A new trade association, fresh from the assembly line
By Alexandra Kay
26 INSURANCE
Don’t sleep on cyber and AI coverage
Two forms of protection from digital risks By
Tracy Barbour
34 EDUCATION
Takeoff Speed
Student pilots fly into the wild blue By Katie Pesznecker
40 ENVIRONMENTAL
Red Devil Details
Slow progress on quicksilver cleanup By Dimitra Lavrakas
94 TELECOM & TECH
Broadband, Narrowly Speaking Internet with a capital ‘I’ By Scott Rhode
102 ENGINEERING
Optimal Operations
Building commissioning ensures structures are shipshape By Christi Foist
Anchorage
At Integrity Environmental, integrity is more than just a name — it defines the company’s commitment to helping their customers keep bulk fuel storage operations safe. It’s also one of the many reasons why Owner and Principal Consultant Shannon Oelkers chooses First National Bank Alaska.
“I trust First National’s local industry expertise and have complete confidence in their ability to help my business continue to grow and succeed.”
– Shannon Oelkers
Discover how First National helps Integrity Environmental bring innovative and effective solutions to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
Striking a balance between lumber and sustainability
By Terri Marshall
80 A GROWING CONCERN
Alaska farms flourishing By Terri Marshall
88 CAN MONEY GROW ON TREES?
Raising revenue through carbon offset programs
By Rachael Kvapil
48 GOOD NEIGHBOR
Dawson Mine is small but significant
By Jamey Bradbury
ABOUT THE COVER
Underground and far away, Dawson Mine is easy to overlook. Tucked within a hillside in Hollis along Twelvemile Arm near the dead center of Prince of Wales Island, fifty workers extract gold- and silver-bearing quartz while the rest of the world barely notices. Mammoth metal mines in Southeast, namely Kensington and Greens Creek, overshadow their smaller counterpart, yet Dawson Mine stands as a leading employer on its humble island. First prospected nearly a century ago, Sundance Mining Group has been steadily producing precious metals since reviving the site in 2014.
This month’s cover story, “Good Neighbor” by Jamey Bradbury, stands for all the natural resource development businesses in Alaska, small or large, obscure or in the headlines. The state’s mineral, vegetable, and animal bounties await the enterprise clever and courageous enough to put them to profitable use.
Photography by Caitlin Blaisdell
Caitlin Blaisdel
FROM THE EDITOR
Mining and manufacturing work beautifully in concert, but in Alaska the two industries currently play at different venues.
Several Alaska mines in the first chair position have been leading the industry for decades, meeting and eclipsing production goals, finding new opportunities for exploration and mining activities, and meeting and exceeding remediation and environmental protection goals. But of course they aren’t alone in their stellar performance; the state’s largest hardrock mines are in good company with a multitude of smaller mines and mining operations. According to the Alaska Miners Association, in 2023 the industry spent $1.1 billion on goods and services with more than 450 businesses, and mines are the largest property tax payers in several boroughs. The mining industry paid out $1.1 billion in wages in 2023 to employees who live in approximately ninety Alaska communities. Some of that spending comes from mines that aren’t currently performing, instead finalizing their prep behind the curtain, hoping to join their counterparts in coming years in developing Alaska’s dizzying list of valuable minerals, which grows year after year as the United States prioritizes homegrown (and home-dug) materials. Alaska classics such as gold, silver, zinc, lead, coal, rock, and gravel may soon be joined by antimony, graphite, cobalt, nickel, and rare earth elements, rounding out Alaska’s robust mining medley, a serenade sung since before statehood.
Alaska’s manufacturing industry, instead of playing from a worn but solid stage in a stately hall, is taking big steps to move up and out from the gigs it’s been steadily working. Starting small and dreaming big is how every industry starts, and Alaska manufacturers have persevered through what some used to believe are insurmountable challenges to find success. Many local food products, notably Alaska brews, can be found on shelves around the country and are winning international competitions. Furthermore, Alaska-built devices, equipment, and materials designed to meet our needs as we tackle complicated logistics and harsh weather are proving their worth around the world. The manufacturing industry has its sights on being a #1 hit, and its time grinding in the studio is garnering attention.
While both industries are playing in the same key, they have yet to truly harmonize. The majority of Alaska mined materials, with the notable exceptions of coal, rock, and gravel, are shipped outside of Alaska for refinement and value-added processes. Many Alaska manufacturers take advantage of the state’s resources as much as possible, but generally food or timber products lend themselves to local manipulation.
But I see the day when our manufacturing rock stars and mining maestros create a space in which to play together, and I’m definitely buying tickets.
Tasha Anderson, Managing Editor,
VOLUME 41, #11
EDITORIAL
Tasha Anderson, Managing Editor
Scott Rhode, Senior Editor
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
Chelsea Diggs, Account Manager 907-257-2917 | chelsea@akbizmag.com
ConocoPhillips Alaska and the successes of its heritage companies date back to the greatest oil discoveries in Alaska history. Today we continue our tradition of developing, innovating and delivering value for Alaskans.
becomes the 49th state.
ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. begins developing the Alpine field using horizontal well technology.
Final Investment Decision is made to develop the Willow project.
The Nuna project produces first oil.
Richfield Oil Co. drills the first well in the Swanson River field and strikes
Oil Co. discovers the Kuparuk River field.
Custom Products, Local Needs
Manufacturing as a B2B service
By Amy Newman
Ch oosing to manufacture in Alaska can seem like a fool’s mission.
“From a purely cost-performance perspective, you should probably never build stuff in Alaska,” says Nick Ferree, vice president of Equipment Source, Inc. (ESI). “But Alaska is home for us. We understand it.”
ESI isn’t alone in taking on the challenge. Hans Vogel, director of Palmer-based TriJet Manufacturing Services, is keenly conscious of the difficulties posed by the state’s large
distances and small markets. By vertically integrating a workshop capable of computer numeric control (CNC) machining, welding, and powder coating, Vogel aims to bring Lower 48 prices to Alaska businesses that might otherwise shop Outside for their manufacturing needs. Plus, manufacturing workers get to stay in Alaska and enjoy living in the state.
From steel fabrication to assembling all-weather equipment, these companies choose to manufacture in Alaska and offer their services to other businesses in need of an assembly line.
Jibber Jabbers and Whatchamacallits
National Association of Manufacturers statistics show that Alaska’s manufacturing industry adds $1.8 billion to Alaska’s economy.
According to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, employment in the manufacturing sector ranges from 15,000 to more than 20,000; seasonal fluctuations reflect the overwhelming influence of seafood processing, which accounts for 60 percent of manufacturing jobs. The state’s top manufactured products also include petroleum and coal, aircraft parts, wooden structures, and fabricated metal.
The latter is the domain of STEELFAB, Inc., established in 1952 along Ship Creek in Anchorage, stocking the largest steel inventory in Alaska.
“We build all kinds of jibber jabbers and whatchamacallits,” says STEELFAB, Inc. President Richard Faulkner. “We’re about the largest steel company up here.”
STEELFAB products span every Alaska industry: a monorail for the Pogo Mine, a bridge for the Alaska Railroad, and “bison boxes” to transport ungulates from the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center to their new home in the woods around Shageluk. There’s little that STEELFAB will not, or cannot, do.
“We build sewage tankage and large floats for the gold mining industry,” Faulkner says. “Instruments, chutes, and conveyor systems for them to move product around from one place to another. We’ll work on anything.”
When Faulkner and his wife Janet purchased STEELFAB in 1988, they initiated an extensive capital improvement campaign that expanded both the original Ship Creek facility and the company’s manufacturing capabilities. The updated facility now sits on ten acres with 84,000 square feet of under-roof space, 16,000 square feet of outside under-crane storage, and a 2.5-acre erecting pad. The expansion made STEELFAB a one-stop shop to fabricate, shot blast, paint, and coat its products.
“We’re what’s called a steel service center,” Faulkner explains. “That means we sell steel angles, channels, plates, beams, pipes, stuff like that.”
STEELFAB’s equipment—it has one of the largest burn tables and press brakes in Alaska—is “generally the largest and the most sophisticated in the state,” Faulkner says, enabling the company to pierce, cut, and bend steel pieces of various sizes. As an American Institute of Steel Construction-certified bridge fabricator, the shop can fabricate
430 W 7th Avenue, Suite 10, Anchorage, AK 99501 www.colorartprinting.com
bridge girders from 8 inches to 7 feet tall, and STEELFAB is one of the few beam, tube, channel, and angle fabricators in Alaska.
“We build per design,” Faulkner says. “Somebody sends us a design, and then we fabricate it. Then we also do painting and coatings on the material.”
STEELFAB also holds the patent on jack stands created for oil fields; these stands make it easier for oil service contractors to level piping that sinks into the ground during the freeze-thaw cycle. “Instead of taking a bunch of equipment and people out to pick it up with a crane, it takes two men to go out and jack it up and be done,” Faulkner says.
Faulkner understands that Alaskabuilt items cost more, but he believes that clients see advantages.
“We can build it more custom for them up here,” he says. “They can generally get what they’re looking for a whole lot faster than they can buying it out of Texas. We’re not the cheapest there is, but when we build it, it’s a quality product.”
Building Blocks
One of the bottlenecks to manufacturing in Alaska is the supply of raw materials. That’s less of a problem for companies whose main ingredient is dirt and rock.
At first glance, the name Anchorage Sand & Gravel (AS&G) seems to say it all. Founded in 1938 by Arthur Waldron, the company’s Anchorage facility is flanked by towering mounds of sand and gravel, an unmistakable visual cue for passersby. While those materials are foundational
14-inch pipe saddles and strap clamps made for Hilcorp North Slope. In the background, a 400BBL Tiger Tank for ConocoPhillips.
STEELFAB, Inc.
(in every sense), they’re just the beginning of AS&G’s story.
“The products we produce are based on materials that contain cement and aggregate,” says Sales Manager Dave Johnson. Sand and gravel, then, are the foundation for a broad inventory of products under the AS&G name that include readymix concrete, precast concrete, prestressed concrete, blocks, step stones, and pavers.
The process begins at AS&G’s pit in Palmer. Railroad tracks carry the mined aggregate to South Anchorage. From there, the aggregate can be sold as pit run gravel—a compactable base material used to stabilize soil—or it can be further refined through crushing, screening, and washing to produce a variety of specialized sands.
ESI Alaska
“We make several types of sand,” Johnson says. “Concrete sand, which doubles as road sand, mason sand— used in mortar for masonry walls— and seasonal varieties like winter aggregates and septic sands.”
Not all the aggregate leaves the yard in bulk. Some is packaged into AS&G’s signature yellow bags, and some is molded into building blocks. At the company’s block plant, aggregates are mixed with cement and water to create step stones, pavers, and concrete blocks—the same blocks used to build many Anchorage schools, for example.
AS&G’s batch plant produces readymix concrete, which contractors use to pour sidewalks, driveways, and foundations. That same ready-mix concrete flows into Precast Concrete Company, an AS&G subsidiary
Generators, like those being wired up at ESI's Fairbanks campus, have become the company's largest business segment.
ESI Alaska
acquired in 2000, which specializes in shaping concrete into custom forms, from utility vaults and planters to manhole covers and architectural panels that adorn building exteriors.
“Once the concrete has hardened, the forms can be stripped and the product is ready to be picked up,” says Precast Manager Dane Smulick.
While most consumers might never buy from AS&G themselves, the sand and gravel go into products greater than the sum of their parts, laid underfoot or stacked high by builders.
Vertical Integration
Vogel’s fledgling business had a major early partner: the Pentagon. When the US Department of War in 2001 solicited bids for a contractor to improve the technology for cleaning aircraft carrier flight decks, Vogel
and his newly formed company, Triverus, submitted a bid.
Fifteen years later, the Palmerbased company completed the design and manufacture of the Mobile Cleaning Recovery Recycle System Vehicle (MCRRS, or “McChriss”). From there, Triverus “extrapolated” the technology for the civilian market and released the Municipal Cleaning Vehicle (MCV) to clean hard outdoor surfaces. Last fall, Triverus introduced the MCVHD, a larger streetsweeper version of the MCV.
These inventions needed special parts that Vogel couldn’t simply buy off the shelf. “Back in 2003, we needed a vertically integrated technologybased manufacturing company as a vendor,” he recalls. Thus, Vogel started TriJet as a sister company.
The centerpiece of the shop, and
the namesake of the company, is a 6-foot-by-12-foot waterjet table, which uses a high-pressure stream to pierce plastic or metal to very precise tolerances. The workshop also contains CNC machining tools, 3D printers, and powder coating cabinets. “We’re full right now,” says Vogel.
Each tool was added over the years, as the company weighed the need in the marketplace. As an example, Vogel recalls taking a risk on five-axis turning equipment, which rotates the work piece as well as the tool head. “As soon as we had it, we were able to build a relationship with The Launch Company,” the rocket support startup that Alaskan entrepreneur Ben Kellie sold to Voyager Space Holdings in 2021. Vogel says, “We had the pleasure of going through that entire
process of making some of the initial prototypes and moving to production with them. And we’re still doing that.”
The need that TriJet satisfied for Triverus, it’s able to do for others. Vogel cites the examples of robot inventors, non-destructive testing consultants, and makers of aftermarket components for civil aircraft. Really, anyone who needs custom parts. “Let’s say you’re a mining company that has no capability for aftermarket component support. And we’re working with oil and gas companies to make things for machines that were designed on the Slope a long time ago, they’re still operating, and they need complex components made,” says Vogel.
TriJet specializes in low- to mediumrun manufacturing. Vogel especially
likes to form long-term partnerships with companies, from first prototype to a batch of fifteen or twenty, staying with the customer as the product evolves and prices go down.
“It’s customer-centric to make your prices approachable,” he says, “like a business that they’re gonna go to, to buy their stuff from Seattle or Minneapolis or wherever the other vendors are. Those are our actual real competitors, not people here.”
Partnering with companies that don’t want to manufacture on their own is a common model in the Lower 48, according to Vogel, and he’s trying to bring it to Alaska. “Ultimately, they don’t have to grow their business, if they don’t want to, in that technologybased manufacturing, that specialty side. They can be more product focused. That’s really what TriJet does:
Anchorage Sand & Gravel packages 60 pounds of aggregate into its signature yellow bags for bulk sale. Aggregate, cement, and water are mixed at Anchorage Sand & Gravel’s block plant to produce step stones, pavers, and concrete blocks.
Anchorage Sand & Gravel
Anchorage Sand & Gravel subsidiary PreCast Concrete Company made a concrete arch for a pedestrian tunnel on Muldoon.
Anchorage Sand & Gravel
business to business for companies that need things made.”
Alaska Heat for Arctic Cold
ESI began as a small company supporting North Slope oil and gas operations and has “diversified into many industries,” says Ferree. “We are focused on supplying reliable and efficient equipment that thrives in locations that experience extreme cold and logistical challenges, such as remote Alaska.”
“Built Arctic Tough” is the motto of the company, established in Fairbanks in 2000.
“We started rebuilding competitors’ mobile industrial heaters on the North Slope,” Ferree explains.
“Equipment that was built in the Lower 48 was sent up to the oil field, they’d use it up over many years, then send it to us. We’d strip it, repair it, and send it back. Through that process, we realized we could build a better heater.”
ESI’s flagship is the ES700, a mobile, diesel-fueled, indirect heater
designed to produce, at the press of a button, almost 800,000 BTUs of hot air per hour.
“There are over 1,000 ES700s in operation up on the North Slope,” Ferree says, a mix of owned and rented. “Equipment yards in the summer, you see stacks and stacks and stacks of our ES700s lined up awaiting the next winter season.”
Over the next quarter century, ESI expanded its product line to include machinery designed, developed, and tested specifically to operate in Alaska’s harsh climate. Those include smaller and larger versions of the ES700, as well as ground thaw heaters, skid or trailermounted industrial generators, fuel tanks for sling loading beneath helicopters, industrial water pumps, arctic air compressors, and mobile bull rail trailers, among other products. All are built at ESI’s 12acre Fairbanks campus.
While heaters marked ESI’s initial foray into manufacturing, Ferree says its largest segment
now is power generators built for major utilities.
“We’re the prime generator supplier for AT&T and GCI,” he says. “If you make a cell phone call in Western Alaska, I will guarantee that your call bounces through telecommunication sites powered by ESI generators.”
Those telecom companies have technical expertise of their own, but with ESI on the case, those clients can outsource the nuts-and-bolts job. Ferree says ESI has carved out a niche as a manufacturer that can design products to meet its clients’ specific needs, particularly for use in the Arctic.
“Our manufacturing department thrives when we can design and build a specific product that will solve a customer’s problem,” he says. “We work hand in hand with customers to complete design-build projects. Our engineering team engages with the end user so we can produce a product that meets their exact needs.”
Ferree estimates that roughly 30 percent of ESI’s revenue comes
Triverus, LLC’s Mobile Cleaning, Recovery and Recycle System (MCRRS) was designed under a Department of Defense contract to improve aircraft carrier cleaning technology. The MCRRS is now used by the United States, Spanish, and Italian Navies.
Triverus, LLC
from its manufactured products. The challenge is finding the right balance between which products make sense to build in Alaska.
“Alaska’s not the cheapest place to build stuff,” he says. “There are several products that we have a niche in, and it makes sense to build them here and do it cost-effectively and bring good value for our customers. Other commodity products aren’t cost-effective to make in Alaska.”
In those cases, ESI partners with outside companies to purchase components or equipment. For products ESI builds, Ferree says the company’s knowledge of what is needed to efficiently and reliably operate machinery throughout an Alaska winter outweighs the additional cost.
“Companies bring products up and say it will run at -30°F, but they’ve never tested it,” Ferree says. “We’re here. We understand the cold and the challenges it presents. When we say our stuff will run at -40°F, we know it will because we’ve tested it.”
Manufacturing Connections
By Alexandra Kay
Wh en Megan Militello learned that the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)—the state’s only organization dedicated to helping manufacturers—was closing its doors, she knew something had to be done. Part of a national publicprivate network, Alaska MEP operated through the UAA Business Enterprise
Institute as a “one-stop shop” for support and advocacy. Militello was a supply chain optimization manager with the Alaska MEP team.
Seeing a void to fill, Militello and Lacey Ernandes, both with manufacturing backgrounds from their work with Elevated Oats, founded the Alaska Manufacturing Association (AKMA).
“We recognized that Alaska had a need for something permanent, Alaska-led, that was dedicated to supporting our manufacturers,” Militello explains. “Not just through technical assistance but through advocacy, networking, and visibility. We wanted to make sure that that momentum didn’t get lost and that manufacturers had a seat at the table when it came to shaping Alaska's economy.”
Filling a Critical Gap
AKMA exists to connect, support, and amplify Alaska’s manufacturing community, addressing what the founders saw as significant gaps in the business landscape. “We have no central organization that unifies,
advocates for, or amplifies the voices of our manufacturers,” Militello notes. “The gap is visibility, connection, coordinating those advocacy efforts.”
Too many Alaska manufacturers were working in isolation, she says, yet they faced common challenges like logistics, regulatory hurdles, and access to markets without a unified voice or support system. AKMA brings together the people shaping the future of manufacturing in Alaska— Militello believes that if a company is building, supplying, supporting, or growing something real, it belongs at the association.
The timing was crucial. As the Alaska MEP prepared to shut down on June 30 after serving as the state’s primary manufacturing support
organization for years, AKMA stepped in to ensure the manufacturing community wouldn’t lose momentum.
Untapped Engine
AKMA’s mission is straightforward: advocate, connect, and grow Alaska’s manufacturing community. “We want to make sure manufacturers of all sizes, not just the big ones, have access to resources, visibility, and a strong voice in shaping Alaska’s future,” says Ernandes.
The founders envision AKMA as more than just another business organization. “Manufacturing is an untapped economic engine in Alaska,” Militello explains. “We envision AKMA as the connector that can help diversify our economy
AKMA organized a mixer event that brought together Kevin Thompson of AK Mountain Dog salmon treats with Kelly Dyer of JKD Brands packaging supply.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
by building local supply chains, fostering innovation, and creating jobs. We want Made in Alaska to be more than just a label—we want it to be a movement that strengthens our communities and reduces our reliance on imports.”
Alaska’s manufacturing landscape is more diverse than many people realize. To a first approximation, seafood exports are the vast bulk of what rolls off the state’s production lines, followed by petroleum refined for in-state use and gravel. Beyond those sectors, AKMA’s growing membership includes food and beverage producers, metal fabrication shops, outdoor gear makers, packaging companies, and everything in between. Currently at about 30
members, AKMA has ambitious growth plans, targeting 150 manufacturers within the next year.
Food and beverage manufacturing stands out as particularly strong in Alaska. “Everything from seafood processors to craft food and beverage brands to freeze-dried co-packing,” Ernandes notes. The association also sees growth in outdoor gear, construction materials, and niche products that highlight Alaska’s unique resources and ingenuity.
Militello and Ernandes aim to eventually represent about a quarter of Alaska’s estimated 700 manufacturers, which would give them diverse insights and collective knowledge to effectively advocate for the industry’s needs.
From small startups to established companies, AKMA creates meaningful opportunities for growth through networking events, education, vendor partnerships, and industry collaboration for all members.
Turning Challenges into Innovation
Manufacturing in Alaska comes with specific obstacles compared to the Lower 48. “Logistics is the top one, for sure,” Militello says. “Costs and scale. Shipping materials in and products out can be expensive and slow. Energy costs are high here, and many manufacturers operate at a smaller scale, which can make it harder for financing, workforce, and distribution.”
Lacey Ernandes and Megan Militello won a 2021 Veteran Startup of the Year award for their Elevated Oats Alaska Manufacturing Association
But Alaskans turn these challenges into opportunities for innovation. Take Alaska Food Company, one of AKMA’s members. The company saw the food security challenges in rural Alaska—where supply chain difficulties mean fresh produce often spoils before reaching remote villages—and became Alaska’s only Department of Environmental Conservation-approved freeze-drying manufacturing facility.
“[In] one of the rural villages, one of the stores is not buying produce after thirty years because our supply chain is just so challenging,” Militello explains. “Having the opportunity to send freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, things like that, I think is going to give completely different nutrition for the people in those villages.”
Alaska Food Company is even working to expand access by renting out smaller commercial freeze dryers from Parker Freeze Dry’s Summit line to communities so they can process their own food locally rather than shipping everything out for processing.
Building Connections and Resources
AKMA is arranging opportunities for growth through networking events, education, vendor partnerships, and industry collaboration. Its events include the quarterly MFG Mixers, which are networking gatherings that bring together “passionate makers, innovators, and business owners who understand the journey,” according to the akmfg.org website.
Beyond in-person events, AKMA hosts virtual roundtables to ensure manufacturers in rural areas aren’t left out of the conversation. The association also offers educational workshops, such as a class in how to leverage AI-enabled tools like ChatGPT. AKMA is also developing a marketing curriculum.
One of the biggest initiatives is building Alaska’s first vetted business-to-business manufacturing directory. “We connect members with vendors, agencies, [and] regulatory experts who understand what’s going on,” Militello explains.
“A problem that we had when we were entrepreneurs is [that] you kind of get sent to everybody, but there’s not that one specific person where it’s like, ‘Oh, hey, go to this person.’ If we can help people get the right person in their corner right off the bat, it would make a huge difference.”
Advocacy and Policy Priorities
Both founders come from military backgrounds, and now they’re pivoting from commerce into public policy. Ernandes and Militello are building advocacy capacity by partnering with experts who understand both manufacturing and policy. They’re working with a manufacturer-lobbyist who brings firsthand industry experience to their advocacy efforts.
To amplify its advocacy, AKMA is partnering with Vessel, a veteranowned company from Idaho that specializes in gathering data from manufacturers across states. “They’re going to help
The Alaska Food Company freeze-drying factory in Wasilla hosted AKMA's mixer event last winter.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
us gain a deeper understanding of manufacturers’ needs across the state,” Militello explains. “The collaboration will help us gather data and insights so that we can paint a clearer picture for legislators and policymakers on what Alaska manufacturers need most.”
This data-driven approach gives them credibility with policymakers. “A big part of this work is making sure we’re not just sharing anecdotes but real data,” Ernandes notes. “That’s why our collaboration with Vessel is so important. It gives us the ability to show legislators the full picture of manufacturing in Alaska with the kind of credibility and detail that drives action.”
AKMA’s policy focus centers on addressing Alaska’s unique manufacturing challenges. Its priorities include reducing logistical bottlenecks and freight costs, supporting workforce development programs aligned with manufacturer needs, and advocating for better visibility for Alaska-made products in local retail.
“You go to one of these big box stores, and the signage is like this big,” Militello says, gesturing to show how small Made in Alaska labels typically are. She and her team also want to create a stronger regulatory framework that supports small-scale and startup manufacturers.
AKMA’s approach to government relations is simple: “We show up,” Ernandes says. “We participate in roundtables, bring manufacturer voices to policymakers, and we share real stories of what's happening on the ground.” Launching a manufacturing association has already opened doors: the two have been invited to numerous events, including Commonwealth North events on tariffs and transportation and roundtables by the US Small Business Administration.
Five-Year Vision
AKMA’s five-year vision is ambitious but grounded. Success would mean having “a robust, engaged membership that can represent all corners of Alaska, so not just the main
Food security is the common product of Alaska Food Company's dehydrator and AKMA's industry assistance.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
metropolitan area, like Anchorage and the [Matanuska-Susitna] Valley,” Militello explains. She and Ernandes want recognition and influence at the policy level, a strong directory, a trade show that keeps dollars circulating within the state, and ultimately they want to see Alaska manufacturing recognized as “a thriving, visible, and growing sector of our economy.”
As membership grows, AKMA plans to expand services, bring on additional staff, and build capacity for larger events and advocacy campaigns. Militello and Ernandes are creating systems for ongoing compliance monitoring, accelerator programs, and statewide trade shows.
Looking beyond Alaska, the two have an even bigger vision. “Once we connect our manufacturers, the idea is that we can expand that to all the other states, and we’ll be able to connect our manufacturers with other American manufacturers as well,” Ernandes explains. This builds on the now-defunct SCOIN program (Supply Chain Optimization Information Network), a two-
The experience running Elevated Oats inspired Lacey Ernandes and Megan Militello to assist other Alaskans.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
year pilot program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology that expired in mid-2025.
The Bigger Picture
Manufacturing in Alaska is often overshadowed by oil, gas, and fishing, but it quietly contributes thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity. Ernandes points out, “When you support local manufacturers, you’re not just buying a product, you’re supporting jobs, innovation, and resilience in our state.”
She and Militello see significant opportunities ahead for AKMA in
local food security, mariculture (particularly kelp in the Kodiak area), construction materials, renewable energy technology, and value-added resource processing.
“We had that virtual roundtable, and manufacturers shared what was missing in the state, like the finishing, or the value-added processing,” Militello notes.
She gives the example of a tea producer in Soldotna who wants to use local ingredients but can’t find anyone who grows and processes mint locally. Militello asks, “We have so many carrots and root vegetables that are grown here, but
then where is that next step? Where is that value-added processing so that we can have these crops year-round for Alaskans?”
AKMA is more than an event series or directory—it’s a growing ecosystem built by and for Alaska’s manufacturing community. Through its work connecting makers, vendors, and innovators, AKMA is not just supporting individual businesses, it’s building the foundation for a more diverse, resilient Alaska economy. For Alaska’s manufacturers, the message is clear: You don’t have to work in isolation anymore.
The 2025 Food Festival and Conference mixer in Kodiak brought experienced and aspiring manufacturers together to compare notes.
Alaska Manufacturing Association
d0n’t sleep 0n cyber and AI c0verage
Two forms of protection from digital risks
By Tracy Barbour
Cy ber insurance can help organizations alleviate the financial impact of cyberattacks and the emerging liabilities related to AI-enabled software tools. But with AI-specific coverage still being developed, businesses should carefully consider cybersecurity and AI insurance options for the most appropriate protection.
Given the steady growth of cyberattacks—especially those powered by AI—cyber risk and AI insurance are becoming indispensable. Major data breaches have struck companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and even credit reporting bureau TransUnion. And due to Generative AI (GenAI), more sophisticated tools help hackers
carry out more complex crimes. For example, GenAI-fueled fraud is increasing incidents of synthetic identity and deepfake schemes. Deepfake perpetrators are using AIgenerated images, videos, and voices to impersonate executives, infiltrate their companies, and steal money.
Cybercrimes involving AI-enabled document forgery and financial statement manipulation are also on the rise. With these scams, bad actors create highly convincing forged documents or reports that may have replicated watermarks, letterheads, and even signatures to facilitate their efforts. Deloitte Center for Financial Services predicts that GenAI-related fraud losses in the United States could reach $40 billion by 2027, up from $12.3 billion in 2023.
Human error and the inherent weaknesses of GenAI—such as its tendency to create inaccurate, biased, and offensive content—can also put organizations at risk. That’s why any business that uses computers and AI should have both cyber and AI insurance, according to Tracey Parrish, principal of Anchorage-based APIA Insurance. “AI and cyber [insurance] should be one; you should have both of them,” she says.
Most organizations do not purchase cyber or AI insurance until they have a claim, but that’s too late, says Parrish. She estimates that only about 25 percent of small
Tracey Parrish APIA Insurance
businesses and 75 percent of large enterprises carry cyber risk and AI insurance. Healthcare, financial services, and technology companies have an especially critical need for this coverage because they handle a significant amount of information, face stringent regulations, and are more susceptible to data breaches. “If something goes wrong, they have to be able to account for it,” Parrish says.
Protection from the Unexpected
Cyber and AI insurance are very similar yet distinct types of coverage. Parrish recommends purchasing them together. “Generally, if you need one, you need the other, with everything that’s going on right now,” she says.
A basic cyber insurance policy typically covers data breach, business interruption, extortion, media liability, privacy liability, and regulatory investigation. But when companies use AI, Parrish says, this creates a different set of risks. Therefore, AI insurance often includes errors and omission (also called professional liability) coverage to protect against mistakes and failures associated with AI-related products/services; algorithmic bias coverage pertaining to errors that create unfair or discriminatory outcomes; and intellectual property infringement coverage for defense and damages in copyright, patent, and trademark claims.
Cyber is a broad term; therefore, cyber insurance encompasses multiple coverages and exposures, according to broker Chris Pobieglo,
“AI and cyber [insurance] should be one; you should have both of them… Generally, if you need one, you need the other, with everything that’s going on right now.”
Tracey Parrish, Principal, APIA Insurance
president of Anchorage-based Business Insurance Associates. When selling cyber insurance, he considers the client’s exposure, industry, and other pertinent factors. “We broker cyber policies depending on the needs of the client,” he says. “So not all cyber policies are the same.”
AI is a new element—and the landscape is constantly changing. Hence, companies should view their insurance requirements in different ways. Pobieglo explains, “Are you talking about AI that our clients are utilizing, or are we looking at more of what the hackers and criminals are also using?”
Sinned Against or Sinning
Organizations should understand the distinction between first-party and third-party coverage in the context of cyber and AI insurance. Essentially, first-party insurance provides compensation directly to the insured individual or business; thirdparty insurance compensates another party when the insured person or business is liable for damages.
“These are different exposures and determining how those align with an ever-changing insurance coverage will depend on the policy language and the losses,” Pobieglo says. “Both first- and third-party situations can be covered under the cyber, but not necessarily every circumstance.”
AI tools, many use third-party AIas-a-service (AIaaS) solutions such as Google Cloud AI and Microsoft Azure AI to build machine learning models and add intelligence to applications. Each of these approaches has its own liabilities and may require different types of insurance coverage. Businesses that create their own AI will likely require cyber and professional liability coverage, and those relying on a third-party AI solution will need a policy that includes broad coverage, Pobieglo says.
He notes that a lot of AI exposures, like when hackers use AI, are not unlike traditional insurance concerns. “For example, you might have a cyber policy that covers you for phishing schemes (which are involved in about 90 percent of claims). If you’re talking about our customers utilizing AI, some of that may be addressed in the cyber realm and some of it in professional liability coverage,” Pobieglo says.
Using third-party AI solutions also impacts liability. While some companies opt to develop their own
Cyberattacks occur daily, and human error is to blame for about 90 percent of all cyber breaches, Pobieglo says. Now hackers are exploiting AI to gather vast amounts of information about organizations, often evading traditional methods of detection in the process. “There’s a new criminal out there, and he doesn’t leave his desk,” he says.
“A basic concept in managing risk is to transfer that risk to the party with the best ability to control it,” he explains. “So review the contract and see where the responsibility for the quality of that information lies. Ideally, as an organization, if you
Chris Pobieglo Business Insurance Associates
are using a third party, you would like them to be responsible for their content, but that’s not always the case, so it may be ‘use this AI at your own risk.’”
Because cyber and AI insurance are relatively new, carriers are not using standard Insurance Services Office forms for these options, according to Pobieglo. Instead, they are “manuscripting” their own forms for policies. This means cyber coverage varies widely from carrier to carrier, so businesses need to scrutinize policy language to ensure coverage meets their needs.
One positive aspect of manuscript forms, though, is they give carriers greater flexibility to tailor coverage for clients.
Another important consideration is the broad “act of war” or “state-
sponsored attack” exclusions that are part of many traditional cyber insurance policies. With AI blurring the lines of who or what might be behind an attack, businesses must understand how these exclusions apply to cyber incidents. This issue is currently under debate, with some carriers offering specific coverage to address these risks. “The exclusions are often complex because you can’t always attribute a cyberattack to a state,” Pobieglo says. “Some carriers are currently refining their exclusion language to make that clear because there is a lot of muddy water in that area. That’s a very fluid situation.”
Common Misconceptions
The biggest misconception about cyber and AI insurance, according
“As AI-powered threats continue to evolve, it’s crucial for businesses to prioritize cybersecurity, AI governance, and incident response planning to help ensure their businesses can operate safely in this new environment.”
Ja mes Hajjar Chief Product and
to Pobieglo, is that business owners often believe they have cyber coverage, but they really don’t. Or if they have it, they have a very limited knowledge of what it covers.
Organizations need to fully comprehend their risks and insurance policies. Medium and large businesses should have a cybersecurity expert identify exposures for them. Then they can consult their broker for an explanation of what exposures their insurance covers and review the policy language to enhance their understanding. For instance, “In some cases, the carrier may only cover privacy breach,” Pobieglo says. “It doesn’t cover financial crime, regulatory defense, or anything else… Passive retention risk is not a good situation.”
Many business owners mistakenly assume that cyber insurance covers everything, including AI-related risks, Parrish says. But a cyber policy is not all-inclusive. “It’s not general liability coverage,” she emphasizes. “It’s not property coverage, and it doesn’t cover employees for workers’ compensation.”
Contrary to popular belief, AI coverage is not automatically built into a cyber policy. That’s why Parrish encourages businesses to secure separate AI insurance—even if their only exposure to computerized calamity is posting information on social media platforms. “Even if they just have a Facebook, if there’s anything that has to do with their business on there and someone wants to sue them for whatever reason, that’s an option.”
Parrish says AI-powered cyberattacks are having a noticeable effect on underwriting and pricing for cyber and AI insurance. These incidents have driven up cyber fraud, insurance losses, and premiums. The accelerated use of AI for cybercrime is also challenging underwriters to keep pace. “AI is still new, so underwriters are still learning the tricks of the trade,” Parrish says. “They’re trying to keep up with the criminals, and the criminals are keeping up with them. Both sides are very intelligent.”
The rise of AI-powered cyberattacks has heightened awareness of the potential for more frequent and severe attacks. This has led insurers to increase underwriting scrutiny and to re-evaluate the types of clients that may be most vulnerable,
according to James Hajjar, chief product and risk officer for the Portfolio Risk Solutions division of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. “These circumstances have also elevated the need for insurance buyers to take advantage of cyber-related services like employee training to help prevent an attack before it happens,” says Hajjar, whose firm provides cyber insurance in Alaska through Umialik Insurance Company.
According to Hajjar, most small businesses are aware of the risks of cyberattack, but they do not think those risks pertain to them. Big mistake, Hajjar says. “We know through our claims experience that small businesses are often more susceptible to threats given their lack of relative resources and
sophistication compared to larger businesses,” he notes.
Prioritizing Cybersecurity and Insurance
Perhaps the most significant benefit of cyber insurance is knowing who to call if a cyberattack occurs, Hajjar says. Most small businesses do not have internal IT staff or someone dedicated to technology. Cyber insurers become that point of contact and quarterback the steps necessary to get clients back on their feet as quickly as possible. “Depending on the circumstances of the attack, a cyber insurance policy might respond by providing coverage for financial losses, reputational damage, and legal fees,” he says. “The policy might also offer support for crisis management,
public relations, and forensic investigations to determine the cause of the failure.”
Hajjar points out that insurance carriers have crafted robust cyber endorsement policies that provide significant coverage to small businesses. These policies cover all major cyber risks including cyberattack, data breach, cyber extortion, and fraud. “Adding these endorsements at the point of sale is relatively frictionless and coverage is sufficient for most small businesses, providing limits up to $1 million,” he says.
Larger businesses seeking higher limits and perhaps bespoke coverages should ask their broker about the types of additional threats covered, the policy’s limits and deductibles, and the claims
Is your brand truly visible?
And no, I’m not just talking about word-of-mouth buzz. Listen, Alaska is known for this, and I am SO here for it.
What I mean is—are you in control of the message your brand is sending?
The relationships we build, the hard work behind the scenes, and the tangible outcomes we create—all of these form the foundation of our brand. They shape what people feel about us, and that emotional connection is the brand awareness we all strive for.
What excites me most about helping businesses build their brand—both in print and media—is seeing how powerful it is when they control their message from the start.
Think about this: When you join a new organization, you expect clarity. You want to feel connected and
understand the story and values of the brand you’re becoming part of. Without clear messaging, confusion and misinterpretation take over. We’ve all witnessed promising organizations falter simply because their internal communication and messaging weren’t clear enough.
The same principle applies to your brand’s external presence. The awareness you build with your customers relies on a clear, consistent message. While selling your vision internally is crucial, your brand’s growth hinges on how well you show up for your customers.
Alaska Business magazine’s forty years of relationship building mean that our partners are likely your partners. Reaching our readers through our print and digital media channels
reinforces your company’s identity and awareness throughout Alaska’s business community. Remind people your business is an option!
Control your message. Own your brand. Elevate your business. Contact us to learn more!
Chelsea Diggs is a strategist and connector inspired by the beauty and landscape of Alaska. Living in Alaska has shaped her adaptive approach: she’s resourceful in challenging conditions, values community support, and knows that small actions can yield big transformations.
CHELSEA DIGGS
907-257-2917 | chelsea@akbizmag.com
CORE CYBER AND AI COVERAGES
Cyber insurance: Also called cyber liability insurance, this policy protects businesses from the financial fallout of a cyberattack. It helps businesses manage costs associated with internet-based threats. Any organization that stores sensitive data online or relies on digital operations should consider this insurance, especially small businesses that are frequently targeted due to typically weaker security measures.
Errors and omissions insurance: Protection against financial losses resulting from mistakes, oversights, or negligence when providing AI-based products or services. It covers financial losses clients suffer when its product or service does not perform as it should. Failing to meet contractual obligations or performance standards can lead to lawsuits for negligence or breach of contract.
Bias and discrimination coverage: AI decisions that result in discriminatory outcomes—whether intentional or not—can result in costly lawsuits and reputational damage. This coverage helps protect against financial losses and maintain the trust of their clients and other stakeholders. Areas like lending, healthcare, and hiring are particularly susceptible, especially when algorithms are trained on incomplete or unrepresentative data.
Intellectual property claims coverage: AI technologies might, depending on design, sweep up copyrighted, trademarked, or patented material. Accusations of IP theft can lead to court orders that halt product distribution or even large monetary damages. IP disputes are common in industries like healthcare, financial technology, and autonomous vehicles, where innovation and competition are intense.
Regulatory investigation coverage: This coverage provides financial and legal support during investigations by regulatory bodies concerning non-compliance with data protection or AI transparency laws. It also covers the costs of legal counsel and preparing for audits.
process, Hajjar says. They should also inquire about the broker’s experience with similar businesses and the level of support provided in the event of a claim.
“The digital world continues to evolve, and businesses and individuals become increasingly more reliant on technology,” Hajjar says. “We do not see these trends changing. Cyber insurance and the services that come with it are essential tools to help businesses and individuals stay one step ahead of cyber criminals. As AIpowered threats continue to evolve, it’s crucial for businesses to prioritize cybersecurity, AI governance, and incident response planning to help ensure their businesses can operate safely in th is new environment.”
Parrish encourages organizations of all sizes to purchase cybersecurity and AI insurance—regardless of the cost. “If you’re a smaller business, the cost is not going to be as much as it is when you’re a larger business,” she says. “The way I look at it is if you’re a larger business and it’s costing you more, good. That means you’re doing better in business to where you should be able to afford to make some accommodations for it.”
From her perspective, cyber and AI insurance coverage is simply part of overhead and a necessary cost to keep a business running after a loss. “Just pay for it,” Parrish says. “Take care of your business first so that you can continue your lifestyle and your employees can continue having their jobs. Don’t sleep on cyber or AI.”
Takeoff Speed
Student pilots fly into the wild blue
By Katie Pesznecker
Th e first pilot to buzz through Alaska’s sky was James Vernon Martin in the summer of 1913. He took off in his open-cockpit biplane from a ballpark in Fairbanks, soaring about 200 feet above the town as folks watched wondrously from front porches.
Martin had barely two years of experience when he brought aviation to the territory. A merchant mariner by trade, he became interested in aeronautical engineering within five years of the Wright Brothers’ epochal flight in 1903. He then went to England in 1911 to learn to fly the first production-line biplanes. After his visit to Alaska, Martin secured a patent for retractable landing gear, a rather influent
Today, Alaskans from all backgrounds and corners of the state obtain licenses to fly planes and helicopters, earning a golden ticket to freely explore the state’s 665,000 square miles of rugged and fascinating terrain. Alaska boasts six times the number of certified pilots per capita compared to the rest of the country, on average, with 1 in every 100 Alaskans qualified to fly. Plenty of businesses around Alaska offer pilot training, yet one company does things a little different: Fly Around Alaska Flight School.
certificate. There probably aren’t ten schools in the United States that do accelerated training.”
In other programs, students may schedule lessons based not only on their schedules but on instructor availability. Some may take just a handful of lessons over time and
more money on flying lessons as time passes, Hammond says.
Fly Around Alaska offers a streamlined and fast-tracked pilot training program. Students are supplied with materials needed for the written test. Then they spend two straight weeks one-on-one with an
“Our school is so different because we aren’t the normal flight school,” says Don Hammond, coowner of Fly Around Alaska. “All we do is accelerated training. It’s very methodical and structured, and it takes people about half the time it normally takes to get your
The Alaska School Activities Association is a statewide nonprofit organization established to direct, develop and support Alaska's high school interscholastic sports, academic and fine arts activities. ASAA has over 200 member schools, over 35,000 student participants, and manages 52 championships!
ASAA can put the spotlight on your business in front of 100,000+ Alaskans at dozens of amazing high school championship events!
7-8th Volleyball 3A/4A Nov. 13-15th Volleyball Mix-6/2A Wrestling Dec 19-20th
If you would like to join the team and support students throughout Alaska during our 2025-26 interscholastic championships, please scan the QR code to contact Colin McDonald, Director of Marketing.
instruction segments before a final certification flight with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)designated pilot examiner.
Fly Around Alaska’s program costs an estimated $16,000—that covers classroom materials and instruction, flying time, a dedicated instructor, and more. Because it’s intensive, in a bookended two-week period, students leave the program ready with their rating or pilot certificate. Modeled after US Air Force and US Navy flight training, Hammond says it’s an efficient approach for both the students and his business.
“The national average is over seventy hours to get a private pilot’s certificate,” Hammond says. “In our program, people get it in two weeks and an average of fortyfive to forty-eight hours [of flight time]. So we’re somewhat in the neighborhood of half of the normal flight school time and costs.”
A Regular Schedule
Fly Around Alaska was founded twenty-five years ago as a traditional flight school by co-owner Artic Wikle. Hammond joined about thirteen years ago, with a background in HVAC and electrical and mechanical controls.
“It was just a normal flight school once upon a time,” he says. “People would come and take a lesson and leave. We started realizing the industry is somewhat broken. It costs so much to learn to fly, and flight schools take advantage of that. You come in and fly whenever you feel like it. They don’t try to get you on a real regular schedule to get you done.”
“These poor devils who work on the Slope were taking a year, year and a half to get a pilot’s certificate, and we wanted to get a fix for that.”
D on Hammond Co-owner Fly Aro und Alaska
and we wanted to get a fix for that,” Hammond says.
Today, Fly Around Alaska maintains a fleet of fourteen fully owned airplanes, occupies four large hangars at the Warren “Bud” Woods Palmer Municipal Airport, and trains up to 120 pilots a year. The client base is traditionally split between locals and out-of-staters.
“Primarily it’s people who just want to get a private pilot’s license,” Hammond says. “They think it would be cool. And the locals, it’s no surprise: they just want to go fly around. It’s people who look at flying as a passion, a convenience, and a tool.”
Welcome to Flight School
Once enrolled, students receive about 20 pounds of books and materials from Fly Around Alaska— everything they need to pass their written knowledge test. They must score 85 percent on this test, which is higher than the 70 percent threshold required by the FAA. Falling short of this mark, they can reschedule their two-week in-person training or still report for flight school and instead do an in-person review of their deficiencies to improve their results.
The Fly Around Alaska business model fits niche markets, such as Alaskans on rotational job schedules who would be better served by a twoweek, immersive experience. Also, people coming in from out of state to learn to fly would benefit from the convenience of a timebound, intensive experience.
“These poor devils who work on the Slope were taking a year, year and a half to get a pilot’s certificate,
On the first day of the twoweek program, it’s all ground school. Instructors gauge the students’ knowledge and develop a learning plan with emphasis on specific areas of need.
Then students begin a regimen of three flights a day, about seventy-five minutes each.
“We use science here as well as knowledge, from the [US] Air Force and others, and we experimented
with what is the optimal time is for a flight lesson,” Hammond says. “We found that was somewhere between an hour and fifteen minutes and an hour and a half. That way we don’t burn them out or wear them out.”
Students enjoy thirty-minute breaks between flying lessons, and they end the day with debriefs and homework assignments. This process repeats until students are ready for their longer “cross countries,” when they shift to two longer flights per day, up to about two hours in length. The typical route takes them from Palmer to Talkeetna; from Talkeetna to Merrill Field Airport in Anchorage; and then back to Palmer again.
Bustling Merrill Field is always a benchmark and challenge, where students have their first
taste of a towered airport and markedly busy airspace.
Favorite Places
While Fly Around Alaska retains two Cessnas, the fleet will soon be entirely composed of the low-wing Piper PA-28-140 Cherokee, a plane praised by Hammond for proven toughness and safe maneuvering through winds. “All of our airplanes are standardized,” he adds. “They all have the same instrument panels and same model aircraft to keep downtime to a minimum.”
In Hammond’s time with Fly Around Alaska, he’s only encountered a handful of folks—he estimates four— who simply couldn’t learn the flying portion. Otherwise, the accelerated model has proven successful. Many of the dozen instructors at the company are women, and Fly Around Alaska is seeing increased interest from Alaska Native corporations and various nonprofit organizations to enroll students. Recent examples include the Navy SEAL Foundation and the California chapter of Girls Love to Fly.
“Having your pilot’s certificate in Alaska completely opens up the state for you to enjoy and see,” Hammond says. “We all know there’s so much of Alaska you can’t drive to. But you can fly to it. ”
Students also enjoy consistency with the same instructor throughout training, which isn’t always the case at regular flight schools, in Hammond’s experience. He says, “You wind up getting multiple instructors, and each has their own way of doing things, and you’re constantly in a relearning mode.”
PROSPECTIVE PILOT PIPELINE
By Scott Rhode
For the first time in Anchorage, Alaska Airlines hosted Aviation Day in September. The outreach to inspire students to consider aviation careers began in 2008 in its hub city of Seattle before extending to its namesake state this year.
About 800 kids visited the Alaska Airlines hangar and were treated to a unique experience including simulators and VR goggles. “It really gave kids an opportunity to experience flying an airplane,” says Alessandra Frichtl, the airline’s community relations and engagement manager. “We actually gave them the opportunity to pull the life vest for the first time. Even the adults love that one.”
Also on hand was Birch Creek Aviation, a flight school at Merrill Field. Julie Thiele, Alaska Airlines base chief pilot in Anchorage, credits the company with putting more Alaskans into the cockpit. “There are a lot of flight schools, but not all of them offer what Birch Creek can offer,” she says.
Alaska Airlines also partners with a flight school in Redmond, Oregon, for its Ascend Pilot Academy. Not all applicants get in; when Thiele screens aspiring cadets, she looks for true aviators. “I don’t want to hear, ‘I just want to make a lot of money and travel,’” she says. “I want to hear, ‘I want to fly airplanes and take people from Point A to Point B and be involved in the community.’”
Aviation Day is meant to find those soaring hearts. “It means the world to me to find these young aviators,” Thiele says. “At this Aviation Day, there were a lot of those students and even some adults that were like, ‘Can I still get into aviation?’ And sure you can. It’s a passion for sure.”
Frichtl says the next Aviation Day in Anchorage is scheduled for May 2026.
WE WORK IN ALASKA’S BEST INTEREST
At Northrim, we are committed to the needs of Alaskans. We focus on serving the businesses that provide responsible resource development within our state. And that brings positive energy to all our communities.
Red Devil Details
Slow progress on quicksilver cleanup
By Dimitra Lavrakas
Fo r decades, the Red Devil Mine in the Middle Kuskokwim River area has leaked mercury from its site, but remediation is on its way.
“While it’s not clear if this is the largest mining remediation ever done in Alaska, it’s certainly a large remediation,” says Public Affairs Specialist Gordon “Scott” Claggett of the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Alaska. “210,000 cubic yards of contaminated tailings and material will be excavated and consolidated in an onsite repository.”
The mine is on land managed by BLM, and the agency is seeking $40 million for the cleanup.
Mercury and War
The mine, located about 160 miles northeast of Bethel, produced mercury from 1933 to 1946, and then off and on between 1952 and 1971.
“While it’s not clear if this is the largest mining remediation ever done in Alaska, it’s certainly a large remediation.”
Gordon "Scott” Claggett, Public Affairs Specialist, US Bureau of Land Management
With terminals and delivery services spanning the state, and a full range of quality fuels, Crowley is the trusted fuel partner to carry Alaska’s resource development industry forward.
Approximately 210,000 cubic yards of contaminated tailings/waste rock, contaminated soil, delta material, Red Devil Creek sediment, and nearshore Kuskokwim River sediments will be excavated and consolidated in an on-site repository with a containment cap.
US Bureau of Land Management
Existing drainage ditch along perimeter
Slope to existing ditch. Slope varies 3H:1V Final Grade
Cap Layers
Geomembrane
Tailings/Soil/ Sediment Loess
BEDROCK
Mining began in 1933, and by 1939 mercury ore was being mined from creek sediments and overburden. Overburden is the rock or soil layer that needs to be removed to access the ore being mined. Mining the overburden also released arsenic and antimony.
Mercury was used in gold mining, as an amalgam that separated gold from its surrounding rock and then was burned away. With the advent of World War II, mercury became a key component of detonators for ammunition and explosives, as well as an ingredient in tracer bullets. At the time, mercury was also used in thermometers.
Red Devil Mine operated continuously until 1946, when the mercury price dropped. While production slowed, a 40-ton rotary kiln was installed to process the mercury thermally. Burned
ore, or tailings, and waste rock were released into the drainage channel of Red Devil Creek.
Production resumed in 1952 and continued for two years until a fire burned down the mill equipment.
Extensive surface exploration and mining continued after 1956, with waste material from a hydraulic sluice operation washing down a gully toward the Kuskokwim River, creating the Dolly Sluice Area Delta on the river.
Afterward, a modern mercury furnace was built. Open pit mining began in 1969. By 1970, the Red Devil Mine was Alaska’s largest mercury producer, and it was one of the largest in the United States. The mine continued operating until its final closure in 1971. All the while, tailings were dumped into Red Devil Creek, just upstream from the village of Red Devil.
Whose Mess Is It?
“Alaska Mines and Minerals, Inc., was the last operator of the mine and assumed ownership of the claims in 1969,” says Claggett. However, “The company is no longer in existence.”
In the late ‘80s, the claim owners failed to file necessary information to maintain their claims, and BLM issued decisions concluding that the claims were abandoned in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
“The BLM was not able to locate a responsible party to assist with cleanup,” says Claggett.
BLM’s land law examiners reported that the land under the mine site was selected by Sleetmute Limited village corporation on November 18, 1974. Sleetmute Limited merged with The Kuskokwim Corporation on April 25, 1977, and The Kuskokwim Corporation is the successor in interest for all land conveyances.
As for subsurface, “Subsurface lands under village selections were not selected by the regional corporations,” Claggett says. “They are automatically conveyed to the regional corporations upon conveyance to the village corporations, and no physical file exists. All tracking would be done through our online systems like Mineral & Land Records System, and a subsurface patent would be issued. There would be no standalone Calista [Corporation] selection in the mine site.”
With private ownership ambiguous, BLM is proceeding with cleanup on its own. Somebody must, or else the contamination is liable to cause harm.
The Effects of Mercury Poisoning
Since ancient times, the metal that flows like water has been treated as panacea and plaything. Its poisonous nature, recognized for thousands of years, became impossible to ignore by the 20th century. In the ‘50s, a chemical company in Minamata, Japan, dumped mercurycontaminated wastewater into Minamata Bay. The methylmercury bioaccumulated in the local fish and shellfish, leading to severe mercury poisoning in the residents who ate them, resulting in numbness, muscle weakness, loss of vision, damage to speech, and coordination problems. In extreme cases, insanity, paralysis, coma, and death can occur.
Aware of the dangers of bioaccumulative contaminants to fish, animals, and people, the Alaska Division of Environmental
Health maintains the Fish Monitoring Program to track a range of trace metals (including mercury) and persistent organic pollutants among the 114 species of Alaska fish sampled.
Most species of Alaska fish, including all five wild salmon species, contained very low mercury levels that are not of health concern, according to a 2007 report focusing primarily on the prevalence of mercury and persistent organic pollutants. However, the report showed a small number of Alaska fish species had high enough mercury levels to recommend that women who are or can become pregnant, nursing mothers, and young children limit consumption of those fish species.
Of 359 women of childbearing age from fifty-one Alaska communities tested as part of a state Mercury Biomonitoring Program from 2002 to 2006, none had hair mercury levels of clinical or public health concern due to eating Alaska fish.
There are ways to reduce risk of consuming mercury or other contaminants. The state recommends eating smaller, younger fish. They generally have less mercury than those that are long-lived or fish that eat other fish. Larger fish are often breeding females, so keeping them in the ocean helps sustain fish populations and helps prevent overfishing, as a bonus.
Careful menu selection is a simple preventative measure, orders of magnitude simpler than the massive effort required to keep mercury out of the food chain to begin with.
Record of Decision Finalizes
Remediation Method
BLM signed a record of decision for the Red Devil Mine Remediation Plan on January 31, 2024. The plan includes excavation of contaminated materials from Red Devil Creek and the downstream areas of the Kuskokwim River, consolidation and safe storage of excavated materials, long-term maintenance of that storage facility, and longterm monitoring of groundwater and river sediments.
The bureau considered the option of disposing of contaminated material away from the site, which would reduce the need for longterm monitoring, but the transport would raise the estimated cost to nearly $200 million. The lowcost action would be to erect a 12-foot-tall fence for less than $1 million, but BLM opted for excavation and onsite disposal for about $30 million.
BLM determined that it would target antimony, arsenic, and mercury in tailings, waste rock, soil, and Red Devil Creek sediments to restore polluted areas to a level that is protective of human health and
the environment. The restoration will be complete when cleanup levels are met for site-related contaminants in tailings and waste rock, contaminated soil, groundwater, sediments in Red Devil Creek, and nearshore sediments in the Kuskokwim River.
The cleanup is expected to take thirty years, with periodic analysis to look for possible problems and take corrective actions. BLM will share monitoring data with the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and will formally review the data every five years, specifically to evaluate the plan’s effectiveness and address possible failures, if necessary.
“The next step in this process is a Value Engineering Study, which is a procedural study conducted prior to a request for project funding. BLM is currently working on a solicitation for that study,” says Claggett. “Once that step is completed, BLM will pursue funding to implement the remediation actions outlined in the decision. The pace of implementation will depend upon funding received.”
The published timeline could have personnel working on the Red Devil Mine cleanup who are not yet born. And by the time the job is finished in the 2050s, few people will still be alive who were around last time it produced any commercial quantity of mercury. Yet the job is worth doing.
BLM Alaska State Director Steve Cohn says, “We look forward to working with tribes, Alaska Native corporations, the state, and others to implement this plan to the benefit of the lands and communities.”
Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation
Send more cargo than ever before with our expanding fleet and network.
Thanks to our growing fleet of 350+ aircraft, and nearly 1,500 daily flights to 141 destinations, you can ship almost anything to more places. That includes 29 international markets in the Americas, Asia, Australia, the South Pacific, and to and from 20 of our beloved Alaska communities.
For more information, go to alaskacargo.com/contact-us. Or call us at 1-800-225-2752
NATURAL RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Resources, in the original sense of the word, are fountains of possibility. They spring forth, as water from the ground. They resurge and rise again.
In an economic sense, natural resources are the soil, air, and sunlight that nourish cultivated crops, if not the crops themselves. Secondary growth timber, planted in areas previously logged, are ambiguously natural—yet the trees’ capacity to absorb excess carbon dioxide is inherent to their nature.
Antimony, mercury, coal, and gold buried beneath Alaskans’ feet are among the plentiful minerals driving a resurgence of resource development. Join us as we explore how companies in Alaska are tapping into those natural resources to steer the state in new economic directions.
NO DRIFT TOO DEEP.
Contact Yukon Equipment to experience the power, intuitive controls and comfort that CASE equipment delivers. Be sure to ask about ProCare the most comprehensive, standard-from-the-factory heavymachine support program in the industry. And speaking of support, you can always count on us as your go-to resource for all your equipment needs.
Visit CaseCE.com/TryOne or contact us to schedule a demo today.
Contact us for more information. Been in business since 1945.
2020 East Third Avenue
Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone: 907-277-1541
Email: info@yukoneq.com
Fairbanks, AK 99701
Phone: 907-457-1541
Email: info@yukoneq.com
7857 West Parks Hwy.
Wasilla, AK 99623
Phone: 907-376-1541
Email: info@yukoneq.com
WASILLA
Good Neighbor
Dawson Mine is small but significant
By Jamey Bradbury
Ro bert Fithian, co-founder and manager of Sundance Mining Group, eagerly highlights certain details of Dawson Mine, an underground gold and silver producer that’s been operating quietly for eight years near Hollis on Prince of Wales Island. It’s the only mine permitted for year-round mining and milling since Kensington mine began production in 2010, he points out. Its mill uses no chemicals, relying instead on a gravity-only recovery circuit. It’s financially solvent, has no lost-time accidents, and is Prince of Wales Island’s leading private employer.
Fithian doesn’t immediately focus on how much gold and quartz Dawson Mine has yielded or the ins and outs of daily operation. He’s proudest, it seems, of how the mine has gained and maintained the support of the local community.
“If you want to do business in rural Alaska, you need to have respect for the people, their way of life, and the natural resources you’re going to impact,” he says.
A Shining Star
First leased to Wendell Dawson by the Kasaan Mining Company in 1930, Dawson Mine started as a tiny operation. In 1933, Dawson hired two Washingtonians to clean the tailings of his mine; the two workers retrieved about 31 ounces of gold—worth roughly $1,000 at the time—in just ten days.
Fast forward about eighty years to 2014, when Fithian joined Sundance Mining Group and began shopping for properties to mine. He considered more than thirty options across
I don’t like the ‘get it all quick and get out of here’ mentality because you end up with one or two generations that had jobs… We could [provide jobs for] four or five more generations. And I think that’s more important than getting rich quick and getting out of here.”
Robe rt Fithian Co-founder a nd Manager Sundance Mining Group
Alaska. He settled on the Dawson property, not only because of a report that indicated a potential resource of 44,000 ounces of gold but because of the advantages of the mine’s location.
For starters, Prince of Wales Island had a history of resource extraction.
Unique in the Panhandle archipelago, the fourth-largest island in the United States is crisscrossed by nearly 300 miles of roads, so Dawson Mine can be accessed by a paved highway. The site further benefits from temperatures and conditions that allow for year-round work.
“This mine really was the shining star out of the ones I had been looking at,” Fithian says.
He adds that the permitting process for Dawson Mine was notably easier because the primary property is on State of Alaska lands managed by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR), not the federal government, despite the Tongass National Forest covering most of the island. Federal permitting likely would have taken up to three years, Fithian estimates, but reviving Dawson Mine was permitted in a little over a year.
He attributes at least some of the speed to DNR’s desire to create economic opportunities while maintaining its lands. “We have a state DNR that wants to see economic development done, and they care, and they want to make sure that we’re doing it safely and correctly and environmentally soundly,” Fithian says.
Old School Operations
Dawson Mine presented challenges, though. While its potential gold and quartz yields were promising, the geotechnical nature of the mine’s rock was difficult to work with.
In “engineered” mines, once miners find a quartz vein containing gold, they can follow those veins to access large, consistent zones to mine; as they extract the ore, the miners can fill the space left with other rocks and move on.
Dawson Mine, though, is a “geologic” mine; Fithian describes its vein system as “nuggety.” Hot fluid once traveled through cracks and fissures, depositing minerals
throughout the rock, making Dawson Mine’s gold deposits less predictable.
Despite this, Fithian felt sure he could mine the property. In 2017, Sundance Mining Group became the owner and operator of Dawson Mine. The company aims to produce 1,000 ounces of gold each month, and it does so by using a method Wendell Dawson would still recognize.
Miners make holes in rock faces with 135-pound handheld pneumatic rock drills called jacklegs. Explosives placed in the holes blast the rock to provide access to the mine’s vein system. It’s “old school” mining, and it’s labor intensive.
It’s also a deliberate process that results in less waste.
“Maybe the larger mines are going to take a larger amount of tonnage daily. They can use much larger modern equipment to do that. And they typically end up taking more
waste rock than they want to get the tonnage up,” Fithian says. “We are very selective, so we’re just mining the vein system without the waste.”
Finding the veins that carry the grade of gold that will make Dawson Mine successful is a tricky endeavor because of its geologic nature. Not every vein will carry the value in silver and gold that Dawson Mine needs to be a viable project.
“It’s a chunk of gold here, a chunk there,” describes Dawson Mine’s senior geologist Kris Alvarez. She says mining Dawson Mine can feel more like gambling.
Technology helps the gamble pay off. Alvarez uses Maptek Vulcan software, common throughout the industry, to create a threedimensional computer image of the mine and its veins. The image helps her visualize where the gold is, how it’s trending, and how deep
those trends go into the mountain. Based on those images, she can make recommendations to Fithian about where and how to mine the gold most efficiently.
Mapping the mine’s gold zones also gives Fithian a glimpse into the future. Over time, he says, better understanding how the veins are trending will help the Dawson Mine geologists map out the mine’s potential.
“It’s pretty exciting because we just signed a lease that[…] connected our vein system with historic drilling that was done in 2007. We have been able to explore those old mines we’re headed toward, and we’re absolutely certain that the vein system that we’re mining on is the same vein system those old mines were developed on,” Fithian describes. “It enlarged our mine life by literally forty to fifty years.”
A small operation prioritizes quality of employees, like the technicians installing a ventilation system in a new section, over quantity of workers on the payroll.
Caitlin Blaisdel
A Generational View
Extending the mine’s life is important to Fithian. He admires long-term projects like the Usibelli Coal Mine, now in its eightieth year. That project has provided jobs to five generations of workers in Healy.
The Dawson Mine provides jobs for more than fifty year-round employees, most of whom live on Prince of Wales Island. While Fithian knows he could increase the tonnage taken each day by hiring more employees and speeding up production, that’s not his focus. He values the “generational potential” of Dawson Mine over its ability to produce more and faster.
“I don’t like the ‘get it all quick and get out of here’ mentality because you end up with one or two generations that had jobs and economy from [the mine],” he reflects. “We could [provide jobs for] four or five more
generations. And I think that’s more important than getting rich quick and getting out of here.”
The advantage of being a small operation, he adds, is that he can maintain a high caliber of employee. He believes that the people who work at the mine do so because it lacks the more corporate structure of larger mines where the culture is “produce, produce, produce.”
“The type of work we do demands a pretty strong mentally and physically capable human being,” he explains. “If [the operation] was three or four times bigger, it would change, where the employees would start to be more ink on paper instead of the special people we view them as.”
Fithian points out that increasing the size of the mine would also significantly impact the community of Hollis and the lands around the
mine. His perspective on the mine as a fixture on Prince of Wales Island for decades to come is shaped by his respect for that land. For instance, the mine’s location on a major salmon, trout, and steelhead river motivated Fithian to establish a gravity-only recovery mill that eliminates the use of chemicals in the gold extraction process.
A century ago, gold would have been separated from ore using flotation extraction. That process works by finely grinding ore, mixing it with water, and then injecting chemicals—in this case, xanthate and pine oil—which gets agitated when air bubbles are pumped in. The chemicals cause water to repel the gold and quartz, which rise and create foam. Finally, the foam is collected, while the waste—or tailings—sink to the bottom of the mixture and are disposed of.
A mine worker uses a pneumatic rock drill, called a “jackleg,” to drill a hole in the rock face.
Caitlin Blaisdel
These days, Dawson Mine uses gravity to do the extraction, relying on the density of gold for the separation process. Banks of spiral separators and multiple shaking tables separate the gold and sulfides from the lighter-weight quartz.
Fithian has worked to enhance this gravity technique so that Dawson Mine’s mill achieves about 86 percent recovery of gold. He acknowledges that flotation
extraction would raise that recovery to 90-plus percent. But the cost, for him, is too high.
“There was no way that I could have ever permitted the mine—or would have even tried—using a chemical that can be poisonous,” Fithian says, “right here in the heart of a community, with some pretty special aquatic resource lands.” Therefore, Dawson Mine has no tailings with toxic chemicals added.
Community Contributions
This summer, Dawson Mine completed its mill refurbishment, which replaced old concentrators with specially designed 20-foot scavenger spirals to recover minerals lost in the tailings. The remodel also allows for rocks to be crushed into larger 3/4-inch feed, rather than 3/8-inch, which has reduced the time it takes for the crushed rock to pass through the mill by about 50
Robert Fithian, co-founder and manager of Sundance Mining Group, with his son Jared, the superintendent of Dawson Mine.
Caitlin Blaisdel
The tailings site at Dawson Mine is entering its third phase. Thanks to chemical-free processing, the site can eventually be reclaimed as a community ballfield.
Caitlin Blaisdel
Rock extracted from Dawson Mine is crushed with this equipment before being placed in the spirals.
Caitlin Blaisdel
percent. The result is an increased throughput of 195 tons per day. Fithian aims to increase overall recovery to 88 percent with the upgraded mill, as well.
Thanks to the gravity extraction process, Dawson Mine’s tailings ponds don’t have to be lined to keep waste from seeping into the groundwater. In the early years of the mine’s revival, Fithian did monthly testing to prove the
absence of waste harmful to the environment; today, the mine is only required to do quarterly testing, thanks to the care taken with its tailings and to the gravityonly extraction process.
This low-impact approach is also a cost-saver: Dawson Mine doesn’t have to maintain a full-time water treatment plant.
More importantly, it also demonstrates what Fithian calls
“social license”: respect for the land, its people, and their way of life. His philosophy plays out not just in the measures he’s taken to preserve the river near the mine but in other projects and efforts to maintain or improve the land.
The tailings site is just entering its third phase. As Dawson Mine begins the tailings site reclamation process, Fithian has plans to cover and level out phase one and build
Dawson Mine has given this oven, which originally bake bread for Subway, a second life as part of its assaying process.
Caitlin Blaisdel
Members of the Dawson Mine crew enjoy a well-deserved break for lunch.
Caitlin Blaisdel
a baseball diamond over it for the people of Hollis.
Other community projects are focused on cleaning local waters. Several years ago, Fithian worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to clean up Maybeso Estuary, where an abandoned float house, old trucks, and huge metal containers were blocking stream access for salmon.
“We just shut the mine down and went and cleaned up the estuary,
used our big, heavy equipment and hauled the stuff to a scrap pile,” Fithian says. “Every year, we try to do something. Every couple years, we clean up a stream that the local people get their drinking water from.”
When Prince of Wales Island experiences ice storms each winter, Fithian’s son, Jared, who serves as the mine’s superintendent, heads up an effort to plow and sand Hollis roads, while the Alaska
Department of Transportation and Public Facilities is busy with the rest of the island.
“We don’t even discuss it. I typically find out later, ‘Oh, by the way, Dad, I went and sanded all the subdivisions today,’” Fithian says.
It’s a small but impactful gesture that reflects the way he wants Dawson Mine to be perceived. “Those things just pay dividends,” he adds. “It’s showing that we’re a good neighbor in this community.”
Mill refurbishment this summer added specially designed 20-foot scavenger spirals that speed up processing to about 195 tons per day.
Caitlin Blaisdel
Antimony Anticipation Multiple companies rush for element 51
By Vanessa Orr
e search for antimony is heating up in Alaska. The United States has no active mines currently producing the element, yet the 49th State could be the first place to make it happen.
“The race is on,” says Christopher Gerteisen, executive director and CEO of Nova Minerals. “With the whole critical minerals push and China cutting off our supply, the United States is in desperation mode.”
Antimony is a metalloid (a chemical element with both metallic and non-metallic properties) that has been used for years as a fire retardant in fabrics such as firefighting uniforms, in electronics and children’s toys, and in plastic, glass, and ceramics. Today’s cell phones use antimony as a hardening agent to keep screens from scratching.
It is also a vital component in lead-acid batteries and a strategic element used in munitions.
Gerteisen explains, “All medium and small caliber artillery shells require antimony, and even ammunition off the shelf uses antimony in its primer. It’s also used in armor-piercing technology as a hardening agent for projectiles.”
As antimony sulfide, the substance was used in ancient times for the eye makeup kohl, known to the Egyptians as “stm,” which may have inspired the Latin name “stibium.” More modern applications, though, are driving the worldwide rush.
“Solar panels are probably the area of
fastest growing demand, and all the most high-tech semiconductor substrates are antimony based,” says Gerteisen.
China currently produces 60 percent of the world’s antimony supply, followed by Tajikistan (17 percent) and Russia (13 percent), making up 90 percent of the global market. US industry consumes roughly 50 million pounds of antimony each year, but China banned exports to the US at the end of 2024.
Because of this, several companies—and especially the US Department of War (DOW)— are looking at Alaska as an upand-coming source for the critical metalloid.
Good as Gold
Antimony used to be considered trash. It is often found while mining for gold, and miners used to leave the antimony in waste tailings, thinking it of little value. The price of the mineral has quadrupled in the past year, rising from around $13,000 to $55,000 per ton—so mining companies are reconsidering what it’s worth.
“While there may be some smaller companies mining for antimony, we believe we will be the first to be mining it on a commercial scale.”
Christopher Gerteisen, Executive Director and CEO, Nov a Minerals
BUILDING ALASKA’S FUTURE
“Over the past few years, there have been very significant discoveries of antimony, including at several of our projects across the area where there is massive stibnite banding,” says Gerteisen. “Stibnite is the primary ore mineral for antimony, and you can see it right on the surface at some of our prospects. This has drawn a lot of interest, particularly from the [DOW].”
Nova Minerals has been working on the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project in the West Susitna
We're committed to being Alaska's #1 source for construction, mining, transportation, and more. With the equipment you need to get the job done right, we’re here to support Alaska’s industries and growth.
Mining District in Southcentral for the past five years.
“On the gold side, we’ve been very successful in that realm; we’ve defined 10 million ounces of gold and, best case scenario, could be producing gold by 2028,” says Gerteisen of the 200 square-mile claim block. “We have two deposits of gold already defined and twenty other known prospects at various stages of advancement with gold, copper, and silver.”
As for the critical metalloid, Gerteisen adds, “We’re also honing in on two prospects, Stibium and Styx, for antimony within the Estelle project, though we’ve found it in other areas as well.”
According to Gerteisen, when spending the time, energy, and money to crush and extract gold, it
just makes sense to divert critical minerals out of the tailing stream to an extraction plant to feed into domestic critical minerals production.
“With the whole critical minerals push, we’re taking a holistic approach to the project,” he says. “We’re not just assaying for gold or antimony but for a suite of about sixty different elements. We are seeing highly elevated concentrations of about fifteen other critical elements that are sought after, like scandium, bismuth, and niobium. We don’t know what these elevated concentrations mean yet, but we’re looking at the mineralogy.”
Rapid-fire Phases
to produce the antimony trisulfide needed for munitions.
“While there may be some smaller companies mining for antimony, we believe we will be the first to be mining it on a commercial scale,” Gerteisen says.
If all goes well, Phase 2 of the project will involve construction of an antimony refinery at Port MacKenzie.
“It would be the first of its kind; the first in America,” says Gerteisen, adding that it would also create an incentive for other companies to mine the metalloid.
A geological estimate shows more than 200,000 tons of antimony across the company’s site, which could support a mine for at least
Nova Minerals anticipates several decades of production.
“Even if we mine out our resources, other projects will come online once the refinery is in place,” he says. “What’s been holding projects back is that antimony prices have been suppressed; they haven’t been as lucrative as they are now, with a record high price of $60,000 a ton. It’s a good incentive for projects to start up, and there will be no shortage of antimony once a refinery is in place.”
Nova Minerals expects that Phase 1 of its West Susitna development would create at least 50 jobs. The Phase 2 refinery could add another 150 to 250.
Treasure Trove
It wouldn’t be a race without competitors, and Nova Minerals isn’t
the only company pursuing antimony in Alaska. In September, Felix Gold guided members of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council and US Environmental Protection Agency on a tour of its Treasure Creek antimony project about 15 miles north of Fairbanks.
The Australian company named for an Alaskan prospector is hoping to gain the permits needed to develop a small-scale mine that would deliver antimony by year’s end.
The mine would reopen a site once used to supply antimony during both World Wars. According to the company’s website, the larger of the two historic mines at Treasure Creek, the one called Scrafford, produced an estimated 2.4 million pounds (1,000 tonnes) of antimony during intermittent operations
“With
China’s recent antimony export restrictions highlighting supply chain vulnerabilities, Treasure Creek is emerging as a strategically vital project capable of supporting domestic US antimony supply for critical defense and industrial applications.”
SOUTHCENTRAL ALASKA’S INDUSTRIAL PORT
• 375’ Barge Dock (-20’ depth at MLW)
• 1,200’ Deep Draft (-60’ depth at MLW)
• Bow Ramp Berth
• 8,000-Acres of Uplands (Rent/Lease)
• Secure Laydown and Storage
J oseph Webb Executive Director, Felix Gold
from 1915 to 1977. Recent drilling has outlined similar high-grade antimony mineralization at the North West (NW) Array target about a mile west of Scrafford.
Joseph Webb, executive director of Felix Gold, says the company’s trenching program has delivered outstanding results across both target areas at Treasure Creek, headlined by exceptional grades up to 65.4 percent at NW Array. He notes that these results further demonstrate the potential for two high-grade antimony production centers at Treasure Creek.
“With China’s recent antimony export restrictions highlighting supply chain vulnerabilities, Treasure Creek is emerging as a strategically vital project capable of supporting domestic US antimony supply for critical defense and industrial applications,” he adds.
Ester Dome Entrant
Joining the hunt in the hills above
Ester, west of Fairbanks, is Great Land Minerals, a subsidiary of United States Antimony Corporation. The company acquired claims outside Fairbanks as well as near Tok and along the Maclaren River off the Denali Highway. In total, the company says it has about 120 mining claims covering approximately 35,000 acres in Alaska.
During the tour by federal officials in September, US Antimony announced it would try to recover antimony leftover at the Mohawk Mine near Fairbanks, targeting antimony in up to 5,000 cubic yards of waste piles that were generated at the mine in the ‘30s.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources gave the company the goahead on September 5, saying that the operations at Mohawk are small enough in scope to meet permitting exemptions in state law.
The company will truck the ore 2,000 miles from Alaska to its home state of Montana, where US
Antimony operates the only antimony processing plant in the country. It has applied for a permit to search for antimony and hopes to apply for more permits and start mining within a year. If its exploration efforts show a mine would be profitable, it may propose a small-scale underground operation.
Furthermore, much like the military largesse that Nova Minerals is receiving through its fast-track grant, DOW signed a contract with US Antimony to procure $245 million worth of the metalloid for the National Defense Stockpile. Alaska assets would help the company feed i ts Montana smelter.
As the race heats up to restore domestic production of antimony, Alaska is at the head of the pack. As the need for the metalloid continues to rise, so does the 49th State’s importanc e to the nation.
A rendering of the proposed antimony refinery at Port MacKenzie. Nova Minerals
No me hotels welcome camera crews shooting Bering Sea Gold , the Discovery Channel series about dredging the glittering sands of Norton Sound. The series debuted in 2012 and drew an average of 3 million viewers in its first season.
Gold sustains the families who hunt for it underwater and, indirectly, stimulates the economic activity of TV production, local hospitality, and so on.
Discovery Channel also airs Gold Rush (titled Gold Rush: Alaska in the first season), which follows the
placer gold mining efforts of various family-run mining companies in Alaska and the Klondike region of Canada. As of 2024, the show had run for 15 seasons and more than 170 episodes. It has also spawned various spin-offs, including Gold Rush: White Water , which features
Coeur Alaska
miners diving and suction dredging in the icy waters of McKinley Creek and Porcupine Creek near Haines. More than 2 million viewers tuned in for that show’s debut.
Television is the modern echo of newspaper bulletins that lured fortune-seekers North to the Future during the original Gold Rush days. And the ancillary economic activities the metal inspires are just the outer ripples of resource development that shows no sign of fading into Alaska’s history.
Golden Relics
Even though people may not be climbing the Chilkoot Trail anymore to reach the gold fields, visitors can still follow their footsteps. Tourists pan for gold, pose by historic gold dredges, and plan itineraries based on Alaska’s mineral heritage.
According to “Panning for Profits in the Interior’s Golden Relics,” an article by Philip Deisher that ran in Alaska Business in July 1987, two of the hottest spots for visitors that year included the Chena Pump House & Saloon and Gold Dredge No. 8 in Fairbanks. At the time, the Pump House had been in business for ten years and the gold dredge for three.
Today, the Pump House, which was reconstructed in the spring of 1978, still features the 1890s Gold Rush motif, along with an original Brunswick “Union League” pool table that was built in 1898 and shipped to the Klondike in 1900. Gold Dredge No. 8, which procured more than 7.5 million ounces of gold during its thirty-one years of operation,
“The fundamentals for a continued strong gold price are there, but of course this is a cyclical business.”
is now part of a tour that includes a ride on a replica of the Tanana Valley Railroad, gold panning, and an integrative mining museum.
The founding era of Fairbanks also lives at Pioneer Park, with dozens of shops, small museums, and historical artifacts in an outdoor setting, along with a comedic dinner revue that explains how a gold strike by Italian immigrant Felix Pedro brought hordes of gold seekers to the Interior. More soberly, the University of Alaska Museum of the North holds the state’s largest public display of gold and a wealth of information on the role the mineral has played in Alaska’s history.
Tapping the Tourist Lode
Other gold panning experiences can be found all over the state. In
Southcentral, Independence Mine
State Historical Park in Hatcher Pass features artifacts and educational displays in preserved mining operations buildings. From the early 1900s to 1951, the mine was the second most productive hardrock gold mine in Alaska, recovering 34,416 ounces of gold—which today would be worth almost $18 million.
Heading south from Anchorage proper, Girdwood was established in the mid-1890s as the first gold strikes were made along Turnagain Arm, and tourists experience that history at Crow Creek Gold Mine. Visitors can pan for gold, take a guided tour of historical buildings, or watch miners work the gold-bearing creek.
Skagway is home to the most visited national park in the state,
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, as well as the Trail of ‘98 Museum and Gold Rush Cemetery. Visitors can also ride the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway, which was built in 1898 during the Gold Rush.
To fully immerse oneself in the Gold Rush, visitors can take an eight-day trip to its more famous sites. The trip begins in Juneau, where prospectors Richard Harris and Joe Juneau helped jump-start the settlement of Alaska with their 1880 find. Travelers can live that history at the Alaska State Museum, the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, and the Last Chance Mining Museum, which is located in a building associated with the original Alaska-Juneau Gold Mining Co., which operated from 1912 to 1944.
Where hopeful cheechakoes once arrived in their thousands seeking
Permits require Coeur Alaska to monitor wastewater from the Kensington Mine, which involves sampling from nearby streams such as Sherman Creek.
Coeur Alaska Career opportunities in the modern mining industry include operators at mills like the one at Kensington.
Coeur Alaska
gold in Alaska, tourists now throng by the millions to see the imprint the mining industry left behind. Businesses that serve those tourists are still striking it rich thanks to gold’s long-lasting luster.
Assaying Kensington
Mining isn’t just a spectator sport; Alaskans continue to make a living in gold production, not unlike the first Klondikers. In the late 1800s, much of Alaska’s gold production came from placer mining, in which intrepid individuals extracted gold from weathered rock using water and gravity. While placer mine production in Alaska today is small relative to the industry’s early days, it remains a significant contributor to the state’s economy. According to the Alaska Miners Association, approximately
200 placer mines were producing gold in Alaska in 2024; the mines produced 41,000 ounces of gold with a value of $52 million.
All placer mines together, though, cannot equal the output of just one of Alaska’s major gold mines.
“Since production began in 2010, Kensington has averaged 105,000 ounces per year,” says Steve Ball, general manager of Coeur Alaska Kensington Mine. “We finished mining our high-grade Jualin deposit in 2022, which resulted in a short-term drop in production while we ramped up production in other areas of our Kensington main deposit.”
Owned and operated by Coeur Alaska, Kensington Mine is both the second largest private employer and second largest property taxpayer in the City and Borough of Juneau.
Hope was high for the reopening of Kensington Mine back in 1989, when Alaska Business published “Assaying the Kensington Mine” by Chuck Kleeschulte. Echo Bay Exploration was the lead partner in the concept of reopening the historic mine, which first began production in 1899. Coeur Alaska bought into the project in 1987 and acquired 100 percent interest of the mine in 1995. The Kensington mine began commercial production in 2010 with ten years of anticipated mine life. Today it is in its fifteenth year of production.
Kensington produced 95,671 ounces of gold last year, which was a 13 percent increase over 2023 production. As of December 31, 2024, the mine reported 501,000 ounces of gold in proven and probable reserves, which equates
to approximately five years of mine life. With Coeur Alaska’s Multi-Year Exploration and Development Plan, completed at the end of 2024, the mine saw a 240,000-ounce increase in reserves from end of year 2021 to end of year 2024.
Ball says, “In addition to maintaining the current mine life, the team is positioned to commence scout drilling to build the pipeline of targets for future growth. Our focus is on organic growth which sets us apart by generating multiple new discoveries and consistent reserve and resource increases.”
Positive Pricing
Gold prices the summer Coeur acquired the Kensington property were running above $450 an ounce, more than a $150 an ounce
Mining activity reaches from the Fort Knox mill north of Fairbanks as far as Tok, where Kinross co-hosted a barbecue. The Manh Choh campus (right) is a community asset for the Native Village of Tetlin, made possible by ore mined from tribal lands and transported to Fort Knox via Black Gold Express trucks.
Kinross
improvement from its low-water mark in 1985, according to Kleeschulte’s November 1987 article “Tapping Mining’s Motherlode.” Few could have predicted that today, gold would have reached an all-time high of more than $3,700 an ounce, an increase of 81 percent since the beginning of 2024.
“As our business is tied to commodity pricing, the current gold prices have had a positive effect on our operations from the sales side, as well as significant inputs on our operations including supplies, diesel fuel, and concentrate,” says Ball.
“We are well positioned with five years of reserves and an active exploration program aimed to replace our annual reserve depletion,” he adds.
In that same 1987 article, Kleeschulte reported the planned
opening in 1989 of Greens Creek Mine on Admiralty Island. That silver mine, owned solely by Hecla Mining Company, surpasses Kensington as Juneau’s largest employer and taxpayer. In 2024 it generated record sales of $929.9 million and became the largest silver producer in both the United States and Canada. Its gold output is respectable too: Hecla Greens Creek mined 55,275 ounces of gold in 2024 and holds current proven and probable reserves of 880,000 ounces of gold.
Interior Operators
Interior mines are still yielding nuggets that Felix Pedro would envy. Pogo Mine in the Tintina Gold Province, about 90 miles southeast of Fairbanks, reported
84,339 ounces of gold produced in just the second quarter of FY2025.
Northern Star Resources Limited, which acquired Pogo in 2018, says in its June 2025 quarterly report that its mill continues to consistently run above nameplate capacity.
"The Pogo mill delivered a record performance on multiple fronts—monthly throughput, quarterly throughput, availability, and utilization—operating at an annualized run-rate of 1.6 million tonnes per annum,” the report states. The second quarter marked a 25 percent increase over the 67,516 ounces produced during the previous quarter.
The company has begun work on two portals to access the Central Lodes and Goodpaster systems to the north of Pogo Mine. According
to the company’s May calculation, Pogo hosts 9.13 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 7.2 grams of gold per tonne (2.13 million ounces)—roughly enough to feed the mill at current rates until 2031, which would be Pogo’s 25th anniversary.
North of Fairbanks, the Fort Knox mine will celebrate its 30th year of operation next year. Kinross Gold Corporation has been operating the open pit mine since 1996, when Fort Knox poured its first gold bar.
In 2024, Fort Knox produced 334,519 attributable gold equivalent ounces in 2024, up about 15 percent from 2023. The increase reflects the addition of highergrade, higher-recovery ore from the Manh Choh mine to the Fort Knox mill during the year.
Fire assay analysis would've been familiar to the gold industry a century ago. Coeur Alaska determines the precious metal content of ore mined from Kensington by heating the rock with lead and flux to create a metallic prill, or pellet.
Two Mines, One Mill
Manh Choh, located near Tok, is a joint venture between Kinross (70 percent) and Contango Ore (30 percent), with the Native Village of Tetlin as the landowner and partner. Mining started in late 2023, and the first gold from Manh Choh ore was poured at Fort Knox in July 2024.
“By transporting ore to the Fort Knox mill, we’re able to use existing infrastructure rather than building a new processing facility,” says Meadow Riedel, external affairs manager of Kinross Alaska. “This approach reduces the project footprint while maximizing recovery.”
In 2024, Manh Choh contributed about 42,700 gold equivalent ounces in its first partial year of production. Manh Choh has an expected mine life of four to five years, ending in 2028
Coeur Alaska
or 2029, but gold production and reclamation will continue into 2030.
Based on current mine plans, Kinross expects Fort Knox to continue mining into 2028, though exploration continues both at Fort Knox and Manh Choh.
“We expect steady production at Fort Knox, supported by strong contributions from Manh Choh,” Riedel says. “We continue to see encouraging results through our exploration program, which could extend mine life beyond that.”
Just as important as geology, though, is commodity pricing. “The fundamentals for a continued strong gold price are there, but of course this is a cyclical business,” Riedel says. “We’ve benefitted from the positive movement in commodity pricing but remain focused on optimizing
our operations and delivering high performance in all gold price environments.”
Riedel adds that improvements at the Fort Knox mill to process Manh Choh ore, optimizing heap leach operations, and introducing datadriven approaches to mine planning and maintenance have increased recovery, efficiency, and safety.
Projects in Permitting
The next chapter of Alaska’s gold history is still being written— and has been written for more than two decades.
The Pebble Project, considered to be a world-class deposit of copper, gold, molybdenum, and silver, has been undergoing ongoing exploration, engineering, and environmental studies since 2002.
The current resource estimate includes 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories and 4.5 billion tonnes in the inferred category, containing billions of pounds of copper and molybdenum and millions of ounces of gold and silver.
The Pebble Project is currently on hold, however, as a legal case brought by the Pebble Partnership against the US Environmental Protection Agency continues. Pebble is seeking to overturn the 2023 decision that effectively blocked the proposed mine in January 2023 under Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act. With a new presidential administration, the agency signaled in July that it was open to negotiating a settlement.
On a separate track in a different Western watershed, the Donlin
Building Alaska
Gold project began its permitting process in 2012 and received its final Environmental Impact Statement and Joint US Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land Management Record of Decision in 2018. Exploration has continued since.
On September 8, NOVAGOLD reported multiple high-grade gold intercepts in the first batch of assays from its 2025 resource upgrade and expansion drill program. According to the most recent calculation, Donlin hosts 541.3 million tonnes of measured and indicated resources. Those resources are enough to produce 1.1 million ounces of gold annually for twentyseven years, according to a 2011 feasibility study completed.
Bring On the Billions
Hard to say when those years will commence. Difficulties between NOVAGOLD and its previous partner, Barrick Mining, have thus far
prevented it from moving forward.
Barrick exited the venture in April 2025, and hedge fund billionaire John Paulson of Paulson Advisors bought Barrick’s 50 percent interest. Donlin Gold is now focused on a new bankable feasibility study and ultimately a development decision.
Donlin Gold would become Alaska’s largest open-pit gold mine, surpassing the workforce at Fort Knox by employing nearly 1,000 workers. Its economic impact would have further repercussions throughout the Middle Kuskokwim region. Infrastructure to support the mine would include a marine cargo port near Bethel and an upriver port near Jungjuk Creek. Ocean and river barge operators would support the mine, and truckers would drive on an access road.
Developers are proposing to build a buried natural gas pipeline to serve as the energy source for on-site power generation. The permanent
Kensington Mine had a projected lifetime of ten years when production started in 2010. Careful maintenance and exploration of new resources have prolonged its useful life into the foreseeable future.
camp would also include an airstrip, fuel storage facilities, water management facilities, and all the personnel needed to operate them.
The initial capital cost estimate from a 2021 technical report was $7.4 billion. Operating costs are expected to total approximately $8.4 billion over the life of the Donlin Mine, counting everything from fuel and labor to processing chemicals and truck tires, plus consulting and contracting services.
All of those for just one mine, yet to be built.
The gold industry also provides a huge number of jobs within the state, ranging from gold miners and assayers to wholesale traders and retail salespeople.
Like the Gold Rush prospectors, today’s Alaskans have found a way to use the rare metal to make their own fortunes. While gold has a notable history in Alaska, it has a bright future too.
Coeur Alaska
Secondary Harvest
Striking a balance between lumber and sustainability
By Terri Marshall
Th e Tongass National Forest, recognized as the world’s largest contiguous temperate rainforest and the largest national forest in the United States, features old-growth Sitka spruce, rugged mountainous landscapes, and extensive coastlines. Its ecosystem supports a variety of fish and wildlife species. The lands and waters of the forest also play a vital role in supporting the livelihoods and cultural practices of thirty-one communities and nineteen federally recognized tribes.
Southeast communities are intertwined with the forest, beyond the trees, according to Andrew Thoms, executive director of the Sitka Conservation Society.
“One of our top industries is commercial fishing, and our fishermen know they have to take care of those fish and the ocean because it's what fuels their business. It puts food on their tables and money in their pockets. Finding that balance between how much fish to catch and how much to leave so
that the business perpetuates year after year is necessary for continued success,” says Thoms. “The second biggest sector is tourism. People come here to experience our natural environment. They are not coming here to see big clearcuts, pollution, and smokestacks. They’re coming here to see our mountains, our whales, our volcanoes, our coastline, and our forests. We have to take care of that so that it remains a long-term attraction.”
Sitka Conservation Society was formed in 1967, at the height of logging activity, especially extensive clear-cutting of old-growth timber. The US Forest Service bolstered logging efforts by permitting the sale of public lands to private entities, which facilitated widespread clear-cutting and influenced local economic dynamics.
Nancy Ricketts, in her 1997 history of the Sitka Conservation Society, recounts how several Sitkans recognized the need to protect the natural environment of Southeast. The society’s founders rallied around
the goal of designating 380,000 acres of West Chichagof and Yakobi Islands as Alaska’s first wilderness area under the Wilderness Act of 1964. Despite initial denial by the Forest Service, persistent appeals helped drive the effort to Congress. That willingness to fight all the way to Congress stayed with the society through the intervening decades, and it paid off in 1980 with the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and the formal creation of the West Chichagof-Yakobi Wilderness.
Today, large-scale old-growth timber harvesting remains a subject of ongoing debate and policy discussion.
Switch to Young-Growth Timber
“The Tongass is a huge forest, but the amount of forest that actually has economical timber is relatively small,” says Thoms. “We had a lot of timber harvest during the pulp mill era on the Tongass… We’ve come to a point where we have harvested most of the economic timber, and those forests are rare. We have to think about how we can shift over to the young-growth forest that is now approaching an age where it is commercially viable.”
In tree terms, “young” is an extremely relative concept. The youngest young growth might’ve been saplings during the Apollo lunar landings, planted in areas previously logged. Of the nearly 17 million acres the Tongass National Forest encompasses, an estimated 450,000 acres are considered younggrowth, also known as secondarygrowth forest. The Forest Service is
Alaska Timber and Truss is running young-growth timber through its mill in Petersburg. Sitka Conservation Society
encouraging the selective harvesting of these younger trees to preserve the old-growth forest and support habitat restoration.
Although the use of younggrowth lumber is commercially viable, there are challenges to the switch from old-growth lumber.
“The young-growth product is very different than the old-growth product,” explains Thoms. “How we work with that, what we do with that, and how we make the business competitive using that product is really the challenge we’re deal ing with right now.”
The society has partnered with Alaska Timber and Truss in Petersburg to use young-growth timber and promote the development of a sustainable, locally based timber industry in Southeast.
“Our mission as an organization is to protect the natural environment of the Tongass National Forest and support sustainable community development,” says Thoms. “What we do as an organization is a blend of community development and conservation work.”
By focusing on young-growth timber, both parties are working to reduce reliance on old-growth forests while supporting the region’s communities through job creation and innovation in timber products.
Garden Classroom
The society purchases younggrowth posts and beams from the Alaska Timber and Truss mill for community projects in Sitka. The collaboration centers on spruce from a 52-year-old stand of trees.
“The Tongass is a huge forest, but the amount of forest that actually has economical timber is relatively small… We’ve come to a point where we have harvested most of the economic timber, and those forests are rare.”
Andrew Thoms, Executive Director, Sitka Conservati on Society
“We’re experimenting with building techniques using what we can grow or produce locally in a way that is sustainable and a way that we feel good about.”
An drew Thoms Executiv e Director Sitka Conservation Society
The wood is being used to build an outdoor learning shelter for the school garden at Pacific High School, an alternative school in the Sitka School District for thirty to forty-five students.
“The structure will be a 12-by12 post-and-beam construction, a really beautiful structure built out of a locally sourced material,” says Thoms. “We’re experimenting with building techniques using what we can grow or produce locally in a way that is sustainable and a way that we feel good about.”
The Pacific High School learning shelter will be constructed within the school garden facility, which was developed in partnership with the Sitka School District over the past six years. The site
features a greenhouse, raised bed gardens, a salmon smokehouse, and fruit trees, and it is situated adjacent to the school kitchen. Pacific High School’s program focuses on hands-on learning for students who thrive outside traditional classrooms. The garden serves as an outdoor classroom where students gain practical experience through gardening and related tasks, while academic subjects such as math, health, civics, and science are integrated int o garden activities.
The construction of the Pacific High School learning shelter serves not only to maintain the society’s mission of conserving the natural environment but also to demonstrate a commitment to community development.
Roadless Rule Recission
As the use of young-growth timber in place of old-growth timber increases, changes on the horizon could force this economic adaptation into different directions.
The 2001 Roadless Rule established in the waning days of the Clinton administration prohibited road construction and timber harvesting on nearly 60 million acres of national forest lands that had no roads. Whether the road ban applies to the Tongass National Forest, which had its own management plan, has led to several rounds of removal and reinstatement of the Roadless Rule. Throughout those challenges, the public processes recorded overwhelming support for maintaining the protections.
Young-growth posts and beams from Alaska Timber and Truss become a learning shelter and community garden in Sitka.
Sitka Conservation Society
Under the current administration, the US Department of Agriculture announced its intent to rescind the Roadless Rule nationwide, ending the debate about whether the Tongass should’ve been included or not. Rescinding the Roadless Rule would open almost 190,000 acres of timber land in the Tongass.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins says the recission would restore local decision-making. “It is vital that we properly manage our federal lands to create healthy, resilient, and productive forests for generations to come,” she says.
US Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz adds, “It’s time to return land management decisions where they belong: with local Forest Service experts who best understand their forests and communities. We encourage participation in the upcoming public process.”
US Forest Service grants enabled Alaska Timber and Truss to build a one-pass mill in Petersburg for younggrowth timber to strengthen the local supply of construction materials.
Sitka Conservation Society
A Growing Concern
Alaska farms flourishing
By Terri Marshall
Wi th the fewest farms of any state, Alaska has immense potential for increased production. The US Department of Agriculture’s census of the industry, based on data collected in 2022 and released in 2024, counted 1,173 farms in Alaska with a market value of agricultural products sold totaling nearly $91 million.
The market value of vegetable crops grown in Alaska, including the state’s significant nursery and greenhouse industry, totaled nearly $40 million in 2022. Just over half of that total ($21.6 million) came from nursery, greenhouse, floriculture, and sod crops. The market value of livestock, poultry, and their products—including beef, pork, chicken, dairy, and eggs—totaled more than $51 million.
The number of farms in Alaska has increased by 18 percent since 2017. In the last twenty-three years, the number has nearly doubled, growing by 93 percent
since 2002. The average size of an Alaska farm is 742 acres, and there are 869,852 acres in production statewide. Also notable: 47 percent of Alaska farmers are women.
The last US Department of Agriculture census counted 2,045 Alaskan farmers, 327 more than the 2017 census, and 791 of the producers are new to the industry.
“Those new farmers are primarily growing crops on less than nine acres. They’re also selling through farm stands, farmer’s markets, and community-supported agriculture programs. What that tells me is that the financially viable option for farmers is direct consumer sales,” says Tanana Valley Farmer’s Market executive director Brad St. Pierre. “The agriculture industry in Alaska has a lot of potential.”
Why Local Crops Matter
Ben and Suus VanderWeele haven’t been new farmers in ages. They immigrated to Alaska from
the Netherlands in 1967 and began farming in Palmer shortly thereafter. Ben is a tenth-generation farmer, and all three of his grown children have followed in his footsteps, returning to help run the farm. VanderWeele Farm remains one of Alaska's largest farms, with approximately 200 acres in cultivation; close to half of that acreage is dedicated to potatoes. They also grow substantial amounts of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and a handful of specialty crops.
“VanderWeele is the biggest vegetable farmer in the state, and you can find his carrots, lettuce, and broccoli in Fred Meyer and Safeway,” says St. Pierre. “But he still, to this day, sells at the farmer’s market in Anchorage. He believes it is important for people to meet the farmer. I often tell people that the markets are not high-tech, but they are high touch. That interaction sets this apart from buying things in the store. And having a presence in the community is a powerful thing for a farmer.”
Scott Rhode
With a strong retail presence, VanderWeele Farm is an exception in Alaska. Most farmers sell exclusively through stands, markets, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs.
CSAs establish direct connections between agricultural producers and consumers. Under this model, community members purchase a share or subscription from a local farmer at the onset of the growing season. This advance capital enables farmers to cover initial costs, while shareholders receive regular distributions of fresh, seasonal produce—and occasionally flowers, meat, or eggs. Farmers benefit from greater financial stability through guaranteed income, and consumers gain access to high-quality, locally sourced food and a direct relationship with their producers.
Selecting locally grown produce enables consumers to lower the carbon footprint associated with extensive transportation and packaging processes, contributing to decreased pollution and waste generation. Supporting local farmers and producers sustains economic circulation within the community, facilitates job creation, and provides opportunities for small businesses to prosper. Furthermore, purchasing foods close to their source often means they are harvested at peak ripeness, resulting in superior nutrition and flavor compared to products transported thousands of miles.
Additionally, getting to know local growers can spark greater appreciation for where food comes from and promote sustainable
BUILDING ALASKA’S RESOURCE INDUSTRIES
Our innovative solutions and experience in Alaska construction and maintenance are second to none. From the Kenai Peninsula to the farthest reaches of the North Slope, CONAM has been there and built that.
“When it comes to policy or needs, agriculture always falls to the bottom of priorities. To meet the industry's needs and continue growing, we need to change the mindset.”
Amy Seitz Polic y Director Alaska Farm Bureau
agricultural practices. A strong local food network means communities can better withstand disruptions in global supply chains, providing a dependable source of food during emergencies or shortages. Altogether, these benefits underscore the importance of nurturing and investing in local food systems for the well-being of both people and the environment.
Despite that importance, it has been estimated that only 5 percent of foods Alaskans eat are produced within the state’s borders.
Challenges and Innovations
Importing food is expensive and logistically complicated in Alaska, but market forces prove that it’s easier than harvesting from local land and waters. To help local
produce compete with imports, farmers collaborate with universities and agricultural extension services to evaluate new crop varieties and farming technologies.
Growing food at high latitudes presents several challenges, including short growing seasons, extended daylight hours (for crops that need darkness for certain physiological processes), and occasional mid-season frosts. Researchers at the UAF Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station address these conditions by developing varieties of barley, wheat, sunflower, berries, potatoes, and other vegetables that are suitable for northern environments. Studies focus on cover-crop performance, soil health, greenhouse light efficiency,
plant nutrient content, invasive species and pest management, and the persistence of pesticides and herbicides in cold soils. These findings offer scientific guidance for both commercial agricultural operations and home gardeners.
This research is credited with creating a market for Alaska’s only agricultural export, the peony. Commercial floriculture began at UAF’s School of Natural Resources and Environment when
In addition to university-led research, farmers get creative: they utilize structures such as high tunnels and greenhouses to extend the growing season, protect plants from frost, and initiate seedlings earlier. Raised beds and warming the soil makes it possible to grow more crops even in harsh conditions.
In summer, crops make the most of the extended hours of daylight (from April to September), which encourages bumper harvests.
chickens, and goats. Many farmers in the region prioritize animal welfare and sustainable farming practices, ensuring that animals are raised humanely and in harmony with the environment.
During the short but highly productive summer months, livestock are typically raised on open pastures, capitalizing on the abundant grazing land. In the colder winter months, farmers use stored feed to sustain their animals, a practice that helps maintain the health of their livestock despite harsh weather conditions. It also creates a market for farmers to sell Alaska’s most abundant crop: hay.
Nearly Department
Currently, Alaska is one of two states without a dedicated
BEYOND THE BLOOMS
By Julie Stricker
The next chapter in Alaska’s peony industry may come from the basic chemistry of peonies themselves.
Over the past twenty-five years, the Alaska peony industry has grown from one research plot at the UAF Georgeson Botanical Garden to an international marketplace with about 100 commercial growers. Today, peonies are largely a direct-to-consumer cut flower business and bring in a quarter of the state’s horticulture industry’s $90.9 million in annual revenue. “Alaska is number one in the nation for peony farms,” says Pat Holloway, a UAF professor emeritus of horticulture.
Some growers are looking beyond the blooms, seeing peonies as a source of edible oil, flavorings, food dyes, corrosion inhibitors and antibiotics. Peonies could even be used to fight tooth decay.
For example, peony seeds are used in China to make a cooking oil, Holloway says. But peony seeds are hard to get in Alaska because the state’s short growing season doesn’t allow commercially grown peonies to mature enough to create seeds. An exception is bushy peony, Paeonia anomala, known locally as Jana’s peony. Holloway is looking at Jana’s peony and others that may contribute to a future oilseed line.
Mike Williams, owner of EagleSong Peony Farm, is pursuing an alternative use, investigating the market for botanical peony extracts. “Peonies contain a large amount of bioactive substances,” Williams says. “The entire plant can be used.”
Peony blooms can yield flavorings and food dyes. An anti-corrosion extract from the foliage may be added to metals used to build bridges, ships, and pipelines. Antioxidants extracted from the flowers and roots of peonies could treat tooth decay.
Williams is already at work, utilizing a commercial distiller he acquired in 2023. He says, “We’re going to create an extract that we can distill, dehydrate, and package, which could have a shelf life of twenty years.”
Julie Stricker is a writer for the UAF Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extension.
Department of Agriculture. Instead, the Division of Agriculture is part of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the same department that manages oil and gas. Amy Seitz, policy director of the nonprofit Alaska Farm Bureau, believes the agricultural industry would be better served with a state-level Department of Agriculture. “When it comes to policy or needs, agriculture always falls to the bottom of priorities. To meet the industry's needs and continue growing, we need to change the mindset,” she explains. “Although agriculture is a natural resource, it is different than the other resources like oil, gas, mining, and forestry. Farmers are not developing the resources; they are creating an industry.”
In January 2025, Governor Mike Dunleavy signed an executive order establishing a cabinet-level state agriculture department. He stated in a press release, “The establishment of a Department of Agriculture has been thoroughly analyzed over the past three years and has been the top priority of the Alaska Farm Bureau for decades. Others view this action as growing government. To the contrary, this action in fact removes a layer of government that currently stands between the needs of the agriculture industry and the governor and legislature. By establishing a department, we will ensure that agriculture has a seat at the table whether it is in the governor’s cabinet room or at a committee in the legislature, now and in the future.”
Some Alaska residents and businesses question the need for this designation. “People often say the industry is growing and we’re moving
in the right direction, why should we spend more government money on this?” shares Seitz, who raises sheep at Lancashire Farm in Soldotna. “I always respond by noting that our big industries did not get to where they are without state support. Just think of where agriculture could be if there had been a strong support system through all these years.”
The Alaska House and Senate voted by a narrow margin in March to override the executive order, preferring to establish the department by legislation. Dunleavy reissued the executive order, and House and Senate leaders have now filed a lawsuit challenging the governor’s authority to do so.
The merit of a standalone department is not necessarily in question. Representative Sara Hannan of Juneau, who chairs the Legislative Council, says, “The 34th Legislature still may create a Department of Agriculture, but the executive order action of creating that and attempting to do it in a special session and after an executive order has been rejected, those are the legal questions that we need addressed.”
Elevating the Division of Agriculture to a cabinetlevel department was the top recommendation of the Alaska Food Strategy Task Force, when it completed a final report ahead of the 2025 legislative session.
Putting Down Grassroots
In the meantime, the industry is promoting itself. The Alaska Farmer’s Market Association (AFMA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to
“Although agriculture is a natural resource, it is different than the other resources like oil, gas, mining, and forestry. Farmers are not developing the resources; they are creating an industry.”
Amy Seitz Polic y Director Alaska Farm Bureau
advancing vibrant and sustainable farmer’s markets, farm stands, CSA programs, and food hubs throughout Alaska. Despite the challenges posed by Alaska’s brief growing season and cold climate, the state has seen a significant expansion of farmer’s markets.
The number of markets has increased from thirteen in 2006 to sixty-five in 2023. AFMA maintains a comprehensive statewide directory featuring these (now sixty-six) markets, as well as local food hubs, CSAs, and farm stands, ensuring that both residents and visitors can easily locate sources for healthy, locally produced food.
A robust resource library and the Alaska Farmer’s Markets Toolkit provide support to farmer’s markets throughout the state. AFMA also educates farmers and market organizers to improve food security by providing access to local foods in the heart of communities.
AFMA is also looking toward the growth of the agricultural industry by focusing on the next generation of young farmers and is launching an Alaska chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition. This nationwide, farmer-led, grassroots organization focuses on shifting power and changing policy to support the new generation of working farmers equitably. The organization is calling for farm policy that will deliver a bright future for young farmers and ranchers across the United States.
Alaska’s agricultural sector demonstrates significant potential, grounded in the resilience and innovation of its farming community. By developing advanced cultivation methods and promoting sustainable food systems, farmers in Alaska continue to demonstrate that the region can support productive agriculture and reliably supply its population, regardless of weather conditions.
Can Money Grow on Trees?
Raising revenue through carbon offset programs
By Rachael Kvapil
Reaching a balance in Alaska’s natural resource-based economy means finding the point where sustainability meets profitability. The state Carbon Offset Program is one revenue source with the potential to contribute to Alaska’s economy while preserving natural resources and helping businesses accomplish carbon reduction goals.
The Green Exchange
After experiments with emission offsets in the ‘70s, a fully developed carbon trading system didn’t appear until the Kyoto Protocol, an international commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in 1997. Carbon offset programs have primarily been a tool for environmental management, with less focus on revenue potential. However, states with extensive natural resources, like Alaska, are looking to create a
win/win scenario where they can increase revenue through carboncreating projects and contribute to emission reduction.
The Carbon Offset Program, managed by the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Office of Project Management & Permitting, is young. Governor Mike Dunleavy signed legislation that created the program in 2023. Until recently, DNR has been developing a legal and regulatory framework in addition to revising some land management plans. Department staff are now beginning the process of identifying and developing partnerships and projects that will meet program criteria.
Fulton. “Resource development is in the state constitution, and this program is another tool to develop a program that is responsible, sustainable, and keeps our lands open for multiple use.”
The creation and sale of carbon credits can be somewhat nebulous.
“The governor was interested in finding a new way to use our natural resources so that it generates new revenue and diversifies the economy while benefiting Alaska,” says Carbon Offset Program Manager Trevor
In a nutshell, carbon offset programs use registered emissions-reducing projects to produce tradable permits, or credits, that are sold to companies as permissions to emit an equal amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. For example, multimedia entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney Company has implemented an internal carbon tax that it uses to invest in conservation and reforestation projects, then it “retires” the credits in a year-end accounting of its company-wide carbon footprint. Disney reported retiring $577,000 in carbon credits in 2024.
A single carbon credit represents one tonne of CO2 avoided or removed from the atmosphere. For reference, that amount approximately equals the emissions produced by driving a car roughly 2,500 miles or taking a round-trip flight from Anchorage to Los Angeles. The average American creates about 16 tonnes of carbon per year through direct and indirect consumption of fossil fuels.
Though some individuals do purchase carbon credits, Fulton says corporations, governments, and larger enterprises are the primary market. Purchasing carbon credits and retiring them allows these entities to reduce their emissions and meet sustainability goals.
Buyers might have other reasons to buy carbon credits, Fulton says. Consumers are increasingly choosing
sustainable brands, paying more for greener products, and green businesses attract capital more easily, so financial institutions are favoring low-carbon companies as they factor climate risk into lending and investment decisions. Likewise, carbon credits allow companies to stay ahead of regulations elsewhere, avoiding last-minute compliance costs and gaining a competitive edge.
“In short, it’s good for business,” says Fulton.
Working the Land
Land ownership plays a vital role in carbon offset programs. In Alaska, land ownership is split between three primary groups. The federal government owns the largest portion, around 61 percent, followed by the State of Alaska,
The registry ensures that emissions reductions and removals are real, measurable, and permanent—not just “business as usual” that would’ve happened without the project.
which owns around 28 percent.
Alaska Native corporations own the remaining 11 percent, minus less than 1 percent owned by individuals and companies. Fulton says only state-owned land can be used for the DNR programs outlined in the carbon offset legislation.
Programs might include managing intact forests so that more trees can soak up carbon dioxide or so that woodlands can resist destruction by wildfires. Programs could also include reforestation or ecosystem restoration, or converting biomass into biochar, a solid form of carbon that cannot leak into the atmosphere. DNR calculates more than 100 million acres of state land has potential for carbon credits, especially by leaving forests untouched.
Fulton emphasizes that any carbon offset project that uses state land will remain available to the public for recreational activities. As with any other DNR project, proposals will be vetted through a public process to make sure that it is consistent with the public interest.
“This is not a land grab, and projects will not lock up any areas,” says Fulton. “Projects will be managed to allow for multiple uses.”
Whatever those uses are, they must verifiably subtract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. DNR doesn’t have a fully developed project yet, but the department is currently reviewing several proposals. Fulton says there are many small-scale, local examples, such as methane capture at landfills, renewable energy initiatives, and energy-efficient
agricultural practices. Several Alaska Native corporations, such as Ahtna Inc., Sealaska, and Chugach Alaska Corporation, have well-established carbon credit programs on lands under their ownership, which the state could use as a model.
To ensure that state carbon offset projects provide the environmental, social, and economic co-benefits, proposals undergo an intense seven-step vetting process. In the first step, projects are identified by DNR or recommended by a project developer, member of the public, or another outside organization. If DNR decides to include a project development partner for services such as data collection, registration, marketing, et cetera, staff will request proposals and select a contractor as part of the
second step. In the third step, DNR evaluates whether to proceed based on economic effects, revenue potential, and compatibility with other land uses. An evaluation must be completed before the fourth step: moving forward with any necessary land reclassification and management plan revisions; the fifth step would be issuing a best interest finding.
Once a best interest finding is complete, DNR can proceed to the sixth step: project registration with an independent carbon crediting program. Fulton says the registration process is extensive, taking eighteen to twenty-four months to complete. In this stage of the project, the registry ensures that emissions reductions and removals are real, measurable, and permanent—not
just “business as usual” that would’ve happened without the project. Once verified, carbon offset credits are issued and tracked by the registry to prevent double-counting or any fraudulent activities.
“In this phase, the registry is a regulatory body that sets the rules,” says Fulton. “The state doesn’t have much say in the requirements.”
Though marketing and sales are listed as the seventh step in the project process, DNR can market a carbon offset credit portfolio to prospective buyers at any point in the development process. Marketing and sales can occur before credits have been issued in the form of an agreement to deliver a fixed number of credits to a buyer at a certain time and price, or credits can be sold after they are issued. DNR has several
The program has yet to generate revenue receipts, but DNR anticipates credit sales could occur in fiscal year 2027–2028.
Red Dog Mine
Delivering today, exploring tomorrow.
“Resource development is in the state constitution, and this program is another tool to develop a program that is responsible, sustainable, and keeps our lands open for multiple use.”
Tre vor Fulton Carbon Offset Progr am Manager Alaska Depa rtment of Natural Resources
options for selling credits, either through an exchange, a broker, or directly to purchasers.
Other Revenue Avenues
Separate from the Carbon Offset Program, the legislation allows for other methods of obtaining carbon credits. Fulton says the DNR Division of Mining, Land & Water oversees Carbon Management Leasing, which allows the department to lease state land to private parties for carbon management purposes. This allows independent third-party entities the opportunity to run their own carbon offset projects or other projects that mitigate greenhouse gases on state land. Any carbon credits produced by the project belong to the lessee. In this scenario, the lease to the third party, rather than the credit itself, generates revenue for the state.
The final revenue-producing component created by the carbon offset legislation is the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage leasing option administered by DNR’s Division of Oil and Gas. Under this program, DNR receives and reviews applications for a five-year exploration license that grants an exclusive right to analyze a defined area for reservoirs suitable for underground carbon storage. The license holder must complete a thorough characterization of the subsurface before they can apply for a permanent carbon storage facility permit from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Upon receiving a facility permit, the land under license is converted to a lease, which authorizes
the use of the pore space for underground carbon storage.
“Subsurface leasing allows companies doing business in Alaska to decarbonize, and we get compensated for the use of the land,” says Fulton. As with the other program, it is the lease that generates state revenue.
As for the program Fulton runs, he listed several feasibility studies in the DNR Carbon Offset Program 2024 Annual Report to the Alaska Legislature. As of January, DNR was studying improved forest management in the Tanana Valley area. Additional feasibility studies planned for 2025–2026 assess the potential for improved forest management projects in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Kenai Peninsula and the Haines State Forest (pending the completion of an updated forest management plan that allows carbon offset projects).
The program has yet to generate revenue receipts, but DNR anticipates credit sales could occur in fiscal year 2027–2028. This report did not include any information on the Carbon Management Leasing program or Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage. Fulton’s report notes that a separate annual report on carbon management leases on state land would be included in the Division of Mining, Land & Water’s 2024 annual compiled statutory reports to the legislature.
In the next few years, these programs could monetize state land by, ironically, limiting resource development on it. Carbon offsets are almost literally money in the bank.
PROUDLY SUPPORTING FIBER SITES ACROSS ALASKA
We are proud to supply Fairbanksbuilt, Arctic tough generators that support GCI’s rural operations no matter the location or conditions.
Broadband, Narrowly Speaking
Internet with a capital ‘I’
By Scott Rhode
Ca ble TV went dark this summer for customers of GCI, Alaska’s largest telecommunications provider. The blackout was hardly a surprise; the company warned last November that it would end the service by mid-2025. In its place, GCI directed customers to video streaming—in practice, not a big change from the set-top boxes GCI had leased to customers since acquiring several cable TV companies in the ‘90s.
CEO Ron Duncan co-founded the company in 1979 as a long-distance telephone provider, using satellites to reach remote Alaska communities. Even as the company entered the local phone market, Duncan had his eye on bigger data pipelines, notes Senior Vice President of Corporate Development Billy Wailand. “Ron saw there were already wires that would support high-bandwidth data in these communities, so he began to purchase cable companies throughout the state,” Wailand says.
Cable was a means to an end, an interim step in GCI’s mission of general communications. TV entered customers’ homes via coaxial cables, thicker than the wires carrying phone calls. Wailand explains, “Engineers were able to significantly scale the speeds that you can push through coaxial cable in a way that they absolutely were not through twisted copper.”
Twisted copper, in use since the first telegraphs of the 1840s, became the earliest internet backbone. However, just as TV has outgrown coaxial cable, the telephone era of internet access ended this year when AOL discontinued dialup service,
effective September 30. These relics have been displaced by broadband. By one interpretation, “broadband” replaces “internet” altogether. “The old term for access to the Internet (a physical infrastructure) is internet (small ‘i’). Nowadays, it’s called broadband, which gives you access to the Internet (capital ‘I’),” says Shawn Williams, vice president of government affairs and strategy at Anchorage-based Pacific Dataport.
Whether that comports with writing conventions (the New York Times switched to lower-case “internet” in 2016, signaling the evolution of a proper name into a common noun), broadband is indeed the way cybercitizens connect these days. GCI’s retreat from cable TV is, in this way, a step forward into the frontier that Duncan envisioned.
For Your WiFi Fridge
Broadband’s breadth is relative to narrower channels of data transmission. For example, when young Thomas Edison was a telegraph operator, 100 words per minute was blazing fast— not much more than 50 bits per second. Edison’s first commercial success was a hack for sending four messages on a wire at a time. The band was broadening.
Today, broadband has a strict definition. “The Federal Communications Commission defines broadband as minimum download speeds of 100 Mbps and minimum upload speeds of 20 Mbps,” explains Tony Dodge, chief network officer for Alaska Communications. Uploading 20 megabits per second is like tapping a telegraph message
“GEO satellite has been a workhorse for rural internet connectivity, but with current needs of higher bandwidth and lower latency, we’re moving to low-Earth orbit satellite solutions.”
Tony Dodge Chief Network Officer Alaska Comm unications
400,000 times faster than Edison. Since customers download more than they upload—say, large music or video files—the inbound data is five times faster still.
And accelerating. “That definition has changed over time, and that makes sense because the needs of your average household have changed over time. Not so long ago, it was 10 megabits down by 1 up; after that, 25 megabits down by 3 megabits up,” says Wailand. The latest standard has only been in place since 2024.
Furthermore, “Several technologies are easily surpassing 100/20,” says Williams, but he figures the minimum is sufficient for typical households. “In a residential context, one must consider how many people are using the connection and what they are doing. Five people gaming concurrently will appreciate faster speeds. A small family cruising the internet will be very happy with 100/20.”
But they won’t be happy forever. Wailand says, “As you have a dozen or two-dozen connected devices—
you know, your fridge now has WiFi in it, or your washing machine—as you have a bunch of teenagers in your house, then you start to press a little harder on whether 100-over20 is sufficient.” Wailand believes the current standard could increase by 10 times in the foreseeable future, to gigabit downloads.
GCI and Alaska Communications are both aiming for that future standard. Dodge says, “We’re focused on deploying fiber networks capable of multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds and expanding our fiber-class fixed wireless service, which delivers up to 300 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload. These services use fiber-fed towers to provide highspeed, low-latency connectivity to homes and businesses, which is a significant performance upgrade over satellite options.”
Glass and Air
Low Earth orbit (LEO) and geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellites are part of the broadband toolbox, yet they don’t
An Alaska Communications apprentice splices fiber in preparation for a fiber-tothe-premise installation in Anchorage.
Alaska Communications
always satisfy the formal definition. Latency, or the time to bounce signals off satellites circling about 22,000 miles away, disqualifies GEO, but LEO satellites about 500 miles overhead can meet the 100-millisecond benchmark.
Dodge says, “GEO satellite has been a workhorse for rural internet connectivity, but with current needs of higher bandwidth and lower latency, we’re moving to low Earth orbit satellite solutions.”
LEO is also the key to Pacific Dataport’s Nome Gateway, a satellitebased backhaul option for enterprise customers in northwestern Alaska. When it was activated in May, the company billed it as the largestcapacity commercial satellite service installed anywhere on Earth. The array of multiple domes enable the Aurora LEO service, connected via SpaceX Starlink satellites. Williams adds that Pacific Dataport has relationships with other LEO networks, such as Eutelsat OneWeb.
Nome already had broadband service via the Quintillion subsea
GCI deployed fiber to King Cove (pictured) and Chignik Bay as part of the AU-Aleutians Fiber Project.
GCI
cable that threads through the Bering Strait, hugs the Arctic coast, and plugs into the terrestrial backbone at Prudhoe Bay. A project is on the drawing board to close the loop with fiber from Nome to Homer as well. The fragility of a single glass fiber became all too evident in 2023 when shifting ice severed the offshore cable and blacked out the broadband that Arctic communities had become accustomed to.
Williams says service like Aurora LEO was already in the works, but the outage hastened deployment. “We saw the opportunity, and we jumped on it,” he says.
The downside of fragility can’t outweigh fiber’s adaptability, however. Wailand notes that the active part of a fiber system is the equipment at either end. “If you want to upgrade it over time, you just swap out those electronics. As technology develops, you’re able to put more and more capacity onto that fiber without doing any major overhauls,” he says.
This advantage contrasts with satellites and with GCI’s other overthe-air system, the TERRA microwave relay network. “You have a smaller footprint when you only need to put in an individual tower instead of laying continuous fiber,” Wailand says. “But as the needs of these communities increase, the ability to scale microwave has not kept up.” The remote towers also need maintenance and refueling, a Herculean effort that GCI exerts because microwaves add a layer of resiliency.
Diverse backups allow for uninterrupted service, not necessarily at broadband standards. Wailand says, “If you’re using a fiber-based
service with multi-gigabit speeds, any other backup service will simply not be able to deliver that. But what you want is to make sure customers still have access to critical services.”
Internet service providers (ISPs) in Alaska are still building toward full redundancy, in Williams’ opinion.
“Alaska’s ISPs often rely on single points of failure, such as one fiber connection, with insufficient failover mechanisms. This gap underscores the need for greater investment in resilient infrastructure, like using space-based LEO gateways as a secondary connection, to align Alaska’s networks with national standards,” he says.
At this moment, though, the priority is spreading a single layer of broadband statewide. Wailand says, “The federal government has
recently said that the first step is to get these communities connected, and the second step, if possible, is to figure out how to bring diversity to the table.”
Installations Abound
Federal infrastructure funds are helping Alaska complete that first step.
“Nearly $2 billion in federal broadband funding is earmarked to connect rural Alaska to the internet,” says Dodge. “Grant funding allows us to offer this service at the same rates available in urban areas. Without federal support, the cost to construct the network makes some technologies impossible to deliver for a reasonable monthly price.”
The scope of broadband installations statewide is dizzying.
Projects in every region are adding communities every few weeks.
“Alaska Communications’ partners have received more than $100 million so far to build reliable, highspeed fiber broadband in fifteen communities along the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers,” Dodge notes.
Meanwhile, GCI is laying fiber through Bristol Bay up the Kuskokwim River in partnership with Bethel Native Corporation. The Airraq Network was activated in Bethel in May. A dozen other communities are part of the “string that tells a story,” the literal meaning of “airraq” in Yup’ik.
Airraq Network is a $150 million investment, with GCI pairing more than $50 million of private capital with more than $100 million in federal grants. Concurrently, GCI
Alaska Communications field technician foreman Travis Wetzel installs fixed wireless at a customer’s home in Soldotna.
Alaska Communications
have yet penetrated.
On the other side of Bristol Bay, Nushagak Electric & Telephone Cooperative is partnering with Choggiung, Limited to install fiber inland to Levelock and Aleknagik via the village corporation’s home base in Dillingham. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration awarded a $29.5 million grant for the project last year.
In 2022, the agency awarded $68.5 million to NANA Regional Corporation to connect 1,379 households and 451 businesses in the Northwest. The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska received $49.9 million to connect 14,000 households in
“If you’re using a fiber-based service with multi-gigabit speeds, any other backup service will simply not be able to deliver that. But what you want is to make sure customers still have access to critical services.”
Bil ly Wailand Senior Vice President of Corporate D evelopment GCI
Southeast, plus $10.5 million for Metlakatla Power and Light to install fiber to 586 homes. Kenaitze Indian Tribe received $7 million to bring fiber to 1,055 households on the Kenai Peninsula.
Through a US Department of Agriculture ReConnect grant, Cordova Telecom Cooperative is planning subsea cables west to Seward and Chenega and south to Juneau, with service along the way to Yakutat, Hoonah, Pelican, and Gustavus. “It will deliver Cordova the critical middle-mile redundancy and internet capacity it needs,” says Cordova Telecom Cooperative CEO Jeremiah Beckett.
The list of new installations goes on.
Broadband for All
Meanwhile, in core areas where broadband is firmly entrenched, service continues to improve. That’s where Alaska Communications’ fiberfed fixed wireless technology comes in. The company announced in July it would extend 300 Mbps download speeds to certain Anchorage neighborhoods. Fairbanks, Juneau, and the Kenai Peninsula are soon to follow, ultimately reaching 100,000 homes and businesses.
Dodge says, “Advances in fixed wireless technology allow for fibergrade speeds and quick deployment. At the same time, we’re ramping up our plans to continue to build a fiberto-the-premise network.”
At a certain point, broadband will reach every corner of Alaska (though filling in all the gaps in between may never happen). By some accounts, that point has arrived. Alaskans anywhere can, in theory, access the
100/20 minimum via Starlink, and gigabit service is scheduled by the end of this year. In the next two or three years, Amazon is activating its LEO competitor, Project Kuiper.
Some might disagree whether LEO counts as ubiquitous broadband. Dodge says it barely meets federal standards in some areas. “It’s also at risk of not being affordable. It’s a great step, but it’s not the end-state Alaskans need,” he says. “Traditional carriers are working to provide ubiquitous coverage across the state, as there are still areas that don’t have access to traditional means of broadband, like fiber.”
Fiber will remain traditional for the time being. “It’s essentially future proof due to its unlimited bandwidth, reliability, and the ability to upgrade equipment to increase capacity without replacing the entire network,” Dodge says. “However, Alaska’s uniqueness calls for a diversified end-mile portfolio.”
He expects new technologies won’t always require rebuilding infrastructure from scratch. For now, though, broadband will require new physical infrastructure, whether base stations like Nome Gateway or information superhighways like Airraq Network or AU-Aleutians.
Furthermore, “Grant funding will continue to be essential to deploying fiber in rural Alaska,” Dodge says. “We thank the National Telecommunications and Information Administration along with Alaska’s congressional delegation for their support bringing important broadband infrastructure funding to our country and state.”
Optimal Operations
Building commissioning ensures structures are shipshape
Ships at sea have something in common with military officers and sales representatives: they all earn commissions. Same goes for buildings. Commissioning ensures all the structural elements and complex systems of an inhabited space work as intended. That type of work entails a specialized analysis done by building commissioning engineers.
Dave Shumway earned his dolphins in the US Navy submarine service, and now he’s a certified building commissioning professional at AMC Engineers in Anchorage. Drawing upon his nautical experience, he notes that each ship commences a "commission log" the moment the vessel formally enters service. When something breaks, Shumway says it’s logged as "out of commission" until the error is fixed.
With buildings, commissioning more often occurs during design and construction. “It allows you the time to go out into the field and actually,
By Christi Foist
you know, operate the systems and make some recommendations and adjustments to the system… so they operate at their peak potential,” Shumway says.
Unlike something produced on an assembly line, with a building, “there is no prototype, there is no testing. There it is,” says Mark Frischkorn, vice president and principal mechanical engineer at RSA Engineering in Anchorage. “When you build a building, it’s a one-off, and it’s gotta work the first time.”
Building commissioning verifies that all the systems work together as expected, both during ordinary operations and when something goes wrong. If a boiler fails, do the right alarms go off? Do all the rooms and systems in a hospital operate as designed? Does air flow properly, and does a building have sufficient sensors to efficiently troubleshoot problems?
Commissioning can also involve labeling and documenting everything
for repairs and changes. It can even ensure that maintenance staff have the access space and training they need. “People look at it as an insurance policy for energy efficiency, occupant comfort… and reducing system failures,” says Joseph Buckley, a certified building commissioning professional and a vice president at the Virginia office of WSP, a global engineering firm with a branch in Anchorage.
How the Field Arose
As a committee member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), Buckley helped develop materials for its building commissioning certification, a program that began in 2010. According to Buckley, the society released its first guideline for HVAC commissioning in 1988, nearly a century into its existence and after a decade of innovation in desktop computing. Computers didn’t
Tomasz
Zajda
directly cause the rise in building commissioning, but they contributed to the need for it.
Increased use of building automation systems or direct digital controls has contributed to the growing need for commissioning.
ASHRAE released its Guideline 0 for the commissioning process in 2005 and has updated it every few years since. The guideline was last updated in 2019.
ASHRAE has also developed two commissioning standards: one for new buildings and one for existing buildings. The commissioning, as it were, of the commissioning certification created a credential known as BCxP, which stands for “building commissioning professional.”
A few other organizations also offer commissioning certifications: the Building Commissioning Association, the Association of Energy Engineers, National Environmental Balancing Bureau, and ACG: the Associated Air Balance Control Commissioning Group.
How Commissioning Works
When building commissioning involves new structures, engineers agree: it’s best to start during the design phase. Commissioners (who are often, though not aways, engineers) work with the building owner to develop the “owner’s project requirements” document.
“We try to get the design more aligned with what the owner is asking for,” says Ezra Gutschow, senior commissioning engineer with the Coffman Engineers office in Anchorage. This can include
things like reviewing equipment choices for the spare parts and maintenance required. They might also check whether a maintenance person could actually reach equipment at the height a contractor proposes to place it.
The scope of commissioning varies, but Buckley says it ideally involves all a building’s systems:
mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, fire alarm, elevators, and so on. Commissioning also means verifying these systems work together as expected. Gutschow says that some pieces of equipment fit into the work of multiple contractors. Even if each one does their part correctly, the device still might not have the right “handshakes” with other systems.
“People look at it as an insurance policy for energy efficiency, occupant comfort… and reducing system failures.”
Jose ph Buckley Vice President WSP
According to Shumway, who’s also the vice president and principal mechanical engineer for AMC Engineers in Anchorage, his firm recommends testing “every single thing” the first time. “It might be the only time that every system component will get checked,” he says.
After the building has been in use for a year, a final step of commissioning can involve verifying that occupants and maintenance staff haven’t noticed unexpected issues. Gutschow says this phase involves talking to the owner and facility staff and trying to help resolve any issues.
Shumway says in some cases, especially in Alaska, a building may require seasonal or phased commissioning. For example, a building finished in January, when indoor heating is at maximum, might need certain adjustments specific to the season. The cooling system, by contrast, might be commissioned later in the year.
Once everything’s running optimally, the commissioning team documents all the details, including all the control settings that ensure this. “You have to be able to recreate it,” Shumway says of the optimal state. After AMC Engineers gets everything running as desired, staff download a computer program with all the set points. This enables something like a factory reset for the building, in case someone adjusts something in error or if other parts of the building get out of whack. Having the saved settings makes it easier to get the building back to commission.
Other Types of Commissioning
Building owners can commission a structure later in its life, too, or do similar evaluation and optimization on the exterior. They might even control how the building interfaces with the surrounding land.
Envelope commissioning involves a building’s exterior and its surrounding land. Gutschow says this can range from looking at how much and where a building leaks heat to reviewing issues of water egress. “A little bit of moisture can cause lots of damage,” he says.
Retro commissioning occurs before starting work to renovate an older building, Frischkorn says. “Before you change anything, you go into an old building and see if it’s working.” This might include identifying hot or cold
spots, systems that unnecessarily run at the same time, or gaps in information. “A lot of building owners don’t keep the documentation” and then regret it when they learn the cost to recreate it, Frischkorn says.
Need It or Nice to Have?
At this point, the State of Alaska only requires building commissioning for schools. The engineers interviewed say some clients— particularly federal government entities—also require it. Federal clients such as the Indian Health Service might have standard commissioning guidelines for certain types of projects.
Qualifying for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building status can also require commissioning. The amount involved depends on what program level the client seeks. LEED certifies
Recommissioning involves going back to a previously commissioned room or structure that’s being used differently than at the time of initial evaluation. Shumway says experienced owners might do this in five- to seven-year intervals throughout the building’s useful lifetime. For example, a room initially commissioned to have two people use two computers in it might need to get recommissioned if occupancy increases to eight people and eight computers. Heating and cooling needs and indoor air quality would look quite different in those two scenarios. Shumway says this type of commissioning occurs every few years or as part of major adjustments to a space and its use.
buildings at four different levels based on the owner’s work in areas like energy, water and materials use, sustainability, and so on.
Some clients also stipulate that a third party must conduct the assessment. Shumway says AMC Engineers prefers to commission its own buildings because the process helps staff learn and grow. They also know the assumptions they’ve made in designing the building, so they can better anticipate how certain changes will affect other parts of the structure.
Frischkorn echoes the learning value of commissioning. He says RSA Engineering sometimes commissions other firms’ designs, and sometimes those engineers commission RSA designs. Third-party commissioners can bring a fresh set of eyes to a project. Frischkorn says building commissioning professionals don’t have any financial motivation to make something look right even if it’s not, which could be why federal clients often require a third-party review.
Ounce of Prevention
Even when it’s not required, engineers say building commissioning can pay long-term dividends. “Some of these buildings we do are $800 to $1,200 a square foot,” Shumway says. “To commission it is like maybe $3 a square foot. So you’re adding on like a $3 premium for something that’s already orders of magnitude higher than that. It seems like you’d want to pay the extra money to make sure it works.”
In remote locations where it’s harder and more expensive to get the contractor back for future repairs, commissioning provides an extra
“If commissioning is done well, most owners are usually pretty happy with the money they’ve spent.”
Mark Frischkorn Vice Pres ident and Principal Mechanica l Engineer RSA Engineering
check while they’re still onsite. “Once the contractor is off site, it’s really hard to get him back,” Frischkorn says. Commissioning a building can reduce the need for that.
“When you’re out, like, in the Bush and you’re doing a project, you don’t do fancy stuff,” Shumway says. “You do bulletproof, tried-and-true, highly reliable systems with lots of backups. You… make the layout of the systems very intuitive so they’re easy to understand, operate, and maintain.” He says it’s especially important to leave free space around equipment to make maintenance convenient. Designs and systems should also avoid any parts that require specialty tools or unusual spare parts.
Commissioning can also reduce operating costs, which is particularly critical in locations where heating oil must be flown in. Thorough commissioning can also reduce equipment wear by ensuring devices cycle properly and don’t run unnecessarily.
“If commissioning is done well, most owners are usually pretty happy with the money they’ve spent,” Frischkorn says. While general contractors were more resistant at first, the reduced callbacks for later adjustments has tended to win them over.
Resolving Problems
Once something’s been built or installed, it typically goes through final commissioning and project acceptance while the contractor is onsite. This allows for adjustments in real time, resolving issues as they go.
The time involved for building commissioning depends on the structure. Shumway estimates he can do a typical office room in less than an hour. A different room might take all morning, however. A complex, Biological Safety Level 3 laboratory suite he recently commissioned took several people more than a week to go through 1,100 square feet. “It all depends on the complexity of the systems,” he says.
Third-party commissioners don’t have the authority to change the original engineer’s design; they can only raise issues and suggest fixes. The contractor or engineer then directs the contractor to make the changes.
If commissioning reveals bigger issues, the engineer communicates those to all parties involved. In some cases, resolution might require discussion of who will pay for the needed changes.
“You don’t get what you expect; you get what you inspect,” Shumway says.
For over 80 years, among the cleanest, low-sulfur coal produced in the U.S. has been mined in Alaska by Alaskans at the Usibelli Coal Mine. Shoreside Petroleum and Petro 49 salute the Usibelli family, their outstanding team, and the very important role they fill in providing homegrown energy security that is affordable and reliable for Interior Alaska.
Whittier
Seward
Soldotna Homer
Kodiak
Sitka
Skagway
Juneau
Petersburg
Wrangell
Craig
Ketchikan
Dawson City Stewart Crossing
Watson Lake
Haines Junction
Whitehorse
THE FOCUSED MANAGER
The Career Relationship Managing through the stages
By Brian Walch
As any parent knows, raising kids is a humbling, fulfilling, and never-ending process. It begins with high hopes as parents envision raising bright, well-adjusted, kind human beings who will change the world. They picture themselves as patient, wise, and always ready with the right thing to say.
Reality quickly appears. Parenting is messy, unpredictable, exhausting, and overwhelming. It is relentless and demands more than expected. It tests one’s character but is deeply rewarding.
As kids get older, parents’ perspectives shift. They see where their own strengths and weaknesses have manifested in their child’s personality. There are missed opportunities they wish they could revisit, memories they will never forget.
There is no finish line in parenting. One is a parent for life, and the parent/child relationship constantly evolves.
Your career works the same way.
More Than a Job
It’s easy to think of your career as nothing more than a series of jobs,
titles, and paychecks. But that view sells it short. A career is far more than a résumé. It affects your financial well-being, shapes your sense of accomplishment and contribution, influences your friendships, and even impacts your health.
Yet we often talk about careers as if they restart every time we change jobs or roles: “I started a new career in management.” or “I began a career in healthcare.” If a career is a relationship, everything already completed carries forward.
Careers don’t reset with each change. When you step into a new role, you bring with you all the habits, skills, and relationships you’ve developed along the way. That’s why two people in the same position can look identical on paper but have entirely different careers. Their history and experiences make them unique. They have invested differently and built careers that have brought them to the same point but not with the same story.
If we acknowledge that a career is a relationship and something ongoing, rather than a particular job or position, then we can look at it in stages. Just as parenting is
different with toddlers, teenagers, and adult children, your career requires different things at different times. Each stage presents its own challenges and unique opportunities to grow, contribute, and find meaning.
The Early Career Stage
If you’ve been around toddlers, you know they need structure and constant feedback. There are lots of rules, expectations, and guardrails as they explore new environments. The energy can feel chaotic, but growth happens quickly.
The early career stage is much the same. You’re figuring out how to contribute, building skills, and learning how to navigate workplace culture. It’s a time of rapid progress, often marked by kudos, promotions, and recognition.
But there’s a risk. It’s easy to chase rewards and to neglect the deeper work of building routines, relationships, and a professional mindset that lasts beyond the first job. This stage is about laying the foundation of skills, habits, and networks that will serve you for a lifetime.
Here are the key activities of the early career stage:
• Build reliability. Do what you say you’ll do. Consistency builds trust faster than occasional brilliance.
• Seek role models. Notice people you admire and study how they work, not just what they achieve.
• Say “yes” to stretch opportunities. Growth comes from challenges that push you out of your comfort zone.
• Start reflecting. Regularly review your performance and progress. Reflection turns experience into learning.
• Invest in relationships. The colleagues you connect with now may become lifelong friends or future mentors.
The Middle Career Stage
All parents wonder what the teenage years will be like. When they get there, they realize how difficult it is. Even in the best circumstances, parenting teens is full of doubt, second-guessing, and the inevitable feeling of not doing it right.
Imagine this stage of your career as the teen years of your career. Responsibility expands, but the path forward feels less clear. You’re expected to handle more ambiguity. Promotions slow down, feedback is less frequent, and progress isn’t always as visible.
where your professional identity begins to take shape.
This is the stage with the highest level of uncertainty, yet the most at stake. How you respond to challenges, navigate difficult choices, and build relationships will shape future stages of your career.
In the middle career stage, these are the key activities:
• Clarify your values. Decide what matters most to you and let those values guide your career choices.
• Proactively seek feedback. Don’t wait for annual reviews. Ask peers, mentors, and team members for their perspectives.
• Strengthen your peer network. It is no longer sufficient to rely on your boss as the only source
Done with cramped hotel rooms?
Stretch
Some people move into management during this stage. Others transition into a new career track. Regardless of the role, the wins of your early career give way to more nuanced challenges. The shift can feel messy, frustrating, and unsteady, but it’s also the stage
of support. Peers must become trusted allies.
• Experiment deliberately. Try new roles, projects, or responsibilities to learn what energizes you.
• Reframe doubt. Stretch yourself and venture into new territories. Feeling uncertain is normal and can be a sign of growth, not failure.
The Mature Career Stage
As children grow into adults, parenting becomes less about rules and more about steady influence. A mature career follows the same arc. The focus shifts from chasing achievements to helping others and contributing through your experience.
By now, you’ve been through cycles of success and failure. You’ve built the judgment that others trust and the perspective that comes from doing the work. You’re no longer looking for easy wins because you’ve learned that success is measured less by your own accomplishments and more by the impact you create for others.
Whether you’re leading a team, guiding a project, or serving as an expert in your field, this stage is about contribution. You carry the benefit of experience, and people follow your example, looking to you for wisdom. You have something to offer that can strengthen others and shape the culture around you.
Mature careers still have key activities to achieve:
• Mentor and coach others. Share your experience, but don’t give all the answers. Help others discover their own path.
• Shape culture. Model the behaviors you want to see. Others
are watching, and your example sets the tone.
• Choose projects intentionally. Focus on work that aligns with your strengths and creates the greatest impact.
• Keep learning. Stay curious and develop new skills. Growth keeps you relevant and engaged.
• Elevate others. Measure success by the people you help succeed, not just what you accomplish yourself.
The Legacy Career Stage
Eventually, children move fully into adulthood. They get married, start families, and build lives of their own. Parents begin to see the full circle of how their influence and investment over the years show up in both expected and surprising ways.
Similarly, your relationship with your career doesn’t end with retirement. Stepping away from a formal role doesn’t erase what came before. Colleagues have become close friends, and habits that took decades to build still shape your life.
Like grandparents forming new bonds with their grandchildren, the skills and attributes you developed in earlier stages become a foundation for meaningful relationships, personal pursuits, creative projects, and causes you care about.
Even this late stage has key activities:
• Appreciate what you’ve built. Recognize that your career is more than your job titles; it has shaped who you are.
• Stay connected. Nurture the friendships and networks you built to enrich your personal life.
• Repurpose your skills. Apply your expertise to pursuits and causes that matter most to you now.
• Share your experience. Mentor, advise, and support those around you.
• Live your legacy. Let the principles you built your career on guide and inspire others.
Putting It in Perspective
All careers have their highs and lows. Some decisions you’ll be proud of, others you’ll second-guess. But when you view your career as a relationship, those ups and downs take on a different meaning. Setbacks are no longer failures; they are part of the story. Victories are more than milestones; they are building blocks to a fulfilled life.
Investing in your career does more than build a résumé. It creates value beyond the accomplishments and monetary rewards. The relationships you invest in and the culture you contribute to become part of the legacy that strengthens organizations and the communities they serve.
Alaska needs people at all stages of their careers. When we treat our careers as lifelong relationships, we not only build stronger organizations today, but we also ensure that experience, values, and culture continue to shape the communities we serve for future generations.
Brian Walch is an executive coach, consultant, and speaker on leadership development. He uses his extensive experience in people and systems to provide tools and services to empower managers to lead themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Learn more at shiftfocus.com.
INSIDE ALASKA BUSINESS
Teck Resources
The operator of Red Dog Mine is merging with a former partner in the Pebble Mine project. Teck Resources and Anglo American agreed in September to a $53 billion merger-ofequals to form Anglo Teck, retaining Teck’s headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. The merged company will have the capacity to produce 1.2 million tonnes of copper per year, making it one of the world’s largest producers of this metal. Teck is already a globally significant producer of zinc and germanium thanks to Red Dog and the Trail zinc refinery in British Columbia. London-based Anglo American had been seeking copper in the Bristol Bay watershed until 2013, when it withdrew from the Pebble Limited Partnership. teck.com
Santos
The Pikka Project remains an Australian endeavor. A consortium led by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company decided on September 19 to withdraw from a proposed $18.7 billion takeover of Santos, the parent company of the Pikka Phase 1 development on the North Slope. The board of Santos, after an extended due diligence period, had asked for $5.626 per share. On the day of the decision, Santos stock dropped from $5.19 per share to $4.75. Santos still expects first oil from Pikka Phase 1 in the first quarter of 2026. santos.com/north-america
Catalyst Cannabis | El Green-Go’s
“Not only does it work great to have tacos next to weed,” says Will Schneider, laughing at the joke that everyone tells, “but it’s also an underserved area in the community to have nice communal spaces where people can meet and eat.”
The founder and CEO of Catalyst Cannabis Company created that space in a former First National Bank Alaska branch at Northern Lights Boulevard and Boniface Parkway. The cannabis retailer opened its fourth Anchorage location in July, stashing precious merchandise in the old bank vault. The other half of the building is configured as a food court. El Green-Go’s, which built a reputation as a go-to food truck in Downtown Anchorage, is settling in this month as an anchor tenant.
catalystcannabisco.com | elgreengosak.com
Furniture
Enterprises of Alaska
Originally the first Walmart in Wasilla and later a Sears, the bigbox store at Parks Highway and Seward Meridian Parkway is now a furniture supercenter. Furniture Enterprises of Alaska refurbished the building to hold three of its brands: Sadler’s Home Furnishings, Ashley Homestore, and a new spinoff: Sadler’s Outlet. Company president Dave Cavitt says the outlet is meant for lower-priced overstock or lightly damaged items. Sadler’s hasn’t been
in Wasilla since the ‘80s, formerly operating in what is now the Alaska Industrial Hardware store. furnitureenterprisesak.com
Treeforms | Time Equities
Inc.
The Treeforms Furniture Gallery in Wasilla is closing, and the company is consolidating operations in its Anchorage store on Old Seward Highway; simultaneously, but unrelated, the Midtown building is changing owners. New York Citybased Time Equities, Inc. added the property at 4831 Old Seward Highway to its Anchorage portfolio, which also includes the nearby Amazon warehouse and the Midtown Mall. Treeforms, meanwhile, established its Nordic Spaces brand at 34th Avenue and A Street when the Scan Home Furniture store at that location went out of business.
treeforms.net | timeequities.com
Toast of the Town
Already a dominant player in the event planning sector, Toast of the Town expanded by acquiring the complementary capabilities of longtime décor and rental provider Alaska Event Services. The combined entity becomes Alaska’s largest event planning, décor, and rental entity. The two Anchorage-based companies produce more than 150 events annually. They will continue to operate under existing brand names. “We are combining strengths to give clients more
creative possibilities and greater value. Anchorage clients no longer have to juggle multiple vendors,” says Toast of the Town COO Martha Keele.
toastofthetownak.com
Ben Franklin Store
The Juneau location of the Ben Franklin craft store franchise is closing. Fred and Sally Wiley purchased the downtown shop in 1973, and three generations of the family have operated it since then. The owners announced in September that the holiday shopping season would be the last before the store closes by the end of the year. As part of the first US retail franchise, Ben Franklin sells hobby
supplies, souvenirs, and sundries. The parent company went bankrupt in 2017; from a peak of 2,500 stores nationwide, only a handful of franchise locations in each state remain.
Pillbox Drug Co.
Patients in Skagway don’t have to get prescriptions filled by mail or flown in from Juneau anymore. Dahl Memorial Clinic opened a pharmacy in August, in partnership with the nonprofit Portland House. Named for a Gold Rush-era business, Pillbox Drug Co. occupies a historic building on State Street. A pharmacy, unlike the clinic’s dispensary, can bill insurance companies for reimbursement. The drugstore
also offers Skagway locals a 10 percent discount on all items except prescription medications. pillboxdrug.com
Let’s Stay Home
A new spot for home furnishings and décor opened in Anchorage in September. Let’s Stay Home blends new, custom, and consigned pieces, including seating, lamps, and rugs.
The shop at Old Seward Highway and Tudor Road specializes in cozy, curated pieces rather than massmarket or overstock furniture. This includes consignments of “gently loved” furniture or décor, with the consignors earning half of the sale price. letsstayhome.net
THIS ALASKA BUSINESS
In the industrial section of Palmer, computer-controlled machining tools whir at TriJet Manufacturing Services, cutting precise shapes from metal plates. Aircraft component makers, robotics inventors, and maintainers of vintage North Slope equipment rely on the shop’s waterjet table, welding expertise, and powdercoating cabinets.
“They go, ‘Hey, we’ve got this thing. We don’t want to scale up to manufacture this thing, but we think you could make them for us,” says Hans Vogel. He started the company in 2003 to supply parts for Triverus, a sister company that makes aircraft carrier deck cleaning machines for the US Navy, among other worldwide clients.
ALASKA BUSINESS
RIGHT MOVES
Alaska Business Publishing Company
· A new team member joins the Alaska Business Publishing Company sales department. Weston Giliam comes aboard as a Sales Account Manager, facilitating relationships between advertising clients and the production department. Selling printed paper comes easily to Giliam, who previously ran Custacup, a distributor of logoed tableware for restaurants. He started the business in Miami after working for Flamingo Paper, a supplier of disposable cups and napkins to cruise lines. A thirdgeneration Alaskan, Giliam earned a degree in marketing from Florida International University.
ANCSA Regional Association
· The forum for regional corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) has a new leader. The board of the ANCSA Regional Association selected Nicole Borromeo as President. Borromeo, who previously served as general counsel to the Alaska Federation of Natives, succeeds Kim Reitmeier, who served as the association’s president for fourteen years. A shareholder of Interior ANCSA corporation Doyon, Limited, Borromeo is a graduate of Mt. Edgecumbe High School and UAA. She earned her Juris Doctorate from the University of Washington School of Law.
Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority
· The Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority appointed Esther Aaltséen Reese as its new COO in Juneau. Aaltséen brings more than thirteen years of leadership experience from Wrangell Cooperative Association, where she served as tribal administrator. She is credited with securing federal disaster
aid for Wrangell following a devastating landslide. Aaltséen succeeds Joyce Niven, who is retiring after nearly twenty years with the housing association.
MSI Communications
Full-service marketing and public relations agency MSI Communications promoted two of its Anchorage employees to support clients statewide.
· Asia Bauzon is now Associate Creative Director after five years as an art director. For the past three years, she has led creative strategy and development for some of MSI’s most visible clients. Bauzon earned a bachelor’s degree in art at UAA and previously worked as a graphic designer at Spawn Ideas.
· Mercy Nyaga is promoted to Account Manager, responsible for strategic planning, marketing campaign development, budgeting, media strategy, and client communications. Nyaga earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Nairobi. Over the past four years at MSI, Nyaga has played a key role in building lasting client relationships.
R&M Consultants
A professional engineer and a geologist joined the staff at civil engineering, surveying, and environmental firm R&M Consultants.
· Jason Johnston joins the team as Senior Project Engineer in the Surface Transportation Group. Before joining R&M, Johnston supervised a team of engineers at the US Forest Service. He has also held roles with the National Park Service, and he was a top-tier
RIGHT MOVES IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY NORTHERN AIR CARGO
Giliam
Bauzon
Nyaga
Johnston
contracting officer’s representative for the federal government.
Johnston holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Montana State University, and he is registered with the State of Alaska as a professional civil engineer.
· Trevor Copple joins R&M Consultants’ Geosciences Group as an Environmental Geologist. His previous roles included managing field teams, preparing technical reports, and coordinating with clients on projects such as stormwater management, spill response and remediation, and oil and gas decommissioning across the western United States. Copple earned an associate’s degree in environmental geology from Salt Lake Community College, a bachelor’s degree in petroleum geology from Oklahoma State University, and a master’s degree in geology from the Colorado School of Mines. He is a certified asbestos building inspector.
Alaska Heart & Vascular Institute
The Alaska Heart & Vascular Institute (AHVI) added two experienced advanced practice providers to its location in Wasilla.
· Monica Lewis is a board-certified family nurse practitioner. Before joining AHVI, she provided primary, urgent, and emergency care in remote Alaska villages. Her career began as an emergency medical technician and transitioned to nursing, specializing in emergency medicine. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Utica College and a master’s degree from State University of New York Upstate Medical University.
· Geoff Mittelsteadt is an acute care nurse practitioner and certified emergency nurse. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a master’s degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. A retired US Air Force
veteran, Mittelsteadt served twenty-eight years as a mentor, educator, and healthcare leader.
UAF
· A new boss takes charge at the UAF Cooperative Extension Service. Jennifer Wagaman was promoted to Director from her previous position as Communications Manager of the UAF Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extension, under which the service operates. Wagaman has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and art and a master’s degree in communications, both from UAF.
UA Foundation
· The philanthropic arm of the UA System gained a new President. Tlisa Northcutt, who was leading the UA Foundation in an interim capacity this summer, was hired for that position and, in a dual role, as the foundation’s Chief Development Officer. Northcutt holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public communications from UAA and a master’s degree in philanthropy and development from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. She has been a Certified Fund Raising Executive since 2009.
MTA
· Upon the retirement of Michael C. Burke after a decade as CEO of MTA, Demian Voiles stepped up as a successor. The board of the Palmerbased telecom selected Voiles at the culmination of a nationwide search. Voiles joins MTA from Comcast, the Philadelphia-based conglomerate where he served as Regional Vice President of Construction and Engineering. He previously worked in Alaska for Verizon as the global phone company’s first employee in the state and is credited with building Verizon Alaska from the ground up. Voiles holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.
Lewis
Mittelsteadt
Copple
Voiles
ALASKA TRENDS
Cold, cold ground in the valleys along the Nenana River at Healy contains the hot, hot heat that powers 45 percent of electricity in the Interior. Usibelli Coal Mine has been digging in the dirt since 1943 for the energy resource that warms the region. The state’s only operating coal mine produces approximately 1 million tons of fossil fuel annually. About 35 percent is burned at two nearby power plants while the remainder is transported by the Alaska Railroad to Fairbanks-area power plants operated by Golden Valley Electric Association and Aurora Energy.
Usibelli Coal Mine commissioned McKinley Research Group to analyze the economic impact of coal in the Interior. The report—based on public information, data from Usibelli Coal Mine, and direct interviews—finds that mining in Healy supported $54.6 million in wages statewide, with 568 people employed at the mine itself in 2023.
Thanks to the energy density of the combustible rock, coal is a lower-cost source of electricity compared to naphtha or diesel; in 2023, Golden Valley Electric Association averaged $0.07 per kilowatt hour for coal-fired electricity compared to $0.36 for diesel. Yet the region’s residents pay rates more than one and a half times higher than the national average, and the greater need for light and heat in the winter drives the annual energy cost burden to three times the national average.
Coal has the advantage, though, of being stockpiled year-round, assuring utility managers of a stable fuel supply. And the report concludes that shifting away from coal would result in higher electricity prices for the Interior.
This month’s edition of Alaska Trends excavates some more nuggets from that report, showing what powers the Interior grid, how prices compare geographically and among heating fuels, and how the Fairbanks area stays warm.
SOURCE: “Energy and Economic Impacts of Coal in Interior Alaska,” January 2025
Electrical Generation
Electricity produced in the Interior in 2023 was generated mainly from fossil fuels such as coal, diesel, and naphtha. Hydroelectricand natural gasgenerated electricity transmitted from Southcentral accounted for one-fifth (20%) of Interior electricity in 2023. Wind and solar resources accounted for 2% of generation.
WIND/SOLAR
2 Plants, 26 MW NAPHTHA 1 Plant, 62 MW
531 MW of electricity produced in 2023
The Cost of Energy
Electricity rates across Alaska are generally high, with the state average electricity rate 65% higher than the US average. In Interior Alaska, residential rates in 2024 were more than 1.5 times higher than the average national rate.
Fuel Efficiency
Coal is a substantially lower-cost source of electrical energy compared to other nonvariable sources of power produced in Interior. Hydroelectricand natural gas-generated energy transmitted to the Interior is limited by capacity of transmission infrastructure and availability of natural gas. Wind and solar sources cannot currently supply the level of stable energy required in the region.
Heat Generation
The amount of heat required in a region can be expressed in terms of heating degree days (HDD). This measurement counts the number of degrees below a comfortable temperature (65 F) a region’s outdoor temperature averages, indicating the demand for heating energy. A region like Hawai'i requires 0 HDD, while Seattle requires 5,000 HDD. Across Alaska, annual HDD requirements range from lows of 7,000 in Southeast up to 20,000 on the North Slope.
Fairbanks-area
Sources of home heat in Fairbanks area
What book is currently on your nightstand?
The Physics of Consciousness: In the Quantum Field, Minerals, Plants, Animals and Human Souls by Ivan Antić.
What charity or cause are you passionate about?
Forget Me Not Grief Center of Alaska. They encourage normalizing the grief process for children and youth.
What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?
Exercise so I can clear my mind for my family. I like to lift weights and do interval training.
What vacation spot is on your bucket list?
Portugal. Looks like a beautiful place to hike… and my husband’s ancestry is from there.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be? It would be neat to know a raven.
by Misty Kincaid
Photos
OFF THE CUFF
Michele Parkhurst
When her order at Kaladi Brothers
Coffee arrives in a Wonder Woman mug, Michele Parkhurst pays at the register, even though she’s the boss. She adds a $3 tip, as if by reflex. “I came from the service industry, so I’m grateful for the work and effort,” Parkhurst says.
She started as barista at the East Tudor Road location and learned the retail and wholesale sides of the café and roastery, becoming president last year when co-founder Tim Gravel stepped away from day-to-day duties.
Is Parkhurst the Kaladi Sister? There have been jokes, she says, especially because her real-life sister works for the company too.
Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time?
Michele Parkhurst: I love to spend time with my family, hiking and biking. We like to go out to our family cabin in Talkeetna.
AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?
Parkhurst: In the last year, I’ve started learning Italian.
AB: What’s the most daring thing you’ve ever done?
Parkhurst: I’ve done a lot of backpacking trips in Alaska… I’ve also done trips in Iceland and southern Italy.
AB: What are you superstitious about?
Parkhurst: The energy you put out there is the energy you receive in your life. I try to live by that.
AB: What’s your favorite local restaurant?
Parkhurst: Rustic Goat. Frazer Buchanan does amazing stuff… It’s our sister company, but Chef Frazer does everything.
AB: Dead or alive, who would you like to see perform live in concert?
Parkhurst: The Beatles or Tom Petty.
AB: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Parkhurst: I have an old ‘65 Mustang coupe. It’s a fun project car.
AB: What’s your best attribute and worst attribute?
Parkhurst: My best attribute is having bandwidth for individuals… but I’d also say balancing that can be very challenging.
The 460E is our biggest ADT ever. This 46-ton load hog delivers standard setting productivity and profitability to your fleet. Steep slopes, blinding dust, deep ruts, and slippery muck. If you run ADTs, you know the drill. Loaded with one-of-a-kind productivity-boosting features, our tough, go-anywhere haulers are built to keep materials, and profits, in the fast lane. Regardless of what’s underfoot.
