e launched the Best of Alaska Business awards in the July 2016 issue. That year we had several categories unique to that first iteration: the best town to grow a business, best job opportunity for college graduates, best Alaska app, as examples. Over the last decade we’ve had a multitude of survey-related questions that have appeared and then disappeared from the Best of Alaska Business survey. Every year, as we’re planning the July issue, we discuss each category to determine which categories do or don’t meet our goal to highlight readers’ favorite businesses.

For example, one year we asked for the best dentist; we received a robust response from our readers nominating a multitude of dental operations, many with a very close number of votes or even tied. It’s a compliment that so many exceptional dental practices were nominated by our readers, but ultimately the results weren’t publishable in our current Best of Alaska Business format because we publish a top three—and we need to be able to justify who the top three are.

Other categories, such as best job opportunity for college graduates, garnered generic responses such as “healthcare” or “oil and gas.” We intend the Best of Alaska Business awards to feature exceptional companies, not industries.

We love this special section, and every year we expand it, looking to highlight as many amazing Alaska businesses as possible. To that end, the 2025 Best of Alaska Business special section has taken on a different format from last year. The winners are presented as a concise list, and instead of brief writeups for every category, we have developed editorial content that allows many of our winners an opportunity to offer their own words about their operations. With this adjustment, we’re hoping to give our readers more direct ties to these awesome businesses and allow us to expand the number of categories and businesses that we can celebrate in years to come.