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Contents
Features
By Lincoln Garrick
Endless Forms Most Bureaucratic
By Chris Slottee
The Corporate Transparency Act
By Alex Kubitz and Ben Spiess
Boarding Next: Net Zero Flights
By Scott Rhode
Boarding Next: Net Zero Flights
By Scott Rhode
By Tracy Barbour
By Alexandra Kay
A Prescription for Better Healthcare
By Rachael Kvapil
By Lincoln Garrick
Endless Forms Most Bureaucratic
By Chris Slottee
The Corporate Transparency Act
By Alex Kubitz and Ben Spiess
By Tracy Barbour
By Alexandra Kay
Boarding Next: Net Zero Flights
By Scott Rhode
Boarding Next: Net Zero Flights
By Scott Rhode
A Prescription for Better Healthcare
By Rachael Kvapil
Quick Reads
About The Cover

hen Anchorage based Pacific Dataport, Inc. (PDI) launched its Aurora 4A satellite from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 30, it was a thrilling and historic event. Aurora 4A is the first micro-geosynchronous high throughput satellite (GEO HTS) ever launched—and it was created exclusively for Alaskans.
Aurora 4A—at about 880 pounds and the size of a commercial dryer—sits over the equator at 163°W longitude, just south of Bethel. Its gateway, or satellite ground station, is located in Utah, where it connects users to fiber and the Internet. The satellite will help connect about 10,000 rural Alaska families, improving healthcare, education, and economic opportunity.
From the Editor
- Alaska Business does not accept political advertising, nor do we take a position on any political candidate. As advocates for responsible business development, we do occasionally take a position on a specific political issue that we believe will positively or negatively impact Alaska’s businesses.
- Alaska Business generally does not report on lawsuits, legal conflicts, or legal outcomes, unless they directly and significantly influence an Alaska industry. As an example, we are running an exception to this guideline in this issue in “Shared Infrastructure,” which includes commentary on the positions that ConocoPhillips Alaska, Santos, and the State have taken on who can use privately built roads, and under what circumstances, on the North Slope.

Billie Martin
press@akbizmag.com
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he legal industry consists of services providing legal advice, assistance, or representation; notarial activities; and research in criminal and civil litigation. Some firms focus exclusively on drawing up legal documents and advising clients on legal transactions. Many lawyers based in Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau specialize more narrowly in just a few legal disciplines, while those based in rural Alaska often practice more broadly in several areas of the law. Nationally, only 3 percent of civil cases go to trial, so alternative dispute resolution methods—such as mitigation or arbitration, where parties work to reach a mutually agreeable solution to their differences—have become a growing sector for active and retired lawyers.



ver the past forty years, federal government contracting has cemented its status as one of the primary drivers of the Alaska economy. Alaska Business’ annual Top 49ers routinely showcases businesses for whom federal government contracting comprises a significant portion of their revenue, establishing federal government contracting as a keystone of some of the top economic engines in Alaska. In fact, one study identified seventy-nine Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) (all thirteen regional corporations and sixty-six village corporations) that collectively owned a total of 1,396 enterprises engaged in some form of federal government contracting. These ANCs are estimated to have received more than $11 billion dollars in federal contracting revenue in 2021 alone for federal government contracting in Alaska, the Lower 48, and across the world.
While Alaska businesses’ share of federal government contracting dollars may be increasing, a combination of executive orders, regulatory actions by the Biden administration, and legal challenges raise significant issues that may impact operations in the future.
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nder a new federal law to address money laundering and other financial crimes, business entities must file new information reports with the US Department of the Treasury starting January 1, 2024.
The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) requires an informational filing with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The purpose of the CTA is to combat money laundering, terrorism, and human trafficking. The filings provide law enforcement with information on the ownership and control of business entities obscured behind shell companies and non-disclosure. The information is confidential and, generally, will be available only to law enforcement and banks.
However, the law imposes a strict and—in some cases—complex reporting burden on many businesses.
he Alaska Bar Association is a resource for both lawyers and the community engaging with the legal industry. Below, a spokesperson for the Alaska Bar Association answers our questions about what services the bar provides and its goals for the future.
Alaska Business: What are the principal goals/activities of the Alaska Bar Association?
Alaska Bar Association: The purposes of the Alaska Bar Association are to regulate the practice of law; promote reform in the law and in judicial procedure; facilitate the administration of justice; encourage continuing legal education for the membership; and increase the public service and efficiency of the Bar.
The Alaska Bar recently adopted a strategic plan for 2023-2025 with three goals:
- Reduce the access-to-justice-gap and build an attorney pipeline.
- Ensure the Bar is more reflective of the people it serves.
- Increase public service and efficiency of the Bar: engage, understand, and communicate.
Here’s what we did: earlier this year we invited licensed Alaskan attorneys to nominate licensed lawyers practicing in Alaska who they think excel in providing legal services. Once the online survey process was completed, a third-party data collection specialist verified that the nominated lawyers have a current license. The final list of Legal Elite represents about 8 percent of practicing lawyers in the state, all of whom were selected by those who are intimately knowledgeable about what it takes to be a good lawyer.
The lawyers you’ll find in the Legal Elite occupy a range of legal roles, from working for the State to in-house counsel to traditional law firms. That means this list is not a directory of attorneys for hire, though many of them would be happy to provide you with legal services. It is instead a representation of the cream of the legal industry crop in Alaska.


I met my husband Peter in law school. Peter is originally from Chignik Lake, and we came back to Alaska after graduation (14 years and 3 kids ago!). I have been at LBB for almost 10 years. I have a great time with my colleagues and clients, and am fortunate to get to work on a variety of real estate deals. My favorites are those with a special “Alaska” flavor.
I used to volunteer regularly with the AK Landlord Tenant Hotline. So many of our community members in Anchorage and elsewhere in the state are on the edge of houselessness, for a lot of different reasons. More often than not, I was helping someone in real time avoid going over that edge. It’s not a long-term fix, but I like to think it made a difference.
lthough businesses are capitalizing on cloud-based solutions to enhance their operations, the interconnectedness of the cloud creates unique security risks. Therefore, companies must implement effective cloud security strategies to protect the sensitive and private data—especially health information, personally identifiable data, and payment card information—they have stored online.
“Unauthorized access can lead to data breaches, compromising sensitive information and damaging the integrity of the business,” says Chad Alessi, a solutions architect with New York-based Computer Task Group (CTG) who works for the company’s Alaska office remotely from Katy, Texas. “By implementing robust security measures and staying proactive in addressing vulnerabilities, businesses can safeguard their sensitive data, maintain uninterrupted operations, and uphold the trust of their customers and stakeholders.”
n 1971 the iPhone, Facebook, and Tesla were not yet a glint in a designer’s eye. However, there was one innovation that created a new form of self-determination for Alaska Native people.
The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) formed Alaska Native corporations that are responsible for the social, cultural, and economic well-being of the Alaska Native people from their ancestral homelands. The groundbreaking act created socially conscious, shareholder-owned corporations designed from the start to focus on serving the needs of their people rather than growing a stock price.
Aligned with this mission and similar to other shareholder-owned corporations, ANCSA required that Alaska Native corporations keep shareholders apprised of company business.
Although the Meetings and Conventions field is closely tied to the tourism industry, this section focuses mainly on business conferences, trade shows, professional trainings, or academic symposiums: how to host them and how to get the most out of attending them.
Before digging into the agenda, be advised that some extra material outside of this section might be of interest. “Open Lines of Communication” samples some of the communications channels, including in-person meetings, that connect Alaska Native corporations to their shareholders.
Within this section, breakouts are designed to be visited in any order. “Explore Fairbanks Pulls Off Bucket-list Conference” is a first-hand report of a travel journalism conference in Fairbanks that was–get this–written by a travel journalist. “Seeing Eye to Eye” is about how to choose an in-person venue, especially for smaller single-table conferences, and “Voices on Stage” gives advice about planning an agenda and selecting speakers. In “Party Pros,” meet the special vendors who add enjoyment to an otherwise stuffy affair; learn how that enjoyment, far from frivolous, is crucial to the communicative purpose of the event. And please take home some “Sustainable Swag,” using the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference as an example.
Registration badges can be reused for the next event, so please deposit them at the Table of Contents on the way out to the front cover.


hether organizing a multi-day conference, an in-house training or team building activity, or even the annual holiday party, the choice of vendors can mean the difference between a lackluster event attendees can’t wait to leave and one that will have them gushing on social media—and saving the date for next year.
“It’s all about engagement,” says Coral Howe, owner of the Alaska Photobooth Company. “How can I get these people engaged?”
The “how” partly depends on the type of event. A company picnic or an evening reception that caps off a day-long training have more leeway to inject fun and levity compared to a conference or training that has a timed agenda and certain topics it must address. An inflatable bungee run will work for the picnic on the Delaney Park Strip, but not so much at a two-day safety training.
That doesn’t mean only the after-hours events get all the fun. Hiring trainers who can lighten the lesson up with comedy, set up a selfie station in a corner of the conference room, or bring some out-of-the-box treats can make any event something attendees are eager to be part of.
“People want to be attended to. They want to be heard,” says Todd Rice, owner of THEY Improv, which uses improvisational comedy as a vehicle for team-building activities and training workshops. “They don’t want to feel like [the event] was something the boss wanted them to do. They want to feel like, ‘The boss wants to do it for me.’”
anting to stage a business conference and knowing how to approach planning the cavalcade of logistics to carry off such a complex event are two very different things. Delivering a large-scale professional gathering entails recruiting dynamic speakers, creating compelling agendas, and tracking the minutiae that can make or break a multifaceted professional gathering.
It may sound daunting and complicated, but those who regularly stage large professional gatherings say the effort is worth it. Inviting people together for luncheons, workshops, and symposiums has innumerable upsides, and the return on investment is worth the weeks and months of work or, in some cases, the year-long effort required to pull off these business events.
Let’s get
together



Events | Concerts | Conferences | Conventions | Banquets | Meetings | Trade Shows | Weddings | In-house Catering | Equipment Technology

eventeen pens, eight notepads, four post-it pads, nineteen stickers. If an attendee at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference (ASEC), which was held in Anchorage in May, collected one of each promotional item that exhibitors were giving away, they would’ve gone home with 12 pounds of swag. That includes four tote bags and a complimentary gift to all registered attendees: a solar-powered charging pack. The total does not include fun-size candy offered at almost half of the booths, nor flyers or other literature.
Nobody would be silly enough to take one of everything, unless they were writing a magazine article. And 12 pounds might be smaller than similar events with 1,000 or so attendees.

Our new FSC increases our capacity, improves security, offers customizable storage areas, and streamlines freight handling — all to ensure faster, smoother, and more consistent delivery of your product to its final destination.

The Meeting:
Arctic Encounter Symposium
March 29-31, 2023
at Dena’ina Center
1,000 delegates
Estimated Economic
Impact: $804,656
Jackson Blackwell, Rachel Kallander, Kristi Nguyen, Meeting Champions
Arctic Encounter was founded in 2013 when Rachel Kallander, a Cordova native, was studying law in Seattle and participated in an Arctic science mission. Recognizing how issues affecting the North impact the world, she organized the Arctic Encounter Symposium to shine a light on the challenges facing the Arctic and develop solutions to solve them. The flagship three-day event has grown into the largest Arctic policy event in North America and is held in Anchorage by Kallander and her Alaska-based team, including managing director Jackson Blackwell and program fellow Kristi Nguyen. In 2023, nearly a thousand people from fifteen different countries gathered to provide a voice and platform for Arctic policy, inspiring change for the future.

The Meeting:
Arctic Encounter Symposium
March 29-31, 2023
at Dena’ina Center
1,000 delegates
Estimated Economic
Impact: $804,656
Arctic Encounter was founded in 2013 when Rachel Kallander, a Cordova native, was studying law in Seattle and participated in an Arctic science mission. Recognizing how issues affecting the North impact the world, she organized the Arctic Encounter Symposium to shine a light on the challenges facing the Arctic and develop solutions to solve them. The flagship three-day event has grown into the largest Arctic policy event in North America and is held in Anchorage by Kallander and her Alaska-based team, including managing director Jackson Blackwell and program fellow Kristi Nguyen. In 2023, nearly a thousand people from fifteen different countries gathered to provide a voice and platform for Arctic policy, inspiring change for the future.
Image: Jackson Blackwell, Rachel Kallander, Kristi Nguyen, Meeting Champions
Are you a member of an association?
Contact Visit Anchorage to birng your gorup to town:
meetings@anchorage.net | 907.257.2349
hile conferences take a lot of planning, it’s not often that such an event—even in Alaska—is four years in the making. But the North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA) conference, held this past May in Fairbanks, seemingly went off without a hitch—a pleasure for more than seventy journalists and destination marketing organizations (DMOs) that attended.
The logistics of getting writers and photographers from all across the United States and Canada to the Golden Heart City was a feat in itself; entertaining them and teaching them about all that Fairbanks and surrounding areas had to offer for five days—plus pre- and post-trips—added even more challenges. The goal for the event was to provide journalists with such memorable experiences that they would go out and spread the word about why travelers should make this epic journey—and the city’s DMO, Explore Fairbanks, delivered.
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ne of the things that I enjoy most about working at Alaska Business Publishing Co. is the opportunity to make connections with amazing people in our local business community. The power of community brings together our readers, our Alaska Business Publishing Co. team, and our other partners and connects us in a common mission of supporting and advocating for Alaska’s business community.
It takes a diverse mix of businesses to keep the Alaska economy pumping. At a World Trade Center luncheon earlier this year discussing the value of commercial and international markets, I was reminded that the Export Council wouldn’t exist without Alaska’s small businesses. With the diversity of businesses in our state, there are some common denominators, one of which is Alaska Business magazine.
verwhelmingly, employers and employees agree that in-person meetings are important for collaboration, improved relationships, production, and communication.
Within Alaska, it is common to hold a meeting in a location away from your office. This provides a way to assemble a work team, introduce new members in person, assist with building interpersonal networks, and strengthen relationships.
Small and home businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, community leaders, and even businesses located out of town that want to hold an in-person meeting to help grow their business have a variety of venue options. Hotels, event centers, and other professional meeting room spaces have traditionally provided meeting spaces, but they may not be a viable option depending on cost or availability. Coworking conference rooms and open spaces can fill the meeting room gap, accommodating a variety of in-person meeting needs.
he majority of North Slope infrastructure is financed, constructed, and maintained by private entities to support their oil exploration and production activities. Despite North Slope explorers and operators always having an eye on efficiency, some infrastructure (such as processing facilities) isn’t well suited for sharing among multiple companies. However, other infrastructure does lend itself to common use, such as roads and pipelines, including a notably iconic pipeline: the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
lying is magical in a way that a century of air travel has not quite diminished. Pasha Saleh, head of corporate development for Alaska Airlines, appreciates the prestige.
“I started off as a regional pilot for almost a decade, so the idea of regional aviation is really exciting,” Saleh says. “The vast majority of traffic in America goes to something like 300 or 400 airports, but there are 5,000 airports in America. If you could bring those back to life again with sustainable flights, I personally get really excited about that.”
The magic of aviation comes at a price that makes it, at present, unsustainable. A jet flight, depending on distance, might emit as much greenhouse gas per traveler as the entire annual carbon footprint of a single person living in more than one-fourth of the world’s countries. Frequent flyers rack up double, triple, or ten times the emissions.
ommunity pharmacies are the most visible representation of the healthcare system at work. Drugstore chains, including those found in grocery stores, are easily recognizable, although independent pharmacies also have locations inside other health-related facilities like clinics or hospitals. Pharmacists regularly interact with customers who are picking up prescriptions, and they respond to inquiries about over-the-counter medicines and symptoms. In Alaska, pharmacists are recognized as a highly trained medical profession, though this is not the case nationwide. This lack of recognition can create difficulties providing medical services to those who need it most.

or many people, one of the best aspects about Alaska is the incredible amount of adventures and excursions that are available in the state. Businesses in the Great Land offer an unending number of unique and exciting opportunities to see and experience this place we call home.
To balance the wants of a business to provide the activity with limited liability against the participants’ desire to engage in an activity that has known inherent risks, in 2001 the Alaska Legislature enacted a law that would limit the liability for Alaska businesses that engage in risk-laden activities. People who choose to willingly participate in these outings accept the risks as part of the adventure. The statute includes the following language…
northrim.com
threebearsalaska.com


Alaska Trends
ife is a game, posited Jerry Seinfeld, and “the lawyer is the only person that has read the inside of the top of the box.” The rest of the men and women are merely players, so when disputes arise, the players depend on the experts to say, “‘Fraid not.”
Roughly 292 disputes arise statewide each day, on average, based on the cases filed in Alaska trial courts in 2022. The Alaska Court System Statistical Annual Report shows a 4.8 percent increase in filings from the year before, and that doesn’t count the ongoing drama of appeals. Most of the increase was in District Courts, driven by a 16 percent rise in minor offense filings, although that was offset by a 13.9 percent drop in misdemeanor cases. Superior Courts saw 27.1 percent more delinquency filings, while child in need of aid filings went down by 11.7 percent. Altogether, 106,690 cases were filed with trial courts, and 98.1 percent of them were concluded, pushing a small backlog into the new year.
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza.
What charity or cause are you passionate about?
The Conservation Alliance.
What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?
Pour a glass of wine with my boyfriend, Brad, and we do a garden walk… Tour the garden and see what sprouted.
What vacation spot is on your bucket list?
Portugal.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?
Definitely a fox.

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Joe Dispenza.
What charity or cause are you passionate about?
The Conservation Alliance.
What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?
Pour a glass of wine with my boyfriend, Brad, and we do a garden walk… Tour the garden and see what sprouted.
What vacation spot is on your bucket list?
Portugal.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?
Definitely a fox.
Off the Cuff
uccess is in the bag for Heather Kelly. Literally, her Heather’s Choice brand of dehydrated foods, packaged in handy pouches, is distributed nationally at REI. As CEO of the multi-million-dollar company she founded in 2014, Kelly oversees a staff of sixteen at her Anchorage kitchen and warehouse, and her team’s happiness makes her most proud. “That’s something that I didn’t see coming as I was building Heather’s Choice out of the back of my pickup truck,” she says.
Yet her path seems inevitable. A national champion collegiate rower, Kelly worked as a rafting guide in Colorado before returning home to Alaska. She applied her studies in sports nutrition to her outdoor recreation needs, creating portable, wholesome meals (bestsellers include buckwheat breakfasts, bison chili, and salmon chowder). “The fact that we have a lightweight, shelf-stable product that can be shipped all across the country is a huge benefit to us,” she observes.
- 3-Tier Alaska
- Airport Equipment Rentals, Inc
- Alaska Argo Rentals LLC
- Alaska Mergers & Acquisitions, LLC
- Alaska Pacific University
- Alaska Photobooth Company
- Alaska Procurement Technical Assistance Center
- Alaska Professional Construction, Inc
- Alaska Railroad
- Alaska School Activities Association
- Altman, Rogers & Co.
- American Heart Association
- Anchorage Convention Centers
- Arctic Slope Regional Corporation
- Bering Straits Native Corp
- CIRI
- Conrad-Houston Insurance Agency
- Construction Machinery Industrial
- Cook Inlet Tug & Barge Inc
- Credit Union 1
- Crowley Fuels
- Davis Wright Tremaine Llp
- First National Bank Alaska
- Fountainhead Development
- Great Originals Inc
- Hotel Captain Cook
- Jason Weiner and Associates PC
- Land's End
- Landye Bennett Blumstein LLP
- Lynden
- Material Flow & Conveyor Systems, Inc.
- MICROCOM
- Nenana Heating Services, Inc
- New Horizons Telecom, Inc.
- Nortech Environmental & Engineering
- Northern Air Cargo
- Nu Flow Alaska
- Oxford Assaying & Refining Inc
- Parker, Smith & Feek
- Perkins Coie LLP
- Samson Tug & Barge
- Satellite Alaska
- Span Alaska Transportation
- Structured Communication Systems
- Subway of Alaska
- T. Rowe Price
- The Plans Room
- Toast of the Town
- Tutka, LLC
- UA Local 375 Plumbers & Pipefitters
- Udelhoven Oilfield System Services, Inc
- Usibelli Coal Mine
- Visit Anchorage

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