining the fleet in 2019 and 2023, respectively. These vessels, designed specifically for shorter routes, have proven their value
despite initial concerns about their day-boat configuration.
Schedule Adaptations
Service patterns across Southeast continue to evolve in response to funding realities, vessel availability, and community needs. The system has moved toward a more predictable, if somewhat reduced, schedule that emphasizes reliability over frequency.
“Southeast Alaska continues to be served by a combination of one mainliner vessel, two dayboats, and one smaller commuter vessel,” Dapcevich says. “Right now, the MV Columbia is our Southeast mainliner, and it’s making weekly roundtrips between Bellingham, Washington, and Skagway, stopping in most Southeast communities along the way.”
Key Southeast communities— including Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Petersburg—see regular service, often with fewer weekly sailings than historical levels. Smaller communities such as Angoon, Hoonah, and Kake
have seen service reductions, but Dapcevich says strategic scheduling maintains essential connectivity.
“To help fill service gaps while the LeConte is in extended overhaul for major steel replacement until late July, we’re offering supplemental sailings to communities like Pelican and Angoon using contracted catamarans operated by two Southeast Alaska tour companies,” Dapcevich explains.
He adds, “We’ve worked closely with community representatives to ensure that, even with reduced frequency, sailings align with critical needs— whether that’s medical travel, freight delivery, or school activities.”
Southeast communities have shown remarkable resilience in adapting to the evolving AMHS service. Local governments, businesses, and residents have developed complementary transportation options, including enhanced air service, private water taxis, and coordinated freight consolidation programs.
These adaptations don’t replace the core function of the AMHS, but they
help communities cope during service gaps or reduced schedules.
Essential Service
The AMHS continues to serve as a lifeline for Southeast communities, particularly those without road connections to the mainland. Recent economic impact studies estimate that every $1 invested in the system generates approximately $2.30 in regional economic activity.
“It’s not just about transportation. The system supports local economies and helps people stay connected— culturally, socially, and economically,” Dapcevich emphasizes. “It carries groceries, seafood, construction equipment—you name it. It gives people access to healthcare and education, and it brings tourists into places they probably wouldn’t get to otherwise.”
Even for the road-connected communities of Haines and Skagway, which saw winter highway closures due to avalanche risks, the ferry system provided crucial alternative transportation when road access was compromised.
A significant policy victory for the AMHS came in late 2024 when the US Department of Transportation formally designated the system as an “Essential Transportation Service” under federal guidelines. This designation, which followed years of advocacy from Alaska’s congressional delegation, opens additional funding avenues and provides greater regulatory flexibility.
“It’s important to remember that the Alaska Marine Highway is part of
connects remote communities much like roads do elsewhere, and that distinction matters when it comes to funding and federal recognition,” Dapcevich points out.
The designation acknowledges what Alaskans have long understood—that for many coastal communities, the AMHS isn’t a luxury or simply a scenic tourist experience but rather an essential lifeline like Interstate Highw ays in the Lower 48.
Cultural Fabric
Beyond its practical transportation role, the AMHS continues to hold profound cultural significance for Southeast. For many residents, the distinctive blue and gold vessels represent a shared heritage and regional identity that transcends their utilitarian function.
“The Alaska Marine Highway System isn’t just a transportation network—it’s part of the cultural fabric of coastal Alaska,” says Dapcevich. “For many communities, the ferry is a lifeline that has shaped the way people live, travel, and stay connected across vast distances. Generations of Alaskans have grown up riding the ferries.”
The system celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2024 with commemorative events in port communities throughout the region. These celebrations highlighted not just the transportation legacy but the countless personal stories connected to the Alaska Marine Highway System.
“AMHS plays a key role in regional identity. The sight of a ferry arriving in town is often tied to everything
from sports travel and student activities to medical trips, shopping runs, and family reunions,” Dapcevich notes. “It’s a shared experience that brings people together and reinforces a strong sense of place. In that way, the Marine Highway is not just a service—it’s a symbol of connection, independence, and community.”
Local schools have incorporated the AMHS history into their Alaska studies curriculum, ensuring younger generations understand the system’s importance to regional development. A traveling exhibit featuring historical photographs and artifacts from the system’s early days has been making its way through Southeast communities, drawing surprisingly large crowds even in the digital age.
Turning Point
Despite recent progress, significant challenges remain for the AMHS. For one, replacement costs for several aging vessels far exceeds available capital budgets.
But the march of time cannot be stopped, so the AMHS is preparing accordingly. Dapcevich explains, “The 2045 AMHS Long-Range Plan calls for retiring seven of our aging vessels and constructing six new ones over the next twenty years. This is a phased approach—starting with design and early construction in the short term, with one vessel (Tustumena Replacement Vessel) entering service by 2028.”
But even if the fleet had the newest, shiniest ferries, the problem remains: who will drive them?
“Right now, our biggest challenge is crewing,” reveals Dapcevich. “This
isn’t unique to Alaska; it’s part of a nationwide shortage of qualified maritime workers. Demand is high across the industry, and there simply aren’t enough licensed crew members to meet the needs of the industry. This shortage affects our ability to operate vessels consistently and limits how much service we can provide, even when vessels are otherwise ready to sail.”
While financial constraints and aging infrastructure present ongoing challenges, innovative funding mechanisms, technological advances, and strategic fleet management have helped stabilize this critical service.
“Right now, AMHS is at a turning point,” concludes Dapcevich. “With an aging fleet and workforce shortages, we’re working to maintain service while also planning for the future. The Draft 2045 Long-Range Plan lays out a path toward a more modern, reliable system—but it’ll take continued investment and support from our communities, policy makers, and elected leaders to get there.”
For the communities of Southeast, the AMHS remains far more than just a transportation option—it represents their connection to the wider world and to each other. As the system navigates its next chapter, the balance between fiscal reality and community need will continue to define its evolution with toll credits, vessel renewals, and schedule adaptations all contributing to its sustained operation.
“It’s more than transportation— it’s a connection to family, opportunity, and community life,” Dapcevich says.
For 50 years, TOTE has o ered a 3-day transit, twiceweekly sailings, flexible gate-times, and roll-on/rollo operations to support versatile cargo needs, for an award-winning customer experience. When it comes to shipping to Alaska, TOTE was built for it.
Delivering Decarbonization Transport companies reduce
CO2 emissions
By Vanessa Orr
Go od news on greenhouse gas emissions. The United States has continued to decrease its output of carbon dioxide (CO2), never again rising above the 2007 peak. From 6 billion tons per year, the country is down to about 5 billion tons, despite an increased population and higher economic productivity. Per capita emissions, otherwise known as an individual’s carbon footprint, have likewise declined.
The silver lining doesn’t change the fact that the very thin cloud of CO2 in the atmosphere still traps more heat than in pre-industrial times, warming the global climate.
In Alaska, the US Environmental Protection Agency reports that, over the past sixty years, most of the state has warmed 3°F on average and 6°F during winter.
Alaskans live a carbon-intensive lifestyle. According to data from the US Energy Information Administration and US Census Bureau, Alaska’s per capita emissions of 47.6 tons of CO2 per year were the fourth highest among the states in 2022. (Wyoming and North Dakota, with similarly small populations, likewise have high emissions per person.) Alaska’s per capita emissions are three times the US average.
While the industrial sector in Alaska contributes the largest share of CO2 emissions, transportation activity is the largest contributor nationwide. Many companies are embracing the idea of reducing carbon emissions, including those in the transportation industry.
Shipping Commitment
Transportation is one of the hardest economic sectors to decarbonize, given the unbeatable convenience and energy density of fossil fuels.
Conscious of this challenge, shipping companies are confronting it head on. For instance, Matson is actively trying to lower emissions
from its operations in Anchorage, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor.
“Our vessels navigate some of the most pristine and environmentally sensitive areas in the Pacific, including Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, all along the US West Coast, and around islands in the South Pacific,” says Vic Angoco, senior vice president, Alaska. “Matson is committed to protecting these areas by operating in an environmentally responsible manner.”
Fellow shipper TOTE Maritime Alaska shares that commitment.
Art Dahlin, vice president and Alaska general manager, says TOTE Maritime Alaska has always
looked at investments that will improve its service to the market, ever since the company’s first ships were custom-built for the Alaska trade fifty years ago.
“Innovation and a forward-thinking approach are really ingrained in our culture and our foundation at TOTE, and that commitment naturally extends to how we fuel our vessels and operate at our ports,” says Dahlin.
In 2010, TOTE Maritime Alaska invested $2.7 million in a shore power project, enabling its vessels docked in Tacoma, Washington to use electricity from the local grid instead of onboard diesel generators. This initiative reduces diesel and greenhouse gas emissions by 2,600 tons annually—the equivalent of removing more than 550 cars from the road each year.
Matson also uses shore power in certain ports and is collaborating with the World Shipping Council, Smart Freight Centre’s Clean Cargo group, Blue Sky Maritime Coalition, the Chamber of Shipping of America, and SEA-LNG to advance new technologies and lowcarbon fuel availability.
Fuel Conversion
According to Matson’s sustainability web page, its goals and climate transition plan are aligned with the International Maritime Organization’s efforts to support United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 and the 2015 Paris Agreement through industrywide climate goals. The company has set an interim goal to achieve a 40 percent reduction in Scope 1 fleet emissions
by 2030, measured against a 2016 baseline, and a longer-term goal to achieve net-zero Scope 1 fleet emissions by 2050.
Scope 1 refers to direct combustion of fuels. Scope 2 is mainly purchased energy, counting the emissions of the local power utility. And Scope 3 is emissions across the value chain that an organization doesn’t directly control, like contracted transporters that cart Matson containers on the last mile of a journey.
To date, Matson reports good progress; in 2023 (the latest annual information available) it announced that it had achieved a 19 percent decrease in Scope 1 fleet emissions since 2016.
“Matson is investing in technology and efficiency upgrades, fleet modernization, building new stateof-the-art vessels, and adopting a longer-term fuel efficiency strategy to meet our 2030 and 2025 climate goals,” says Angoco. “We are also working with industry partners to advance lower carbon fuel solutions.”
Part of Matson’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions include investment in vessels powered not by syrupy bunker fuel but by liquified natural gas (LNG). According to National Grid, an energy transition company, LNG produces 40 percent less CO2 than coal and 30 percent less than oil, which makes it the cleanest of the fossil fuels. Beyond climatewarming CO2, LNG emits significantly less soot, dust, or particulates compared to coal and oil and produces insignificant amounts of sulfur dioxide, mercury, and other compounds considered harmful to the earth’s atmosphere.
Matson’s Aloha-class vessels are not only the largest freighters ever built in the United States but were designed with dual-fuel systems. The first of the class, Daniel K. Inouye , entered service in 2019, but by 2023 the company converted it to LNG only. Sister ships Manukai and Kaimana Hila underwent LNG conversions as well. Matson has made a $1 billion investment in three more, with the next due to join the fleet next year.
In 2023, TOTE converted its Alaska ships to run on dual-fuel LNG, which was the first conversion of its scale in North America.
“Using LNG as a maritime fuel significantly cuts down on emissions like sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides and greatly reduces carbon dioxide emissions,” says Dahlin. “As part of the TOTE Group organization, we were the first US shipping company to convert our entire fleet to LNG power, collectively investing more than $500 million in assets, infrastructure, and technology to improve the air we breathe and protect the waters we sail.”
TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico’s Isla Bella was the world's first LNGpowered container ship and was put into service in 2015. The Orca-class vessels that serve Alaska were fully converted to run on LNG in 2023, but the project spanned more than ten years to minimize impact to the market. Dahlin notes that overall, a huge scope of the work was done while the ships were still in service, ensuring that Alaskans could get the goods they needed while the project was underway.
Freighters of old sailed by wind power alone. Wind turbines in Kodiak supply much of the onshore grid, powering Matson's massive cargo crane. Flywheels store energy until a ship arrives to be unloaded.
Matson
Pushing the Envelope
While LNG has a future in maritime shipping, it doesn’t work as aviation fuel, so air cargo needs other solutions. FedEx, which operates the world’s largest air cargo fleet, announced an ambitious goal in 2021 to achieve carbon-neutral operations globally by 2040. To help reach this goal, the company designated more than $2 billion of initial investment in three key areas: vehicle electrification, sustainable energy, and carbon sequestration.
Ground transport is the lowest hurdle. Approximately 50 percent
of FedEx Express global pickup and delivery vehicle purchases will be electric in 2025, rising to 100 percent of all purchases by 2030. According to its website, by 2040, the entire FedEx parcel pickup and delivery fleet will be made up of zero-emission electric vehicles. The conversion will trade Scope 1 tailpipe emissions for Scope 2 power plant emissions.
For aircraft, FedEx is continuing to build on its FedEx Fuel Sense initiatives, which were designed to reduce fuel consumption in its aircraft. Since 2012, the FedEx Fuel Sense and Aircraft Modernization
programs have saved a combined 1.43 billion gallons of jet fuel and avoided more than 13.5 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.
For Scope 3 emissions, FedEx is working with customers to offer end-to-end sustainability for supply chains through carbon-neutral shipping offerings and sustainable packaging solutions. The company is also making more than 5,000 of its facilities worldwide more sustainable through continued investments in efficient facilities, renewable energy, and other energy management programs.
“We are also working with industry partners to advance lower carbon fuel solutions.”
TOTE's twice-weekly shipments to Anchorage are useful in both directions. The company backhauls waste to Tacoma for recycling in the Lower 48.
“Innovation and a forward-thinking approach are really ingrained in our culture and our foundation at TOTE, and that commitment naturally extends to how we fuel our vessels and operate at our ports.”
Art Dahlin, Vice President and Alaska General Manager, TOTE Maritime Alaska
Since 2009, FedEx says its efforts have contributed to an approximately 40 percent reduction in CO2 emissions intensity across the enterprise, even though package volume nearly doubled during that period.
Impactful Investments
For emissions that can’t be choked off at the source, companies have other ways to balance the ledger. FedEx pledged $100 million to Yale University to help establish
the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture to research natural carbon sequestration solutions with an initial focus on helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to current airline emissions.
In its day-to-day business practices, TOTE is a member of Green Marine, a third-party environmental certification program for the maritime industry. It also donates equipment for statewide electronic recycling programs with Cook Inletkeeper
and Green Star of Interior Alaska, and TOTE provides more than $1.5 million in in-kind shipping to Alaskans for Litter Prevention and Recycling for southbound shipping of recycled materials.
“We believe in making investments with real, measurable impact,” says Dahlin. “This is part of our commitment to improve our operations, our customer experience, and to promote the safety and health of our team and the communities we serve.”
A
Republic Services is a major provider of environmental services in North America, offering some of the most comprehensive solutions in the industry—all from one source. Through its subsidiaries, the company has a diverse portfolio of solutions: recycling, solid waste, special waste, hazardous waste, and field services. Boasting 13 million customers, a fleet of 17,000 trucks, and more than 1,000 locations, Republic Services has established itself as a trusted leader in its field. With its industry-leading field and industrial solutions, Republic Services can support even the most complex projects, including remediation, retail, lab pack, industrial cleaning and maintenance, vacuum services, transportation, tank and equipment rental, and disposal. The company’s certified experts and specialized equipment stand ready to respond to incidents at facilities, businesses, on land, in the water, and on rail. Whether dealing with emergencies, disasters, oil spills, hazardous volatile events, or biohazardous decontamination, Republic Services’ response teams are available 24/7 to deliver complete support from a single point of contact.
SPECIALIZED PRODUCTS IN ALASKA
while providing services that cater to Alaska’s unique industries and needs. For instance, the Moose Creek facility offers regulatorycompliant thermal treatment of non-hazardous contaminated soils and sediments— representing a critical solution for Alaskans by Alaskans. This gives customers an environmentally safe and costeffective option for treating and disposing of materials that are contaminated with PFAS, petroleum or oil and lubricants, and treatable granular media.
minimize waste generation, and support recycling. It also offers a variety of Made in Alaska products to support customers’ specific environmental, industrial, and emergency response needs.
SUPPORTING A CLEANER, GREENER WORLD
Republic Services partners with customers to help them
achieve their environmental and economic sustainability goals. The company is committed to using innovative practices and technologies to support decarbonization and a circular economy. Consequently, Republic Services has garnered various third-party recognition; in 2024, it was ranked among America’s Climate Leaders by USA Today, the country’s Most Sustainable Companies by Barron’s, and the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere.
Through its advanced waste management solutions and commitment to sustainability, Republic Services is fostering a cleaner, greener future.
In Alaska, Republic Services operates with more than 125 employees across ten locations, including Anchorage, Fairbanks, Moose Creek, Kenai, Palmer, and Prudhoe Bay. The company’s recent acquisition of US Ecology Alaska—previously known as NRC Alaska and Emerald Alaska—further enhanced its environmental
In addition, Republic Services provides specialized solutions and products in Alaska. A key example is its turnkey management of used automotive fluids, with available processing or reuse. The company manufactures a full line of cleaning solvent blends such as heavy-duty,
Green Eyeshade Hard Hats
Support services consultants for building projects
By Scott Rhode
Es timations and scheduling are among the core functions of building contractors, as surely as moving earth or erecting walls. Yet smaller companies might choose to outsource those tasks, or large and complex projects might need extra support. Companies providing that support are in the construction business for sure, but they are not builders themselves.
“The easy way to describe it is that we're there to remove obstacles for the project,” says Mike Kruse, Alaska location leader for Arcadis, a global full-service engineering consulting firm. Services beyond engineering include Kruse’s specialties: project management and construction management.
“Our bread-and-butter project is a client building new construction
or remodeling an existing facility, something outside of their normal wheelhouse,” he says. “We come in and provide staff augmentation and expertise on project delivery. We help them from inception to close-out completion, into the warranty phase, and even getting them operationally moved in.”
Post-construction activation and pre-construction preparation are, in his view, trickier than the relatively straightforward execution of a building plan.
Management could cover everything from permits through inspections. Brite Niezek, owner and lead consultant at Niezek Consulting, describes her role as assisting with planning, then providing monitoring and control, services that are central to effective project management.
Niezek says, “Once contracts are awarded, I help track actual costs against what’s been awarded, monitor spend rates compared to production rates—what they’ve actually accomplished in the field.” She can recommend changes to keep the project in line.
Critical notes are Kruse’s job too. “We can typically make three or four recommendations that lead to a decision that saves the project more than our fee,” he says. “If we can save the project that amount of money, we end up paying for ourselves.”
Track the Money
Like an accountant, project managers watch cashflow ledgers like hawks. Building contractors might hire project management
consultants the same way they engage an accountant to prepare tax returns. But the jobs are different.
“Accounting tracks the money you're burning that's behind you. It's sixty days behind you, and it won't give you the information you need in time. It will tell you that you have run over budget after you've run over budget,” says Thad Phillips, vice president of Integrated Project Services (IPS) in Anchorage.
Phillips prefers to be involved in the early stages of preliminary budgeting and estimation. Then he applies the methodology of earned value management. “You're looking at that amount of budget that you originally sanctioned or approved and you're going, ‘How’re we doing? Are we still going to get this project for that
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“Most construction companies do have the skillset within the project manager role. But, like many other duties those people perform, it takes a long time. Part of outsourcing may be to free up their ability to do other things on the project.”
Patrick Lovelace President and Owner Nu Solutions Consulting
budget?’ And through the process of earned value management, you keep tracking that,” he explains. “With this process, you can see where you are at any given time, and when you're starting to run off the rails.”
Of course, some general contractors have project managers or construction managers on staff, keeping an eye on budgets and schedules. Patrick Lovelace, president and owner of Nu Solutions Consulting in Anchorage, says outside consultants bring a different perspective. “Foremen on the job site every day, recording actuals and doing daily reports—they’re using the schedule as a tool… but they
may not be the ones sitting behind the computer, entering the data, looking at the schedule analysis for conflicts, trying to run what-if scenarios,” Lovelace says.
He adds that consultants are usually more fluent in project management software. “People have a learning curve around using things like Microsoft Project or Primavera scheduling,” Lovelace says, so “having somebody who does it every day, all day, who is more proficient in it” can be more efficient.
Niezek agrees that in-house managers have a different focus. “They spend a lot more time in the field, not behind a desk. They often don’t have critical path scheduling experience using, like, Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project,” she says. Primavera P6 is an Oracle product, considered more robust than Microsoft’s project management platform.
Not that Niezek is afraid of getting her boots dirty. “I go to job sites to verify work in the field compared to what they’re invoicing,” she says. “There’s usually a construction manager onsite that verifies that kind of thing, but every now and then I like to go see for myself.” Niezek has a master’s degree in construction management and has worked in the industry for twenty-five years, so she knows what to look for.
Having an outsider’s view lets contractors focus on other tasks, according to Lovelace. “Most construction companies do have the skillset within the project manager role. But, like many other duties those people perform, it takes a long time. Part of outsourcing may
be to free up their ability to do other things on the project,” he says.
Big Customers
Nu Solutions has worked on utility installations, oil and gas developments, US Army Corps of Engineers contracts, and national laboratory infrastructure. Lovelace notes that his company managed project controls for the UAF research vessel Sikuliaq. After it was built in 2014, similar contracts followed, and now Nu Solutions is involved in the construction of three ships in Oregon.
“We help facilitate construction schedules from the shipyards,” Lovelace says, “coordinating all of efforts for reporting to the National Science Foundation.”
The science sector brought Lovelace into contact with nuclear reactors and cosmic telescopes. He says, “Do I know anything about particle accelerators? No. But do I understand critical path methodology and sequencing? Sure. So pair me up with a scientist and boom! We’ve got a plan.”
Whether an atom smasher, mine, or manufacturing plant, project managers have no end of potential customers. Lovelace says, “The skill set applies in different industries. You don’t have to be an expert in every aspect. I think that’s true in general contracting too: you outsource things like fire protection, mechanical, plumbing, and all those different subsets.”
At IPS, Phillips interfaces with a range of clients, including general contractors and engineering firms. “We deal a lot with corporations and larger entities that know what they
need to get done or they have a structured process, and they want to get cost estimating and planning and scheduling done in accordance with industry standards or practices for large projects,” he says.
IPS can fill that niche better than organizations with ten times the staff. Phillips says, “It's not uncommon to find large corporations that don't necessarily have everything in place; processes, procedures, tools, organization, or structure might not be aligned right.”
Compartmentalizing project management can be an advantage for the contractor’s bottom line, as Kruse points out. “Our contract ends, and they don't have another fulltime staff running a capital projects development, always looking for
the next project,” he says. “We come in, serve the project, and then depart and maintain the relationship long term without having salaries and benefits.” And that saves money on overhead costs.
Structure and Process
Less often, support services are backup for small contractors, perhaps solo owner-operators, who don’t necessarily have any management staff at all. But it does happen.
“We have one customer that works on the Denali Highway: remote, don’t have cell service, building projects, and camping out,” Lovelace says. “We can do all the paperwork behind the scenes and help them submit to get paid.”
Niezek Consulting takes on smaller customers occasionally, but those aren’t Niezek’s preference. “I’m mostly working on really large projects. Those are the kind of projects that need specialized project controls and contract administration support,” she says. “If it’s a small project, a project manager or construction manager can handle it, but once it gets really big with a lot of pieces of the project—maybe a lot of years, a lot of phases—that’s when you need someone like me.”
For instance, Niezek Consulting was brought into a project in Arkansas where Walmart is adding seven buildings to a corporate campus.
Smaller contractors can still use project management consulting.
“There are so many parts and pieces of any construction project that there’s plenty of room to outsource the very specific pieces and let someone else manage the big picture.”
Brite Niezek, Owner and Lead Consultan t, Niezek Consulting
Phillips says, “It's applicable to even the small projects. You're going to do a little remodel at your house, you go through the same fundamental process as a large company would.”
Phillips says IPS has done training for some clients, to help them become more self-sufficient. “We do have a few customers that are mom-and-pop or small contractors that recognized that they need to get a little more structure and formalized processes in place for estimating,” he says.
Kruse adds that scheduling is the most important skill that selfmanagers should learn. “The schedule
is the live-or-die document because schedule drives cost, right? If you can reduce that duration, you reduce the overall project cost,” he says. “If you're monitoring and controlling your schedule, you're going to do better at monitoring and controlling your costs. And your quality is going to be there because you're going to be able to assess where you need to prioritize your resources.”
Paths and Pitfalls
Kruse can look with pride upon the clinic built on Little Diomede Island in 2019 and the replacement Norton Sound Regional Hospital
built in Nome in 2013, both of which he had a hand in. Kruse studied construction engineering in Montana and worked for a contractor, gaining experience that many of his Arcadis colleagues share.
“A lot of our team comes from a construction background, whether they were doing framing or mechanical installs or things like that. They got used to working on construction projects, and then they end up turning into really good managers because they've seen how the batter is made, so to speak, and they can find the pitfalls in construction,” Kruse says.
Phillips likewise worked for a major contractor, and then he became an estimations manager at BP. His colleague, IPS President Sagen Juliussen, was at ConocoPhillips, and they both learned that bigger isn’t always better. Phillips laughs as he recalls, “When we went from working for a contractor to major oil and gas company, we thought we'd be seeing this the holy grail of tools and stuff. And what we found was quite the opposite.”
Phillips and Juliussen are now certified project management professionals and estimating professionals, and they’ve worked for a gamut of companies from the North Slope to Valdez, “doesn't matter if it's an oil and gas producer, a refinery, the Alaska Railroad, the [US] Department of Defense, a
private corporation that has XYZ as their business,” Philips says. “We've seen enough of it that we know how we can adapt and understand what they're looking for pretty quick and then be able to respond and meet that in the format they want, whether it's coding or specific training.”
Coding is a niche for Nu Solutions, where managed IT is part of the service package. Lovelace, who
earned a construction management degree in Michigan, says, “I got really passionate about trying to help businesses implement technology, being able to use the tools out there to help manage projects better. In Alaska, it seemed like a lot of that was being outsourced to companies in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.”
His goal for Nu Solutions, a “small boutique operation” with ten full-
time staff, is to keep those tech-heavy contracts in Alaska.
An even smaller boutique, Niezek Consulting is a one-person shop. Niezek came to the field from the architecture side, even working an internship with a New York City developer on a high-rise. She realized that an architect’s plans must yield to budgets and schedules. “How it’s built becomes way more important, and that’s what ends up lasting, regardless of what the designer had in mind,” says Niezek. So she switched to the practical side of construction.
Menu of Options
Architects, engineers, interior designers, contractors, and subcontractors are all part of the team, and so are support service providers. “There are so many parts
and pieces of any construction project that there’s plenty of room to outsource the very specific pieces and let someone else manage the big picture,” Niezek says.
Sometimes engineering firms will engage support services themselves. Phillips says, “We have engineering clients that hire us, not because they don't have that capability, but that capability may not be specialized for oil and gas, federal type stuff.” Some owners may require Primavera P6 schedules, he notes, and not every general contractor or full-service engineering firm will invest in that software.
Arcadis is an engineering firm with a project management division. Kruse notes that most of his colleagues are project managers, so the firm can offer those services separate from engineering contracts. “If there's a need for a secondary design review, we've got resources that do that. We have cost estimating resources that could come in,” Kruse says. “We give a menu of options on what we're going to provide.”
Consultations can even precede engineering. Juliussen says, “A lot of times our biggest value for customers quite often is early conceptual feasibility stages where they have done very little to no engineering, and they want us to come in and give an opinion on cost and planning of it. We are able to fill the gaps pretty easily without having to have engineering get further down the road.”
Phillips adds, “Because we've been kind of anchored in the construction side and our background is construction, we can work in
“A lot of times our biggest value for customers quite often is early conceptual feasibility stages where they have done very little to no engineering, and they want us to come in and give an opinion on cost and planning of it.”
Sagen Juliussen President Integra ted Project Services
that environment. A lot of times we can bring constructability to the conversation.”
When the Job Is Done
Construction is seasonal, but consultants have year-round work. Niezek says, “On a large project, during the off season you’re planning for the next phase. That’s when you’re creating the schedules for the next phase, figuring out what needs to happen. And you’re getting subcontractors under contract, doing a lot of stuff to
get ready for construction season. Once construction starts, you’re in the monitoring phase, tracking things as they go along.”
Support services consulting almost sells itself—for clients who understand what they need. “Really what it comes down to is implementing earned value management, and that's what the big corporations and the owners’ groups are looking for,” says Juliussen. “General contractors are realizing that if they're not implementing earned value management principles in their daily processes, they're starting to get left behind in the marketplace.”
He adds that distinguishing IPS from other consultants is getting easier for construction veterans like Phillips and himself. “We're the dinosaurs that are still alive,” Juliussen says.
Robots are coming to replace the dinosaurs, however, and Lovelace is helping. “We’re working directly with Oracle as a software developer, taking previous plans as models to do predictive planning in the future,” he says, so that AI tools can shoulder some of consultants’ mental load. He compares it to computer-aided design that draftsmen have been using since the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Whenever that product is released, one feature it will not boast is the motivation that project managers have when they behold the concrete manifestation of a job well done, whether it’s a North Slope production module or a family playground. Phillips says, “Being able to go back and see your work is always a reminder to make sure that you do your best work.”
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We are grateful for the support of our many business partners who have helped our family-owned company grow for 65 years to serve more Alaskans in more communities. Together, we will continue delivering great value to our customers.
Herring Fishery Heralds Spring
A bait, gourmet, and traditional catch
To ward the end of March, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) biologists head skyward in a spotter plane to look for the milky signs of milt that signal spring and the start of sac roe and spawn-onkelp herring season in Southeast. Spotters report the length of the milt, which can extend for miles, and the number of predators about.
“Typically, sac roe and spawn-onkelp fisheries occur in the spring— in March, April, and May—with
By Dimitra Lavrakas
fisheries occurring later as you move north in the state,” says Acting Director of Commercial Fisheries Forrest Bowers. “Timing depends on herring spawn occurrence, which usually occurs earlier in warmer springs and later in colder springs. Food and bait fisheries typically occur in the winter from October through February. Specific openings are established through emergency order.”
Herring has a variety of uses: the Pacific herring, Clupea pallasii,
fishery has gone from an Alaska Native communal management of local use of fish eggs to a for-profit industry to sell herring as bait, oil, or fish meal on the open market. The different targeted herring products make this fishery more complex than any other in Alaska.
Small Fish, Smaller Fishery
When herring season opens, a flurry of boats jockey for position with gunwales cheek-to-jowl and nets bobbing side to side. Compared
Alaska Department of Fish and Game
to Alaska’s other commercial harvests, however, the herring fishery is more modest.
Unlike the pollock fishery, where Alaska produces more than half the fish caught in US waters for an average wholesale value of nearly $4.5 billion a year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, herring are practically a footnote.
The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s most recent report on the economic value of Alaska’s seafood lumps herring with the 2 percent of “other species” by volume and value contributing to the $6 billion industry in 2022. The “other” tonnage is on par with crab or halibut, but those harvests are each more valuable.
The herring fishery has been up and down for decades. The greatest fluctuation in its fifty-year recorded history are the years 1996 and 1997, when 1996’s haul was 112 million pounds worth $60 million and, even though the 1997 harvest volume increased somewhat, it was only worth $18 million. Decades later, the fishery is still depressed: the fleet fell from a high of 227 vessel permit holders in 1994 to a low of 60 in 2024.
In 2023, the harvest of 33.7 million pounds of herring was worth $12.5 million, about the same value as a year earlier despite the 94.1 million pound harvest in 2022.
Catch price is determined by canneries, processors, and tenders, but one major factor was the crash of king crab in 2021 and snow crab in 2022. Crabbers use herring as bait, so what happens in one fishery ripples to the other.
“Some herring fisheries are not opened due to low stock abundance and others do not occur because there are no buyers available,” says Bowers. “Not all of these fisheries occur annually because in some years herring biomass does not meet minimum thresholds to open fisheries or there is no interest in purchasing herring in the area,” says Bowers.
Fortunately for bait fishermen, crabbing reopened last fall.
Sound Population
Herring themselves are comfortably plentiful, more than fishers can easily land. Last year, the Sitka Sound spawning population was composed of unusual overlapping pulses of returning 8-year-old and 4-yearold fish. ADF&G forecast more than 800 million pounds of mature herring, resulting in the highest ever allowable catch for Sitka Sound seiners, at 160 million pounds. The estimate was high, with the actual return about half the size. Yet even a more realistic harvest limit would’ve been more than enough: forty-seven permit holders managed to catch abou t 25 million pounds.
This year, the allowable harvest is half the size, at 73.4 million pounds. ADF&G Sitka Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis expected fishers to catch about 2 million pounds per day during t he two-week opening.
Dupuis says herring numbers are “robust. The future of the fishery is going to be market driven, not biomass driven.”
Instead of the five processors that bought herring in Sitka last year, only two are processing the catch this season: Silver Bay Seafoods and Icy Strait Seafoods. Consequently, ADF&G was preparing to not publish harvest data.
“Because we will have less than three processors this year, I think this is the first time ever in the history of the Sitka Sound Sac Roe herring fishery, but because of the number of processors, harvest data will be confidential from this year,” Dupuis said during a briefing in March. “That’s state law. There’s no way around it. I wish it were different sometimes, but harvest information will be confidential this year.”
By law, the state can only release confidential fish ticket data only if more than three entities are involved in the fishery.
Then things changed. “Because there were only two processors, both agreed to release the fishery’s data,” says Dupuis.
Fishery managers determine the timing of the Sitka Sound herring opening, usually down to days or even hours before the main spawning event.
On April 1, the aerial survey in Sitka Sound found that, since March 22, a cumulative total of approximately 86.3 nautical miles of herring spawn was observed in Sitka Sound.
The practice for the past two decades has been for commercial seiners to harvest up to 20 percent of the spawning population. The diminished fleet could scarcely hit that cap, and the Alaska Board of Fisheries seriously considered a
15 percent cap at its meeting in Ketchikan in February—but not because of physical limitations.
Subsistence harvesters have called for tighter limits on the commercial catch, and recent Canadian studies suggest a 20 percent harvest rate might be too high for some herring stocks. Based on ADF&G data, Sitka’s herring population has grown, and state biologists are checking if the Canadian research is valid.
Across the State
Kodiak also has a robust herring fishery, but previously the fish could not be harvested during the sac roe season. That changed in March, when the Alaska Board of Fisheries extended the Kodiak herring fishery and split it into separate seasons, for sac roe and for food and bait.
The commercial fishery for Kodiak herring is now nearly yearround. The sac roe season has three distinct periods which will not overlap with the food and bait fishery, which have openings in late October through November and January through February.
Last year, no fishermen or buyers participated in the Kodiak sac roe fishery, despite near-record biomass levels. This year's harvest level is 14.5 million pounds for the thirteen districts around Kodiak Island.
Alaska’s largest roe herring fishery is centered on Togiak in Bristol Bay. The roe herring harvest quota at Togiak was set at 82.3 million pounds. However, processors indicated they would not accept Togiak roe herring this season. Lack of buyers also halted the Togiak herring fishery for the previous two years. Bowers explains,
A herring boat lays its net during a herring opening.
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute
Sitka Tribal members harvest herring eggs on hemlock branches.
Sitka Tribe of Alaska
Herring eggs collected by the Sitka Tribe of Alaska are either distributed directly to tribal citizens and their households or processed and made into food dishes shared at community events throughout the year.
Sitka Tribe of Alaska
“Traditionally the largest market for herring in Alaska is for a sac roe product. That market has declined over the last couple of decades, and current sac roe market demand can be fulfilled by harvest in one or two fisheries per year. For example, in 2025, the only sac roe fishery to occur was in Sitka Sound.”
Highly prized in Japan as kazunoko, the roe sacs or egg skeins are harvested from female herring. The carcasses, and any males, are relatively worthless, either discarded or ground into feed for fish farms. As much as 88 percent of Pacific herring tonnage is never consumed by humans.
Even the roe sacs have lost value. Herring roe sold for more than $0.50 per pound in the ‘90s, but tastes have
changed in Japan, driving prices to as little as $.10 per pound.
Product Revitalization
Reliance on the Japanese market has ingrained habits in the herring fishery. The largest share of each year’s returns is allocated for the roe harvest, as Japanese customers had been demanding for the last fifty years.
“Alaska’s herring roe fisheries have declined in value since the 1990s. The regulatory structure was designed to support a majority of the harvest for herring roe. To facilitate higher value markets and uses for herring, regulatory structures must change,” Board of Fisheries chair John Wood said last year, when the board created a Herring Revitalization Committee.
Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute
Food Aid Program and Development Director Bruce Schactler testified, “To change the options and direction for such underutilized Alaska herring, management must change to allow harvest to take place when the herring are past their spawning phase, and into the high fat or better/ different stage of life when the fish’s nutritional profile is comparable to all other uses of this valuable State of Alaska resource.”
Other countries enjoy herring smoked or pickled, and Alaskans also harvest herring for subsistence, including eggs plucked from kelp. The revitalization committee is meant to consider changes to seasons and amounts of the various herring fisheries.
The Winning Strategy: Combine Print and Digital
By Janis Plume, Senior Account Manager
“Don’t put all your eggs into one basket,” applies to advertising as much as other aspects of life. It certainly applies to B2B advertising campaigns. For example, reinforcing your print ad campaign with digital ad components amplifies your success.
Adding digital components to your campaign with Alaska Business could mean upgrading your print ad to a responsive ad in our digital edition or advertising on akbizmag. com with a banner ad or a Spotlight Digital Profile. Here are some “eggs” to consider to enhance your advertising campaign’s effectiveness.
Increasing Frequency: Running digital ads in conjunction with print increases your message’s frequency, keeping your brand and message top-of-mind for prospective customers. A Spotlight Digital Profile on our website gives you 24/7/365 exposure and
additional opportunities for clients to find you online.
Reinforcing Key Messages: Digital ads reiterate the messages from print ads, further strengthening the delivery of key points, benefits, and offers. This dual-prong approach increases the chance that your target audience receives and remembers your message.
Targeting Key Industry Sectors: In addition to ads on our homepage, akbizmag.com offers twenty-seven Industry Pages, ranging from Alaska Native to Transportation. This allows you to select appropriate and relevant business sectors to target with digital advertising. All web advertisers also receive bonus “run of site” impressions throughout akbizmag.com.
Attracting Digital-First Audiences: Many younger decision-making business professionals are digitally oriented. Combining print and digital advertising increases your chance of connecting with modern and traditional audiences. Fifteen
percent of our readers now consume our magazine via the digital edition. Upgrade your print ad to include a responsive ad in the digital edition to capture this audience. Your advertising should aim to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. Combining print’s tangible credibility with digital advertising’s immediacy can significantly enhance your ad campaign’s overall impact and ROI with Alaska Business.
If you’re interested in how Alaska Business can help your business grow with print and digital advertising, drop us a line. We’d be happy to assist with making sure your advertising “eggs” are in the right baskets.
On a crisp summer weekday morning, Anchorage lawyer Josh Ahsoak wades into the Kenai River, casting his line in search of salmon. By 7:30
Remote Work, Remote Play
Digital connections reshape working vacations and visitor opportunities
By Maria Benner
a.m., he’s back in his rented Airbnb, brewing a fresh pot of coffee and logging onto a Zoom hearing. He spends the day balancing legal work with quick fishing breaks,
extending his weekend getaway into a workweek retreat.
“I often rent Airbnbs for fishing during the summer and frequently work remotely,” Ahsoak says.
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| Envato
“As long as I have a table, chair, and an internet connection, I can meet my work obligations and extend my fishing time.”
Remote workers are more likely to report feeling happy compared to onsite workers, citing benefits such as better work-life balance, less stress, and increased focus. Ahsoak’s experience is part of a global shift. The COVID-19 pandemic normalized remote work, giving professionals newfound freedom to work from anywhere.
As a result, many travel destinations have rebranded themselves as digital nomad hotspots, offering long-stay incentives and reliable WiFi in para dise-like settings.
Faraway Examples
Countries like Portugal, Thailand, and Costa Rica have introduced digital nomad visas, enticing remote workers to stay for months rather than days. For example, the Portugal D8 Visa is designed specifically for remote workers and freelancers who earn income from outside Portugal, and it allows for a temporary stay of up to one year with the possibility of renewal.
In the United States, Montana and Hawai'i have actively promoted themselves as remote work destinations, banking on their scenic landscapes and outdoor lifestyles. Hawai'i launched initiatives like the Hawai'i Remote Work Pilot Project, which connects residents with remote work opportunities through partnerships with organizations and the local American Job Center. The Montana
“Being able to make coffee, breakfast, lunch, and snacks makes working remotely much easier… Wake up at 5 a.m., hit the river for two hours, then back in time for my 8 a.m. meetings.”
Josh Ahsoak,
Associate Attorney, DeLisio, Mor an, Geraghty & Zobel
Department of Labor and Industry, in collaboration with Montana State University Extension, introduced the Remote Work Certificate Program. This program equips participants with essential skills for remote employment, freelance work, and ecommerce, aiming to expand remote work opportunities in Big Sky Country.
Alaska is an ultimate bucketlist destination, known for its wilderness, wildlife, and adventure tourism. However, visiting often requires extensive planning, high travel costs, and a short summer window. Most tourists cram their itineraries into a standard two- to three-week vacation. If remote work enabled visitors to extend their stays, Alaska’s tourism industry could see an economic boost.
No Nomads, Not Yet
Jack Bonney, vice president of communications at Visit Anchorage, observes that Alaska’s largest city is seeing vacationers express a desire to stay longer. “The increasing length of stay could hint at remote workers,” Bonney says, “but may primarily be a function of travelers really aiming to understand the place and explore like a local.”
Some business owners say they haven’t noticed a shift in traveler behavior. Unlike digital nomad hubs with abundant coworking spaces and fiber-optic internet, Alaska’s rugged terrain imposes barriers to connectivity. While cities like Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau offer reliable broadband, much of Alaska remains off-grid. Limited broadband access in rural
areas, seasonal constraints, and the high cost of travel work against Alaska becoming a digital nomad haven. Alaska’s seasonality, with a peak summer window followed by extreme winter conditions, further impedes long-stay tourism, compared to places with year-round appeal. At least for now.
Christina Kirkwood, marketing director and operations manager of Kennicott Glacier Lodge in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, confirms that connectivity issues have kept her lodge from becoming a remotework-friendly destination. “So far, we have not seen any changes in terms of people staying longer because they can work remotely,” Kirkwood says. “Our nightly rates and limited access to WiFi/cell service will likely
Unai82
Envato
limit the use of our lodge as a base for remote work.”
Similarly, Pamela Manderson, general manager at Anchoragebased luxury vacation operator Alaska Private Touring, notes that, “while connectivity does come up occasionally during initial conversations in the sales process, it’s usually on behalf of high-level executives rather than younger travelers.”
Adapting to Attract
Some adventurous travelers have found workarounds. A Reddit user by the name of patrick_schliesing describes working remotely on the Kenai Peninsula. “When the fishing runs happen in the summer and we want to be more mobile to chase the fish, we leverage Starlink
and AT&T to work remote from the Kenai Peninsula out of our RV camper trailer,” he says.
Satellite internet solutions like Starlink are slowly closing the connectivity gap, but coverage isn’t universal. Many tourism businesses in Alaska’s remote areas still struggle to offer reliable WiFi, limiting their ability to attract long-stay visitors on working vacations. At Alaska Private Touring, Manderson says that, while connectivity is a consideration, it has not significantly changed the length of bookings.
While some tourism operators remain skeptical, others are adapting to attract long-term visitors. Hotels and lodges in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, where broadband is strong, are beginning to market remote-work-friendly
accommodations. Extended-stay hotels and vacation rentals equipped with WiFi, workspaces, and kitchens appeal to professionals looking to blend work with adventure.
Ahsoak enjoys having a kitchen while he’s lawyering from the riverbank. “Being able to make coffee, breakfast, lunch, and snacks makes working remotely much easier,” he says. “Wake up at 5 a.m., hit the river for two hours, then back in time for my 8 a.m. meetings.”
Coworking spaces are also emerging in urban hubs. Anchorage and Juneau now have shared office spaces catering to remote professionals. While they haven’t seen a major influx of digital nomads, they provide options for long-term visitors who need reliable workspaces.
Cities like Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks already have shared office spaces, but expanding this concept to tourism-heavy areas such as Girdwood, Seward, and Homer could make it easier for remote workers to stay productive while traveling.
Advice for Action
If Alaska wants to compete with other remote work destinations, it may need to actively market itself as a long-stay-friendly state. In the meantime, businesses in connected areas can attract digital nomads by offering strong WiFi, workspaces, and extended-stay incentives. As remote work continues to evolve, Alaska’s tourism industry has the potential to adapt and grow, despite the shift remaining subtle for now.
Many digital nomads prefer to travel during off-seasons to avoid crowds, take advantage of lower prices, and experience destinations at a slower pace. For Alaska, this presents a unique opportunity to extend tourism beyond the summer peak and into the shoulder seasons, spring and fall, when businesses typically see a downturn in visitors. If Alaska were to market itself as a remote-work-friendly destination, it could encourage professionals to visit during these quieter months.
With fewer tourists on the trails, at national parks, and in downtown areas, remote workers could enjoy a more relaxed experience while still benefiting from the state’s natural beauty. Shoulder seasons in Alaska also offer distinct seasonal perks: spring brings longer daylight hours, wildlife emerging from hibernation, and early wildflower blooms, while fall offers stunning foliage, fewer mosquitoes, and prime opportunities for northern lights viewing.
For tourism businesses, attracting long-term visitors during the offseason could provide a muchneeded financial cushion. Hotels and lodges that typically struggle
with occupancy in the spring and fall could offer extended-stay discounts for remote workers. Tour operators could create flexible work-and-adventure packages, where travelers can book weekday excursions around their remote work schedules. Restaurants and coffee shops, often reliant on summer tourism, could adjust their offerings to accommodate a more consistent, year-round customer base.
Moreover, the state’s winter economy—which largely revolves around skiing, aurora tourism, and local events—could benefit from digital nomads willing to brave the colder months. If remote workers were incentivized to stay longer, they could help sustain businesses that often struggle in the off-season. However, challenges like seasonal road closures and limited access to services in more remote areas would need to be addressed.
Higher-Level Help
To capitalize on the rise of remote work, Alaska could introduce official digital nomad incentives, similar to what other states and countries have done. These initiatives could encourage remote workers to stay longer and contribute to local economies, particularly in regions outside major cities.
One approach would be financial incentives, such as relocation stipends or extended-stay discounts. Some states, like West Virginia and Oklahoma, offer up to $12,000 for remote workers to move there for a year. West Virginia’s Ascend program offers equal monthly payments totaling $12,000 to
professionals who move there for two years. The Tulsa Remote program in Oklahoma offers remote workers $10,000 after they move to Tulsa and rent or purchase a home. While Alaska may not need to go that far, it could provide travel reimbursements, discounted lodging rates, or tax incentives for remote professionals who commit to staying a certain amount of time.
Another option is seasonal work permits for remote workers. Some countries have introduced digital nomad visas that allow professionals to live and work abroad while maintaining employment elsewhere. While the United States does not yet have such a visa, Alaska could explore a state-level initiative to encourage long-term stays. This could involve partnerships with local businesses that offer work-friendly accommodations, or even a pilot
program that grants extended visitor stays in exchange for a commitment to spending locally.
Coworking hubs and improved infrastructure could further support digital nomads. Cities like Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks already have shared office spaces, but expanding this concept to tourism-heavy areas such as Girdwood, Seward, and Homer could make it easier for remote workers to stay productive while traveling. Investments in broadband expansion, especially in areas with lodging and outdoor attractions, would be crucial. Some lodges and RV parks are already integrating Starlink to provide better connectivity.
Finally, Alaska could launch a targeted marketing campaign to attract digital nomads, like Montana’s, Hawai'i’s, West Virginia’s, and Oklahoma’s efforts. Promoting
the state’s natural beauty, adventure opportunities, and lack of a state income tax could appeal to remote workers looking for a scenic change of pace. Events like “Remote Work in Alaska” retreats or seasonal workand-adventure programs could further encourage extended stays.
Is remote work changing the way people experience Alaska? For now, not significantly. While some locals take advantage of remote work to extend their fishing weekends, most tourism operators haven’t seen a broad shift toward long-term travel from out-of-state travelers. While Alaska may not yet be a top-tier digital nomad destination, with the right infrastructure and incentives, it has the potential to attract a steady flow of remote workers, particularly during the shoulder seasons when their economic impact would be most valuable.
Farknot
Envato
THE SAFETY CORNER
The Continually Emerging Risk of Wildfire
Preparing
for a potentially historic summer
By Sean Dewalt
Wildfire exposure in Alaska has been an emerging risk for more than two decades. With lengthening fire seasons, more properties being constructed in the urban and wildland interface, and increasing seasonal warming, the risk wildfires pose to property owners and commercial insurance companies is enormous. Multiplied by a hardening property reinsurance market and an estimated $275 billion in losses from the catastrophic California fires in January 2025, Alaskans should become more proactive and take actions to reduce the frequency and severity of these property losses.
Natural Element
In Alaska, fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. Due to this, nearly 271 million acres of Alaska are classified as having “limited” fire management options, meaning wildfires are a low priority for firefighting resource allocation and can function in their natural ecological role. On average, 1 million acres burn in Alaska each year, and the wildfire season has been gradually growing longer over time. Reburn and holdover fires appear to be increasing, while the return interval, or time between fires in a specific area, is decreasing. Over the past forty years, the first large fire of the season has started earlier, and the last large fire has started later. As a result, Alaska fire managers changed the official start date of the fire season in 2006 from May 1 to April 1.
There is a current debate in Alaska among meteorologists, foresters, and other risk and safety professionals about whether snow on the ground has a direct correlation to the subsequent fire season. According to Norman McDonald, deputy director of fire protection for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, there is a correlation, primarily between an early start to the fire season and reduced moisture in the duff layer, earlier than in a normal spring. An early snow-free period allows surface and duff fuels (organic debris just below the forest floor) more time to dry, making them more susceptible to fires. However, significant rainfall in June can q uickly reduce these
risks. Additionally, the largest fire acreage in Alaska tends to be in El Niño summers, reinforcing the correlation between fire seasons and weather trends.
In 2015, the weather in Alaska was dramatic, with record-breaking warmth, wildfires, and flooding. Anchorage, Homer, Ketchikan, Kodiak, and Kotzebue had their second warmest year on record, while Juneau had its warmest year in more than seventy years. May was the warmest month on record in the Interior. Spring 2015 was the fourth warmest on record, with winter precipitation below average, including more rain than snow. Ketchikan experienced flooding in January, and freezing rain affected parts of the state during January and February.
Subsequently, the summer of 2015 was one of the busiest fire seasons ever recorded in Alaska, with 5.1 million acres burned, making it the second largest on record. The fire peaked between mid-June and midJuly, driven by a low snowpack, an unusually warm spring, and pregreened fuels that were extremely dry. The snow melted up to three weeks earlier than usual in some areas. Although rain showers kept fire activity near normal levels through the middle of June, a heatwave in late June, with temperatures reaching 80°F, quickly dried surface fuels. Human-caused fires began midmonth, starting with the Sockeye Fire near Willow and the Card Street Fire near Sterling. A week-long lightning event, with more than 12,000 strikes daily for three days, sparked nearly 300 fires. By the end of June, 3.5 million acres had burned.
How Does This Year Compare?
The winter of 2024/2025, a La Niña year, saw much lower-thannormal snow accumulation across large parts of Alaska. This left dry grasses and fine fuels exposed to the sun, creating a landscape primed for ignition much earlier than usual. With the US Climate Prediction Center forecasting warmer-than-normal temperatures for spring and early summer, this wildfire season could be one for the books.
The fire season typically begins with the “wind-driven” phase, which occurs between winter snowmelt and mid-June. During this phase, dry grasses serve as fuel, and most fires are human caused. Due to the lack of winter snowfall, the fire phase started early this year. In March, the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection determined that “weather conditions, including warm temperatures and low snowpack across specific areas of Alaska, raise the risk of wildland fire ahead of the statutorily designated fire season.”
The state forester determined that the fire season began on March 17, 2025; therefore, burn permits were required in designated areas.
Less than a week later, several human-caused grass fires in Kenai and Anchorage kicked off what could be a serious wildfire season.
On March 13, two Kenai wildfires resulted from property owners’ failure to control burn piles, with the Scout Lake fire blamed on five unattended burn piles smoldering into the wildland. Two weeks later, the Anchorage Fire Department responded to a fast-moving
grass fire at Carr-Gottstein Park, which threatened nearby homes overlooking the shore of Turnagain Arm. According to the Anchorage Fire Department, a backpack containing fireworks was found at the scene, leading investigators to believe the grass fire was likely started by juveniles with fireworks. Additionally, more than a dozen wildfires were reported in homeless camps within the city in March. These incidents illustrate the early-season wildfire exposures that bring a serious risk to large property in the region.
Later Phases
The duff-driven season, occurring between mid-June and mid-July, follows the springtime wind-driven phase. During this time, humancaused fires continue to occur, and lightning-caused fires become more frequent in the Interior. June is traditionally a drier month across the state, with high solar radiation drying multiple ground layers, increasing the susceptibility for ignition.
Mid-July to mid-August is the cumulative drought season and is characterized by the driest fuel conditions across all ground layers. Lightning strikes remain frequent, with more than 19,000 strikes recorded in a 24-hour period in 2023. Fire resistance to control and extinguishment are high during this time, and the season’s length depends on rainfall. If dry, the season can extend into August, but quenching rains can shorten the season.
The diurnal-driven season, which runs from mid-August to September, is driven by lightning
and human-caused fires, with fire burn susceptibility influenced by previous weather conditions. This season ends quickly as solar radiation decreases, with September’s first snowfalls and freeze substantially reducing fire risks.
Proactive Property Protection
Property owners in the wildland/ urban interface should take proactive steps to reduce the probability and severity of wildfires. These geographical areas, where human development meets undeveloped wildlands, require extra vigilance and planning in relation to wildfires. This begins with fire prevention and assessing the property for exposures that contribute to fire ignition, such as discarded smoking materials, campfires, burn barrels, sparks from vehicles, power equipment and tools, and improperly stored flammable items. It is critical to ensure that policies and procedures are developed to mitigate these exposures and educate anyone using the property about the risks of ignition. In addition, a readiness and evacuation plan should be created and implemented for all properties, and the plan should include provisions for visitors, transportation, and emergency supplies. Plans should be shared with local authorities, tested for adequacy and effectiveness, and reviewed annually before wildfire season.
Wildfire takes fuel to spread, so reducing fuels on the property is essential for reducing the wildfire risk. Creating a defensible space— typically a 100-foot buffer where
Property owners who ignore the loss control recommendations for fuels mitigation and other wildfire risk reducing strategies may struggle to secure insurance coverage, as insurers are moving away from underwriting wildfire-exposed properties that don’t meet minimum riskreduction strategies.
vegetation is managed—helps protect structures and allows firefighters to respond effectively. Insurance companies have long recommended fuels reduction and defensible spaces around properties, and these recommendations and onsite property inspections are increasing in wildland–urban interface areas. Property owners who ignore the loss control recommendations for fuels mitigation and other wildfire risk reducing strategies may struggle to secure insurance coverage, as insurers are moving away from underwriting wildfire-exposed properties that don’t meet minimum risk-reduction strategies.
Community Preparedness
Wildfire resiliency requires a proactive approach that includes community preparedness and planning, fire-resistant building materials, and strategic landscaping. In Alaska, efforts are underway to create, enhance, and maintain Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) throughout the state. CWPPs are collaborative strategies that are developed with the participation of residents, businesses, community leaders, land managers, and fire personnel. The plans outline measures to protect people, property, and natural and cultural resources by reducing wildfire risk. Key components of the plan include hazardous fuels reduction, public education, structural ignitability mitigation, and improved fire response. CWPPs act as living documents that will help guide local governments and landowners in making informed decisions about wildfire preparation and management. While these plans will never completely eliminate the wildfire risk, their proper application and implementation can greatly reduce the frequency and severity of wildfires.
Communities are encouraged to become an Alaska Firewise Community, which is a partnership among local, state, federal, and private entities that is aimed at promoting fire safety in the wildlandurban interface. The Firewise Communities program equips residents with the knowledge and skills to reduce wildfire risk and enhance community protection. In addition, Community Wildfire Defense
Grants from the US Forest Service are available to assist at-risk local communities, governments, tribes, nonprofits, state forestry agencies, and Alaska Native corporations. These grants provide up to $250,000 to create and update CWPPs or conduct outreach, and up to $10 million for associated infrastructure and resilience projects.
Built-in Defenses
Another key aspect of wildfire resiliency in the wildland–urban interface is building design and construction. Using fire-resistant building materials—such as metal siding and roofing, fire-rated windows, and treated wood—can significantly reduce wildfire damage. Additionally, ember-resistant vents help by allowing airflow while
blocking embers and flames. Since wood fencing can spread fire, replacing it with a metal or other fire-resistant option is strongly recommended. For new construction or renovations, incorporating these materials could not only improve a building’s chances of surviving a wildfire but also enhance insurability and reduce the risk of fire spreading between homes.
Adding supplemental water sources—such as tanks, cisterns, bladders, and rain barrels—is a smart wildfire preparedness measure. Some large property owners in Alaska have even purchased highcapacity water tanks and mobile tankers to support firefighting efforts. Staging extra fire extinguishers, both inside and outside of the home, is also highly recommended.
Interagency Efforts
The Alaska Interagency Coordination Center, which is based at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks, coordinates resources, logistics, and predictive services for all state and federal agencies involved in wildfire management across Alaska. The center operates with partners including the US Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, US Forest Service, National Park Service, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. To strengthen wildfire response, the State of Alaska has made significant investments, including the 2024 “critical incentive pay” for wildland firefighters to aid recruitment and retention. The state is also strategically positioning resources
CIVIL | ENVIRONMENTAL | SURVEYING
ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES
& Regulatory Compliance
Wetlands Jurisdictional Determination Report
Wastewater Treatment System Design & Permitting
Drinking & Storm Water System Design & Permitting
Spill Prevention, Response & Site Remediation
Spill Prevention Control & Countermeasure Plans (SPCC)
Water Sample Testing & Analylis • Septic System Design & Testing
Percolation & Sample Analysis • Commercial Site Development
Subdivision Design & Platting • Right of Way/Easements
and leveraging partnerships to boost operational efficiency.
In 2024, the Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection led CWPP efforts in the Copper River, Delta, and Tok areas, while supporting planning in the Denali Borough, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Nenana, Tetlin, and Anchorage. These efforts included financial support, strategic planning, partnerships, and public outreach. As McDonald notes, “We are doing this to help protect communities and prevent Alaskans from facing the same largescale, destructive fires that are seen in the Lower 48. Working together with all land management agencies on hazardous fuel reduction is a priority of the state.”
Preventing large, catastrophic wildfire losses will take more than these noble efforts alone. While lightning cannot be controlled or prevented, tools like fuel reduction, resiliency, and community planning can be highly effective if funded
and implemented correctly. Many resources about wildfire planning, prevention, and preparedness are available online or by calling the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Real Risks
The greatest challenges in wildfire prevention lie in managing human behavior, which is inherently harder to control. In Southcentral, the highest wildfire risks come from homeless campfires, careless or illegal burning, and the illegal use of fireworks. Despite the danger, fireworks violations are often purposefully overlooked, with laws being unenforced and complaints by residents ignored. One stark example is the 1996 Miller’s Reach Fire near Big Lake, which burned 37,300 acres, destroyed 454 structures, and cost $16.5 million to extinguish. Property losses exceeded $15 million, and investigators were reasonably
certain the fire was caused by illegal fireworks.
Real wildfire risks demand real accountability. To change atrisk behaviors, there must be renewed focus on and meaningful consequences for those who break the laws. Sociological studies, political posturing, and community meetings alone won’t prevent what could become Alaska’s worst fire season. The time to act is now—not later. If you see smoke or fire, always report it immediately. Early detection can make the difference between a small fire and a major disaster.
Sean Dewalt is a Senior Loss Control Consultant for Umialik Insurance Company in Anchorage. Dewalt has been working in safety and risk management in Alaska since 2000. This column is intended to be informational and is not intended to be construed as legal advice.
The Riley Fire burned 432 acres near Healy in July 2024. Riley Creek Campground and some local trails were closed until 137 firefighters managed to contain it.
National Park Service
INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS
Silver Bay Seafoods
Sitka-based Silver Bay Seafoods, in partnership with Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, acquired rival seafood processor OBI Seafoods. The takeover covers plants in Petersburg, Cordova, Seward, Kodiak, Larsen Bay, Naknek, Egegik, and Wood River, as well as a warehouse in Kent, Washington. OBI was formed by the 2020 merger of Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods. Silver Bay is acquiring Icicle’s stakes in OBI; Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation acquired half the stakes in Ocean Beauty Seafoods in 2007. Silver Bay is a fishermen-owned company that operates thirteen plants in Alaska an d on the West Coast. silverbayseafoods.com
Aleut | SpinLaunch
Rockets are so 20th century; the new hotness, according to orbital aspirants SpinLaunch, is flinging payloads into space with a hypersonic centrifuge. The California-based startup announced in April that it finalized a lease agreement with Alaska Native regional corporation Aleut to assess the development of a satellite launch facility on Adak Island, repurposing some former US Navy infrastructure. SpinLaunch has accelerated suborbital payloads up to 5,000 miles per hour with a test launcher in New Mexico; the
Adak facility, if built, would be three times as large, a centrifuge as wide as a football field. aleutcorp.com | spinlaunch.com
Doyon, Ltd. | Huna Totem Corporation
The tourism joint venture between Doyon, Limited and Huna Totem Corporation is buying Portage Glacier Cruises. The acquisition is the third Na-Dena` investment since the joint venture was formed. In 2022, NaDena` acquired an 80 percent stake in Alaska Independent Coach Tours, and a partnership with Klawock Heenya Corporation the following year developed a cruise ship destination on Klawock Island, which welcomed its first ships in 2024. Huna Totem already has a foothold in the Portage Glacier area, investing in the Chugach Glacier Gateway cruise ship terminal on the other side of the tunnel to Whittier. Separate from the joint venture, Huna Totem also received a waterfront lease from the City and Borough of Juneau in April to develop a fifth cruise ship dock in the capital city by 2027. doyon.com/na-dena | hunatotem.com
Broadway Alaska
The curtain closed early for Broadway Alaska. The coproduction of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts and The Nederlander Organization decided to “pause” any further shows, including the return of The Lion King, after a tour stop for TINA-The Tina Turner
Musical was canceled in February. General Manager Codie Costello cited increased expenses related to deferred maintenance of the Atwood Concert Hall. Broadway Alaska formed in 2022 to bring top-flight stage shows to Anchorage, starting with Hamilton in 2023. alaskapac.org
Carrs-Safeway
From a Quonset hut in 1950, Larry Carr’s original supermarket on Gambell Street expanded into a statewide retail institution. That store is no more, shut down this spring. Carrs-Safeway cited failure to grow as a reason for the contraction. Pharmacy prescriptions were transferred to the next-closest location, the Carrs-Safeway store about 1 mile south at the Midtown Mall, one of eight locations the retailer is maintaining in Anchorage. Meanwhile, Fairview Community Council members suggest finding another grocer to serve the neighborhood from the building. carrsqc.com
Three Bears Alaska
From zero grocery stores in 2022 and 2023 (due to a roof collapse at the local IGA Food Cache), Delta Junction now has two. IGA rebuilt in 2024, at the same time Three Bears Alaska acquired a convenience store site. The Wasilla-based chain kept contractors working through the winter to renovate the property, which opened this spring as its thirty-
first location. The 28,000-square-foot store sells groceries, gas, and outdoor gear. Also this spring, the company won the 2024 Golden Carrot Award from the Alaska Grown program for supporting local produce. threebearsalaska.com
Santos | ConocoPhillips
A commercial agreement lets Santos continue using roads across the Kuparuk River Unit to reach Pikka and other prospects. A dispute arose in 2023 when Santos committed to invest in Pikka and offered ConocoPhillips $60 million for twenty years of road access; ConocoPhillips countered with $95 million, citing upkeep costs. The Alaska Department of Natural Resources awarded a permit to let Santos use the 75-mile road without paying,
and ConocoPhillips challenged the permit in court. Santos agreed to withdraw from the court case, which is still pending, and a dollar value for the maintenance agreement was not disclosed. santos.com/north-america | alaska.conocophillips.com
Graphite One
Exploration drilling shows far more recoverable graphite from a deposit north of Nome than Canadian developer Graphite One anticipated. According to the company, a deposit with 317 percent more graphite than previously measured would enable scaled-up operations without increasing fixed costs. Pending permit approval, the mine could open by 2029. graphiteoneinc.com
Great Alaskan Holidays
Motorhome maker Winnebago Industries recognized Alaska’s largest RV sales and rental company with the Flying W award as a topperforming dealer. Great Alaskan Holidays received the honor at the Recreation Vehicle Dealers Association conference in Las Vegas. “Receiving the Winnebago Flying W Award is a tremendous honor for our team and a reflection of our commitment to delivering worldclass experiences to our customers,” says Bob Johnson, director of marketing. “As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, this award reinforces our long-standing partnership with Winnebago and highlights the hard work, passion, and dedication of our entire team.” greatalaskanholidays.com
THIS ALASKA BUSINESS
From an above-ground shop on College Road in Fairbanks, Erica Moeller sells roots and other nonroot foods. Everything the Roaming Root Cellar sells is made in Alaska, earning the store two consecutive Golden Carrot awards from the Alaska Grown program.
Moeller began roaming in February 2020, distributing fresh food from a 1976 Bluebird bus. The COVID-19 pandemic soon forced a new approach, and she quickly opened a storefront.
“Our mission is to connect the community with local goodness, borne from a need for improved food security in Alaska,” Moeller says.
RIGHT MOVES
Spawn Ideas
· Kaylee Devine, formerly vice president and director of strategy at Spawn Ideas, returns to the integrated advertising agency as its new President. Devine worked as an account strategist for twelve years before leaving Spawn Ideas in 2023. Most recently, she served as senior director of marketing and communications for NANA North. Devine holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the W. P. Carey School of Business and a minor in Spanish from Arizona State University. Her return comes as Spawn Ideas, with a fifty-year history of serving clients in Anchorage, was acquired in January by employee-owned Strategic America of West Des Moines, Iowa, through its Bore Tide One Source subsidiary.
Yupiit Grant Services
· Yupiit Grant Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Akiak Native Community, promoted Sheila Carl to President, responsible for all day-to-day operations and staff, client development, service delivery, and financial performance. Carl, who is Yup’ik and a tribal member of Akiak Native Community, worked as the Tribal Administrator for more than sixteen years. Carl joined Yupiit Grant Services two years ago as the company’s Director, credited with helping to acquire its first clients.
Tlingit & Haida
· The Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska hired Holly Snowball Morales as 477 Director of Innovation and Development. Morales has represented Alaska
on the National 477 Tribal workgroup, the number referring to Public Law 102-477, the Indian Employment, Training, and Related Services Demonstration Act of 1992. Previously serving as the Deputy Operating Officer at Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Morales works from Tlingit & Haida’s Anchorage office, side-by-side with 477 Manager Jesse Parr, to lead the development and implementation of Tlingit & Haida’s 477 workforce plan. Born and raised in Anchorage, of Yup’ik and Irish descent, Morales earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational management from Alaska Pacific University.
Denali Universal Services
Denali Universal Services (DUS) promoted three leaders at its Anchorage headquarters.
· Annette Sheppard becomes Vice President of Strategy and Client Services, overseeing external relations, marketing, business development, and client engagement. Sheppard has been with DUS for eight years, most recently as director of business development and external affairs.
· Kim Sanderson is now Vice President of Facilities Operations. Sanderson oversees DUS’s facilities division, focusing on strategic planning, operational efficiency, and client relations. She has been with DUS for eleven years, previously serving as operations director.
· Corina Ovod-Everett is promoted to Vice President of Human Resources. Ovod-Everett is responsible for talent management, employee engagement, and organizational development
RIGHT MOVES IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY NORTHERN AIR CARGO
Carl
Morales
Devine
Sheppard
Sanderson
Ovod-Everett
across DUS’s Alaska and Lower 48 workforce. She has been with DUS for six years, most recently serving as director of human resources.
KPB Architects
· KPB Architects promoted Ryann Swalling, a member of the team for almost twenty years, to Associate Principal. Swalling started her career as an architectural intern and rose through the ranks. “I returned to Anchorage after earning my architecture degree with the desire to continue my family’s history in Alaska’s construction industry and to enhance our built environment for residents and visitors alike. I chose KPB Architects as the best firm to set me up to achieve that dream. Since then, KPB has given me amazing opportunities,” she says. She served as project architect on seven of the twenty-five pieces of the F-35 Beddown at Eielson Air Force Base. She was the founding vice-chair of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals Group.
R&M Consultants
· Lauren Jennings joins R&M Consultants as an Environmental Specialist in the firm’s Earth Sciences Department, responsible for National Environmental Policy Act impact analysis and document preparation, regulatory permitting, environmental field surveys, storm water management, and other office- and field-based environmental services. Jennings has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and master’s degree in geology, both from the University of Arkansas, and is a certified erosion and sediment control lead. Jennings specializes in geologic investigations through geophysics and geochemistry, cultural resource mitigation, stormwater pollution prevention, and regulatory compliance.
Coffman Engineers
· James Delaney, a corrosion control technician at Coffman Engineers in Anchorage, obtained his American Petroleum Institute (API) 653 certification as an Aboveground Storage Tank Inspector. With this certification, Delaney can perform and oversee tank inspection activities, including repair recommendations, oversight of nondestructive testing (NDT), and reports for clients. Delaney holds a bachelor’s degree in applied technology on top of an associate’s degree in welding and NDT technology from UAA.
Schwabe
·Schwabe welcomes Zach Forrester to the law firm’s Anchorage office as an Associate. Forrester is an Indian Country and Alaska Native corporation lawyer who provides strategic counsel and advocacy. He has researched and written extensively on federal Indian and tribal issues. Forrester earned his JD at Willamette University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2023, and he worked as a judicial clerk.
Landye Bennett Blumstein
· Larry B. Monsma joins Landye Bennett Blumstein as an Associate Attorney with a focus on civil litigation, construction law, insurance litigation, and liability defense. Monsma has more than twenty years of courtroom experience, conducting more than 150 criminal jury trials. Monsma earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from California State University, Long Beach, and he got his JD with honors from the John F. Kennedy University College of Law (now part of National University). He has worked for county agencies across California, the Municipality of Anchorage, and the Alaska Attorney General’s office.
Forrester
Monsma
Swalling
Jennings
Delaney
ALASKA TRENDS
Generation Z is coming to rescue the Alaska Panhandle. At least, twentysomethings are a demographic bright spot, in contrast to a gloomy population trend facing Southeast. The region lost 1 percent of its population from 2022 to 2023 (the latest year with complete data), but adults aged 20 to 29 increased by 3 percent. That’s barely more than 200 individuals; twice as many aged 15 and younger moved away from Southeast, comprising the bulk of the population decrease.
These findings come from an economic report by the Southeast Conference, a regional development organization. Since statehood, the Southeast Conference has given voice to the challenges and opportunities of Panhandle communities. Looming large as both a challenge and opportunity is the reliance on the state ferry system, as described this month in “Alaska Marine Highway Update” by Alexandra Kay. The executive director of the Southeast Conference, Robert Venables, appreciates the pivot toward greater certainty, stating in the annual report, “While we are ecstatic about the large federal investments in mariculture and now heat pumps, we are even more pleased to see the future of [Alaska Marine Highway System] come into focus.”
Southeast has transformed repeatedly within the lifetime of current residents. This month’s article on “Tongass Trading Company” by Katie Pesznecker recounts Ketchikan’s evolution from Gold Rush town to fish cannery to timber mill to cruise ship destination, and that microcosm extends all along the Alexander Archipelago and into Juneau, Haines, and Skagway. This edition of Alaska Trends illustrates the latest snapshot from the Southeast Conference and its research analyst Rain Coast Data. Through successive industries and shifting demographics, the region remains resilient.
SOURCE: Southeast Conference “Southeast Alaska: By the Numbers 2024”
The 2023 Southeast (SE) Alaska Economic Indicators
SE Region
A lack of privately owned and accessible land is unique to SE and the region's ablity to nurture the private sector.
2022 vs 2023 Wages
Total wages paid in SE increased by $120M to $2.76B. Tourism jobs grew by 26%, an increase of 1,700 year-round-equivalent jobs. The government, healthcare, retail, construction, finance, and mining sectors all added workers to their payrolls. Nine communities saw double-digit wage growth.
2023 SE Employment Overview
1,400 year-round jobs added
5% increase in wages to total $2.76B in workforce earnings
Job counts were up in almost every community. The largest gains were in Skagway, Wrangell, Haines/Klukwan, Hoonah, and Gustavus.
Wages were up in every community, and more than half reported double-digit percentage increases.
Tourism workers earned $105M more than the year before, a 44% increase.
SE Visitor Industry Jobs
8,263 annualized jobs (+1,694)
$347M in wages (+44%)
Cruise passenger numbers increased 42% from 2022.
In 2023, 1.67M cruise ship passengers set a new regional record.
SE Government Jobs
12,778 annualized jobs (+134)
$892M in wages (+6%)
Tribal government staff grew by 9% to 1,356 annualized workers in 2023—making it one of the fastest growing sectors in the region.
SE Seafood Jobs
3,604 annualized jobs (-49)
$225M in wages (-$77M)
325M lbs of seafood caught
28M lbs seafood processed
$508M in processed value
SE Demographics
71,077 Total Population (-796)
SE lost more than 2,000 kids, while the 60-plus population grew by more 7,000 older residents.
In 2023, 800 people moved away from the SE. The majority of those left the state.
SE Healthcare Jobs
3,900 annualized jobs (+88)
$312M in wages (+9%)
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is the region’s largest healthcare provider with 1,222 staff in 27 communities.
What book is currently on your nightstand?
Timeline by Michael Crichton.
What charity or cause are you passionate about?
The Fallen Outdoors, supporting our veteran communities. I’m a military spouse and a military brat.
What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?
Change into more comfortable clothes, and then I’ll either (depending on how the day went) have a cocktail or a hot tea.
What vacation spot is on your bucket list? Wales.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?
Small enough that it’s not going to ruin everything. More like a fox, as opposed to my gut reaction, an antelope.
Photos by Kerry Tasker
Christine Hopkins OFF THE CUFF
Between fielding these questions and being photographed at her PalmerFishhook-area farm, Christine Hopkins was named Small Business Person of 2025 for Alaska by the US Small Business Administration. The president and CEO of Advanced Supply Chain International earned attention for the firm’s entry into government contracting less than two years after Hopkins became majority owner.
As a teenager, Hopkins envisioned a different federal job, studying criminal justice at UAA and taking an FBI internship in Quantico, Virginia. Her path led to social work, then human resources, then organizational leadership. The late Scott Hawkins molded her as his successor. “I spent time with every position in the company,” she recalls. “Sat on the ground on the North Slope and counted zip ties in the warehouse.”
Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time? Christine Hopkins: Farm-related things, whether it’s canning or baking or dealing with a flock of chickens.
AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?
Hopkins: I’ve always wanted to be more fluent in both French and German… I’ve made more progress on German than French.
AB: What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?
Hopkins: Whitewater rafting on a Class IV out of Hope.
AB: What are you superstitious about?
Hopkins: Stepping on cracks is one. I try to avoid them, which is completely irrational.
AB: What’s your favorite local restaurant?
Hopkins: Basil Ginger in Wasilla.
AB: Dead or alive, who would you like to see perform live in concert?
Hopkins: Queen.
AB: What’s your greatest extravagance? Hopkins: Instead of doing Christmas at home, we always go somewhere else. Typically it’s a cruise.
AB: What’s your best attribute and worst attribute?
Hopkins: My best attribute is the ability to see the bigger picture… to make decisions anticipating the outcome without all information. Honestly, that’s probably also my biggest drawback: that ability sometimes leads in a direction I didn’t intend to go.
