Energy Efficiencies Combat Costs

Energy Efficiencies Combat Costs

laska boutiques have found a fashion niche using images of local flora and fauna to convey the spirit of the state. The summer season is one of the busiest times of year for local boutiques as their style captivates both locals and the surge of tourists looking for that local experience. Alaska Business spoke with four Alaskan artisans who are taking their incredible talent and combining it with savvy business sense in a way that adds to the local economy and gives tourists and residents alike the opportunity to buy amazing—wearable—works of art.

isk management—the process of identifying, assessing, and prioritizing the different types of risk an organization might encounter—is essential to the success of any business. However, companies can employ various insurance products and prudent practices to minimize their exposure in the workplace.

Generally, risk management involves avoiding or eliminating the vast number of events that could have an adverse impact on a business. The events could negatively affect everything from personnel safety and wellness to a company’s day-to-day operations and overall financial performance. More specifically, risk management entails identifying hazards (something with the potential to cause harm), assessing the associated risk (the likelihood of that potential harm happening), minimizing any risk deemed unacceptable, and then controlling the situation to mitigate any remaining hazards.

ertain essential services arguably exist outside of the sphere of free market forces. One such set of services is provided by hospitals, which are required to provide care, often at a loss, in some cases under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), for example, a federal law that requires anyone who seeks help at an emergency department be stabilized and treated, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. It is the (often necessary for underserved patients) overuse of expensive emergency room services combined with defunding of certain programs that have contributed to the adoption of the Certificate of Need (CON) Program in Alaska.

The CON Program is a review process designed to promote responsive healthcare facility and service development, rational health planning, healthcare quality, access to healthcare, and healthcare cost containment.

elcome to the fourth annual Best of Alaska Business Awards! As part of our continuing mission to support Alaska’s business communities, each year we look to you, our readers, to tell us which businesses excel in a range of diverse categories. For the 2019 Best of Alaska Business Awards we presented twenty-three categories: some of them are fan favorites from previous years and several are brand new.

How do we determine the categories you ask? Good question. Each year the editorial team analyzes survey results from the previous year, looking at which categories connected with our readers and which (if any) were regularly skipped; we combine those results with your feedback and suggestions for new categories, and voila! A Best of Alaska Business Awards series of questions is born. This year we added a number of new categories that saw great response, including Best Grocery Store, Best Gym, and Best Florist, to name a few. And as always we saw amazing engagement for Best to Place to Work, Best Coffee Shop, and Best Brewery.

Beyond great content (thanks again for voting!), an important part of the Best of Alaska Business Awards special section is the artwork. Each year we find an Alaskan artist and give that person free reign to pursue a design that he or she thinks best represents Alaska, the business community, and the categories you’re voting on that year. This year we are fortunate to feature the work of Jontue Hollingsworth (check out Off the Cuff to learn all about this talented entrepreneur). Hollingsworth’s incredible design skills, combined with the work of local, talented photographers and your participation, made this year’s section one for the books.

hether Alaskan students want a career in coding, to run high-tech mining equipment, work as a bank administrator, or transport goods across the country, having the proper education can play a huge part in their success. And considering that many of these students will stay in Alaska and work for local companies, it makes good business sense for these organizations to take part in the learning process.

This support can take a number of forms, from mentoring and internship opportunities to financial donations that establish scholarships and programs to facilitating classroom lectures. No matter how a business chooses to participate, schools value the partnerships that help them prepare the workforce of the future. And businesses also benefit from their involvement.

hile in past years oil and gas legislation has dominated discussions in the Alaska Senate and House of Representatives, for the 2019-2020 session Alaskans have dialed in on our legislators wrestling primarily with how to handle the Permanent Fund Dividend, rising crime rates, and a long-overdue resolution and plan of action for the state’s budget, among other issues.

Although oil and gas tax policy conversations aren’t making headlines in Alaska this year, they’re ongoing. According to an op-ed by Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA) President and CEO Kara Moriarty, “Given the tough budget conversation underway in our state, it’s not surprising that some people are once again trying to put oil taxes in the spotlight.” Alaska has seen more than seven oil and gas tax policy changes in the last fourteen years, and under the ACES tax regime oil production declined by approximately 169,000 barrels per day. With the passage of SB21 in 2014 and a relatively unchanging tax environment since, oil production stabilized and even increased, despite the plummet of oil prices during the same time period. According to Moriarty, “Thanks to significant investment focused on more production, North Slope production actually produced 518,000 barrels per day for fiscal 2018, an increase of 75,000 barrels per day over what had been predicted [in the fall of 2012]. More production means more revenue for the Permanent Fund and key essential services—a win for all Alaskans.

here’s no doubt that cleaning up Alaska’s contaminated soil is good for the environment. But perhaps what’s even more interesting is that the process, and the resulting recycled materials, lessen the effects of air and water pollution and contribute to a more pristine state.

While there are many ways in which property in Alaska can become contaminated, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the most common include home heating oil tanks; commercial and industrial operations releases including fuel handling and delivery; current and former dry cleaning businesses and other processes that use harsh chemicals; current and former military bases; contaminants spilled during transportation; and releases from underground and aboveground fuel storage tanks.

t is a basic tenet of business that the cost of goods and services passed along to consumers, commercial or otherwise, is driven by operating costs and profit margin. As it does in so many other ways, Alaska deviates from this simplistic economic principle. Especially when it comes to energy.

“Alaska has some of the highest costs of living in the country, particularly in rural Alaska. In the SBDC’s [Small Business Development Center’s] annual survey of small businesses, operating costs were one of the top three barriers to business,” Alaska SBDC Executive Director Jon Bittner says. “In smaller communities, that is driven largely by energy and the cost of transporting goods.”

The fair features hand-crafted items, exotic foods, and entertainers from all over Alaska, along with the annual Forest Fair Parade at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Limited parking is available at the Alyeska Resort Daylodge with shuttle service provided to the Girdwood Fairgrounds located at Mile 2.2 Alyeska Highway. girdwoodforestfair.com

Anchorage: The Uniform Law Commission provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived, and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law. uniformlaws.org

After several years of steady but flat giving through Alaska’s premiere charitable giving campaign, Pick.Click.Give. is experiencing an increase in overall pledged totals as well as the amount pledged per donor. By the end of March, the total amount pledged by Alaskans was $2.9 million, the average pledge per donor is $113.88, and the average pledge per gift (each gift represents the amount a donor gifts per nonprofit organization) is approximately $62.53.

The current average pledge per donor increased nearly $9 over last year and is a record for the program pickclickgive.org

Travel Juneau released its 2018-2019 Convention Survey and 2018 Visitor Survey, both conducted by McDowell Group. Economic impacts of Juneau conventions and meetings revealed total direct spending for meetings at $2.7 million and a total of $3.6 million in indirect and induced economic impacts. Meetings held from 2017-2018 generated approximately $113,000 in sales tax to the City and Borough of Juneau. The survey also highlighted satisfaction for Juneau’s friendliness as a community and Travel Juneau’s services to planners.

Both survey reports can be found on the Travel Juneau website: traveljuneau.com/about-travel-juneau.

ontue Hollingsworth is the founder and top executive (and only employee) of Hollingsworth Design Co., which specializes in brand development and design. He is the exceptional local artist who designed our cover this month. In our annual search to find an artist for our July issue, we were drawn to the humor and high energy of Hollingsworth’s modern, graphic, yet grounded work. Hollingsworth has a passion for exercising his creativity, whether that’s developing a traditional media campaign or branching out into sculpture, sewing, or woodworking.

Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time?
Jontue Hollingsworth: I’m always trying to learn or build something; playing video games is probably the only mindless sort of thing I do, just for pure enjoyment. [Recently he’s been playing Red Dead Redemption.]

AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?
Hollingsworth: I’d like to someday learn to speak another language. I had a go at learning Spanish and Polish, and I can pick out a few words in conversation, but it would be amazing if I could speak fluently.

n 2018, the Alaska Small Business Development Center (SBDC) conducted the second annual Alaska Small Business Survey. According to Alaska SBDC Executive Director Jon Bittner, “As an organization with over thirty-five years of experience working with and for Alaska’s small business sector, the Alaska SBDC is in a unique position to see, first-hand, the profound impacts our clients have on Alaska and our economy. This survey was created as a way to help quantify and share some of those insights, and to uncover important trends driving Alaska’s economic engine in the future.”

We have included just some of the information the comprehensive survey provides. The full report can be found at aksbdc.org.