Preparing for the Surge

Passenger Port Expansions

2021 Construction Season Wrap-Up

Dr. Maryna Chumakova-Orin was twelve years old when she first aspired to a career in medicine. She had broken her elbow, and what she saw in the hospital amazed her. “Everything about seeing the surgeon, doing the surgery, everything about the operating room just took my breath. I was like, ‘This is it,’” she says.

Orin made history this summer when she arrived at Anchorage Bariatrics, the first woman in her field in Alaska. Our December cover story, “Voices of Healthcare,” explores such changes. In addition to Orin, we hear from an ER physician, a former EKG technician, a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a PT assistant, an environmental services manager, and a hospital CEO and former flight nurse, each sharing their perspectives from Anchorage, Palmer, Dillingham, and Ketchikan.

The Alaska healthcare landscape

Meeting increasing demand for mental health services

COVID-19 Lessons Learned

nsurance is an invaluable instrument that businesses employ to address potential risk, but how do insurance companies and brokers navigate an unprecedented event like the COVID-19 pandemic? The novel coronavirus caught the world completely off guard, is persisting much longer than anticipated, and is having unforeseen effects on the future.

Yet the future for insurance seems more certain. “I emphasize not to make light of the tragedy of the pandemic,” says Bob Shake, Director of Growth for Anchorage-based RISQ Consulting, “but there are opportunities for us to grow our business by being more proactive and being out in front of our customers soliciting new business.”

normal part of operating a business is taking on debt, but if that debt is not effectively managed, it can cause cash flow crunches, financial distress, and many other problems. Fortunately, borrowers can use debt restructuring to renegotiate their delinquent financial obligations, so they can restore liquidity and continue their operations.

Companies utilize debt for various reasons, depending on their unique needs. Small businesses often take on debt for the purpose of cash flow leveling, according to Michael Branham, a partner and senior financial planner with The Planning Center in Anchorage. “For example, for companies with the uneven realization of revenue (like a financial planning firm that might bill quarterly), but that still have to meet regular monthly expense needs, a line of credit can be a useful tool to fund expenses in an interim period until revenue or accounts receivable are realized,” he explains.

n an age where private businesses are sending people to outer space, the technology that makes the difference for rural entrepreneurs is something many Americans take for granted: stable access to the internet. And the COVID-19 pandemic has forced even businesses in urban centers, such as Anchorage and Fairbanks, to step up their digital presence and embrace processes or tools already utilized by companies in the Lower 48.

“Small businesses were really challenged on the front end,” says Jeffrey Salzer, the Alaska deputy district director at the Small Business Administration (SBA). “Especially those that were lagging in technology.”

When the pandemic hit nearly two years ago, businesses were scrambling, particularly small “main street” businesses that had very limited digital presences, despite being on Alaska’s fiber network, Salzer explains.

think there’s been a change in culture, and I think Alaska has been a little bit more progressive in promoting women,” says Ella Goss, CEO of Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC). Goss started working at Anchorage’s largest hospital in 1997 as an ER nurse and rose through the ranks of management. Providence has intentionally promoted female leaders from within, she says, developing their potential because the talent pool in Alaska is so small due to the state’s population.

rom extracting oil on the North Slope to hauling nets in Bristol Bay, the physical nature of work in the Last Frontier can be brutal and demanding. Keeping the workforce mobile is the job of occupational medicine. However, occupational health isn’t just for laborers doing the heavy lifting; desk jockeys can also suffer wear and tear after long hours at their computers—especially when they’re working from home.

Layoffs, furloughs, cut hours, and a whole slew of other environmental, social, and physical factors connected to the pandemic have led to the deconditioning of many people within Alaska’s workforce—especially those who were hospitalized by COVID-19. As the pandemic continues to grind communities down and more people look for opportunities to return to work, it’s important for future employees and employers to plan that return safely.

021 has not been a post-pandemic year. Vaccine rollouts in the beginning of the year spelled hope for many and led to a broader reopening of businesses. Summer saw a return to travel and other normal activities. But overall, an uncertain economy, goods shortages, and a third-quarter resurgence in COVID-19 cases has made it clear that the pandemic is still very much with us, along with many of its lingering side effects.

What impression has COVID-19 left on 2021? Where are we in the pandemic, and what has Alaska learned so far?

The lessons are basic, and the message is simple: Be prepared, be flexible, and mind your mental health.

“From an infection prevention lead position, I think the most effective strategy we employed early on in the pandemic was coming together as a leadership group and mobilizing around the most pressing needs of the day,” says Providence’s Manager of Infection Prevention Rebecca Hamel. “I don’t typically sit at the executive level; it really allowed me to have access to leadership.”

ith facilities in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska Behavioral Health (ABH) has provided mental health and wraparound behavioral health services to Alaskan children, youth in transition, adults, and families, including those with co-occurring substance misuse, for more than forty-five years. Throughout that time the agency has constantly evolved to meet its patients’ needs, increasing treatment options, creating specialized programs, and extending its reach across the state.

That evolution includes a 2020 name change from Anchorage Community Mental Health Services, which it operated under since it first opened its doors on June 11, 1974. The change to Alaska Behavioral Health was intended to reflect both the array of services the clinic provides and its reach across the state.

s the 2021 summer construction season comes to a close, there is a renewed optimism in the industry. Despite the lingering uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, designers, contractors, and crews were prepared to manage health and safety with well-established mask and social distancing protocols along with vaccine accessibility. New challenges presented themselves in the form of labor and materials shortages, an indirect effect of manufacturing disruptions last year and current shipping complications worldwide. Regardless, designers and contractors completed several projects statewide, with many more on the horizon for 2022.

he state’s entire population relies on ports and airports to connect them to the outside world. It’s Alaska’s major cargo hubs that allow vital materials to enter the state and be distributed throughout it.

“The trick with Alaska cargo is Alaskans don’t grow a lot of food up here, and we don’t manufacture a lot of goods in the state,” says Jim Jager with the Port of Alaska. “So, if you’re consuming it in the state, it’s probably being shipped in.”

Many of the state’s busiest ports and airports are undergoing changes to keep up with increased cargo traffic, which continues to steadily surge.

veryone in Alaska knows the big players in the oil patch: ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Hilcorp, and potentially soon (again) Shell. They are responsible for petroleum production that returned $3.1 billion in state and local taxes and royalties in fiscal year 2019. Counting those dollars spent from public coffers, in addition to the industry’s direct spending, the oil industry drives about half of Alaska’s overall economy, according to the Resource Development Council. The sector also accounts for one-quarter of Alaska’s jobs—but not by those major players alone. They have help.

In the shadow of the giants, smaller operators with less familiar names carve out their pieces of the pie. They form a parallel industry: oil field support. These companies provide environmental services, management, engineering, contracting, and supplies. They would not be in Alaska without the major companies, yet the multinationals would not be able to function without their relatively Lilliputian assistants. Often locally owned, support companies draw on very specific expertise, allowing the big companies to focus on what they do best.

“We manufacture passive refrigeration devices that are used to keep the ground frozen up north,” says Edward Yarmak, president and chief engineer of Arctic Foundations, Inc. (AFI). But isn’t the North Slope permanently frozen? Indeed, oil and gas wells are drilled through permafrost as much as a quarter-mile thick, but the action of drilling, and later the extraction of oil or gas, creates heat. “You can imagine that hot oil coming up through permafrost is something that’s going to thaw things out,” Yarmak says. Softened earth can collapse around wells or underneath pipelines or buildings. That’s where AFI comes in.

AFI makes thermoprobes, which are two-phase thermosyphons that provide passive refrigeration to either create or maintain permafrost. These thermoprobes allow for the construction of heated structures on permafrost without the ground settling, and they also allow oil drilling without well collapse.

wo years after the pandemic began, tourism is slowly beginning to get back on track. Major cruise lines scheduled 78 voyages with nine ships in 2021, a decrease from more than 500 voyages in 2019 but an improvement over 2020’s zero. Thanks to Congressional action allowing cruises to Alaska to bypass Canadian ports, bookings opened in June. In case passengers feel hesitant boarding a ship amid the simmering pandemic, ports of call are going out of their way to make them feel welcome. Juneau’s well-developed waterfront is hardly finished adding cruise ship amenities, and as cruises returned this summer, August saw new expansions in Ketchikan, Sitka, and Hoonah.

The first cruise ship arrived at the new two-berth Mill at Ward Cove, which is located seven miles north of Ketchikan. Built on the site of the former Ketchikan Pulp Mill, which closed in 1997, construction is ongoing, as the project was slowed by the pandemic.

ne way or another, Aaron Schutt would’ve been flying across Alaska, from village to village. He didn’t follow one childhood dream to become a bush pilot, but he still gets around (or did, before COVID-19) as President and CEO of Doyon, Limited. He considers the best part of his job to be visiting the Interior hometowns of the regional Native corporation’s 20,000 shareholders and understanding their current needs and their histories.

“Wherever they live now,” he says, “they’re from somewhere.”

Schutt, a Koyukon Athabascan enrolled in the Native Village of Tanana, grew up in Tok, graduating high school with just eighteen classmates. He earned a master’s degree in civil engineering and then pivoted to Stanford Law School, becoming a lawyer like his twin brother Ethan (himself an executive vice president at Bristol Bay Native Corporation and a Permanent Fund trustee).