Unpacking an Underdog

G technology is having a significant impact at Spawn Ideas. The Anchorage-based advertising agency is operating in hybrid mode: employees work two days in the office and three days from home, with about one-third of them completely remote. Most of the company’s thirty employees take advantage of 5G wireless service to communicate with colleagues and clients across Alaska, Washington, Montana, Iowa, Oregon, and Washington, DC.

The availability of 5G makes hybrid and remote work more feasible for Spawn Ideas. It enables employees to have ubiquitous and secure connectivity. For example, many use a mobile phone as a WiFi hotspot for their laptop when conducting Zoom calls or doing other business away from the office. With 5G, they can work wherever they are, which is a huge advantage—and luxury, according to President and CEO Karen King. “We are really spoiled by 5G’s data transfer speeds,” King says. “We’re used to low latency. We’re used to the stability and reliability of having a 5G [compatible] phone and service.”

ou were TIME magazine’s Person of the Year for 2006, thanks to a certain tube first established one year earlier. YouTube was one of several platforms from the early ‘00s that enabled, encouraged, and even demanded users to generate their own internet content. The video hosting service, acquired by Google a few months before TIME’s mirror-reflective cover, gave “you” a way to broadcast globally—and Alaskans have used its tools to bring their home state to viewers worldwide.

YouTube makes uploading videos easy, but counting on the platform for income is as strenuous as any job.

“I know some people who make good money on the platform, but they work harder than everyone else,” says Jake, creator of the channel How to Alaska. “It’s one of those jobs that people look at and idolize those doing it, but what they don’t recognize is just how much work goes into putting out good videos and content and how much of a grind it can be. It doesn’t come easy.”

ot many startups can claim they outshone the likes of Garmin and YETI on one of the biggest stages in outdoor retail. Even fewer can say the original design for their award-winning product was first etched on the back of a urine test, now framed and hung proudly next to its patent.

The buzz that comes with winning “Best of Show” at the world’s largest sportfishing convention only highlights the already incredible story of PacBak and Brian McKinnon, which serves as inspiration for other underdog entrepreneurs looking to forge their path in Alaska.

When he isn’t developing products, the Wasilla native spends his time fishing, hunting, and exploring the rivers and lakes he calls home. The inspiration for this most recent invention, a top-of-the line cooler and mobile kitchen equipped with a first-of-its-kind rechargeable battery-operated vacuum sealer, came to him like any other.

“All of my inventions and everything that I’ve brought to fruition have been out of necessity, never desperation,” says McKinnon. “It was always something like, ‘How does this not exist?’ or, ‘Why isn’t this better?”

ixty-six years ago, a group of eighteen business leaders created the United Good Neighbor Fund, forming a board of directors that is now known as United Way of Anchorage. This early partnership between business leaders and nonprofit community-building organizations set the stage for a symbiotic relationship that continues to benefit the state.

“I think we all know what community we want to live in, and for our businesses, where they want their staff to be able to live, where they want their children to grow up,” explains Clark Halvorson, president and CEO of United Way of Anchorage. “Partnering with businesses to help create that community… doesn’t just help the folks who live there. It also helps the businesses and their ability to recruit and retain really great employees.”

United Way entered into one of its longest-lasting partnerships almost fifty years ago with the entity that became Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. “Their wanting and willingness to give back to the community is almost hardwired into the DNA of the organization,” according to Halvorson, whose staff recently provided Alyeska with photos from the earliest teaming events for the then-nascent organization.

OVID-19 is old news: that’s the key takeaway from this month’s special section on the healthcare industry, judging by the lack of articles on that topic. The novel coronavirus is still lurking, but the novelty has worn off. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, daily deaths in Alaska have dropped to less than one per day after peaking in January at nearly ten. Estimated infections surged in July and August but have settled at around 2,000 on any given day, about the baseline trend all year.

Thus, with COVID-19 not exactly in the rearview mirror but riding quietly in the back seat, the special section can ask some different questions about healthcare.

What role can animals play? “A Helping Hoof (or Paw)” has the answers.

ome animals play a critical role in helping people. Therapy dogs, for example, are used to instill confidence in children learning to read or to provide comfort for patients during cancer treatments. Even horses are getting into the act, not only providing a soothing presence but helping those with physical disabilities to learn balance and gain confidence.

“We have so many success stories here,” says Christy Constantini, executive director of Equine Assisted Therapy Alaska (EATA).

The Anchorage-based nonprofit organization’s goal is to enhance the physical, psychological, and social well-being of Alaskans living with disabilities through therapeutic horsemanship. Originally called The Rainbow Connection, the seasonal program provides services to children and adults with mental, behavioral, cognitive, and physical disabilities.

laska’s population over the age of 65 topped 100,000 for the first time in 2021. This age group is projected to grow faster than any other cohort for the next decade or so. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s September issue of Alaska Economic Trends anticipates a rising tide of seniors until a peak in 2035, when the oldest Baby Boomers reach 90.

This demographic pulse needs somewhere to live. When Boomers were younger, options for their parents or grandparents were often limited to a full-service nursing home or toughing it out alone or with family during their golden years. These days, though, Alaskans have more options, ranging from independent living to assisted living and even specialized dementia care.

Alaska Native corporations, housing authorities, private companies, and the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation are busy building innovative senior housing and care complexes.

eing transgender is more than a medical condition; it is an aspect of human lives. That said, transgender people have, by their nature, special healthcare needs.

Since 2014, when TIME magazine signaled a “Transgender Tipping Point,” the number of Americans who say they know a transgender person has grown from 9 percent to 44 percent (plus 20 percent who know someone who is gender nonbinary), according to a Pew Research Center survey. The population who themselves identify as a gender other than one assigned at birth remains about 0.5 percent, yet that fraction is more visible.

“People did not talk about gender and gender diversity” a decade ago, says Lynn Murphy, operations director for Identity Health Clinic in Anchorage, “and now the young kids have role models, they have people they can look up to, so they feel safer by coming out as gender diverse.”

t a strip mall in midtown Anchorage, a woman is getting inked with her first tattoo. Nearby, someone uses a midday lunch break for a teeth cleaning. Across town, a trembling puppy gets its first immunization shots, while just down the road, someone receives life-saving chemotherapy.

Each experience produces medical waste—tubing, gauze, needles, and more—all of which must be treated and disposed of in a precise, safe manner.

Many large medical hospitals and facilities handle their own waste. For smaller medical offices, veterinarians, tattoo parlors, Botox clinics, dentists, rural providers, and others, medical waste disposal is a niche industry composed of three licensed businesses in Alaska: Entech and Alaska Medical Waste are headquartered in Anchorage, and Safety Waste Incineration is based in Wasilla.

One thing all three have in common is strict regulation.

ining gets a bad rap as an industry that literally digs in the dirt, yet miners strive to clean up their act with innovative tools and techniques. Efficiency is at the front of mining companies’ business plans, not just for the bottom line but for the sake of good stewardship.

“At Kinross, we strive to incorporate energy efficiency strategies into all aspects of our operations and projects, including mine planning, transportation, metallurgy, electricity consumption, fuel management, and power generation,” says Anna Atchison, director of external affairs in Alaska for Kinross Gold Corporation, the Ontario-based operator of the Fort Knox mine north of Fairbanks.

Last February, Kinross leaders outlined a Climate Change Strategy, budgeting $50 million in 2022 toward environmental, social, and corporate governance-related capital expenditures. One example was an agreement to purchase 100 percent renewable power at its LaCoipa project in Chile. To achieve that, Kinross is using electric shovels, solar power at the mine camp, and an ore conveyor to reduce the need for haul trucks.

laska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) is not just a life-sized diorama—although visitors can certainly find one there. Anchorage’s answer to Colonial Williamsburg or Tombstone, Arizona features six dwellings clustered around a pond named Lake Tiulana, albeit not in a way that the original Dena’ina Athabascan inhabitants of the Muldoon neighborhood would have recognized. The ersatz village represents, in one spot, the five major cultural strands throughout Alaska, which ANHC organizes geographically into Southeast, Southwest, Western, Northwest Arctic, and Interior territories.

ANHC is the only statewide cultural and education center dedicated to celebrating all Alaska Native cultures and heritages, including Iñupiaq, St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Athabascan, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, Tlingit, Unangaxˆ, Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, Yup’ik, and Cup’ik.

At the far end of Lake Tiulana is an iconic whalebone arch more than 12 feet tall. In each of the dwellings along the shore, culture bearers answer questions and introduce guests to traditional lifeways.

rts keep Codie Costello on her toes. For example, earlier this year she directed the one-woman play No More Harveys for Cyrano’s Theatre Company. That stage is much smaller than the four inside the building she manages as president and COO of the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts (PAC), the nonprofit that operates the city-owned facility.

The PAC first caught her eye when she visited Alaska for her honeymoon. “I couldn’t believe that a community of this size had a building like this,” she recalls. “It was shocking.” When the time came to leave New York City, Costello applied for a job at the PAC and moved to Anchorage, and now she can’t imagine anywhere else being home.

What’s left for an artist, after being a performer, director, producer, and president? “I’m gonna be a volunteer usher someday,” she says. “That group of people are amazing, and I should only be so lucky to be welcomed into those ranks at some time in the future.”