Inside Alaska Business
Alaska Power & Telephone
A utility that serves remote communities across Alaska is moving its headquarters back into the state. Alaska Power & Telephone chose Ketchikan for its new administration offices. The employee-owned company has been based in Port Townsend, Washington, but decided to relocate closer to the forty communities where it provides electricity, phone, and internet services, from Metlakatla and Wrangell to Tok and Bettles.
Alaska Precast Solutions
Alaska Precast Solutions is breaking ground in Nikiski on Alaska’s first precast hollowcore concrete manufacturing plant. The 35,000-square-foot facility will be equipped with customizable panel casting on 400-foot beds to make extruded hollowcore plank, precast deck panels, and partial-depth precast concrete deck panels used in roads, bridges, coastal protection, and vertical construction. The company’s president, Seth Kroenke, anticipates production will begin next summer. Alaska Precast Solutions is part of the Remote Alaska Solutions family in Palmer.
Alpha Media
A decade of deviation from its Adult Standards format is over for Anchorage radio station KHAR 590 AM. As of April 1, the station dropped the CBS Sports format carried since 2013 and returned to a music mix of pop, R&B, and easy listening. Nikki Hilton, market manager for the Alpha Media cluster of stations, says the “Gold Rush Radio” format “brings back memories for all of us here at KHAR and will connect with those listeners who want a feel good, safe listening experience.” Program Director Joe Campbell calls it “music that is not heard anywhere else” and an escape from “information overload.”
ASCI Federal Services
A component of Anchorage-based Advanced Supply Chain International (ASCI) won a contract to support the Naval Air Systems Command Fleet Readiness Center East in North Carolina. ASCI Federal Services is partnering with a local subcontractor, D2 Government Solutions, and Virginia-based Spectrum to provide transportation support such as flight line assistance, mule train services, forklift operations, delivery via tractor-trailer, specialized transportation solutions, and equipment maintenance. The one-year contract with four one-year extension options has a total potential value of approximately $26 million. “This contract win highlights the dedication, expertise, and hard work of our team in effectively meeting the intricate demands of our military,” says ASCI President and CEO Christine Hopkins.
Costco
The former Toys “R” Us next to the Costco warehouse store in South Anchorage reopened to customers in April as a new Costco Home Showroom. The store is a physical extension of Costco’s e-commerce website, where member-customers can sit on sofas, dining chairs, or patio furniture and peek inside refrigerators, dishwashers, and laundry appliances. For now, customers cannot take merchandise away; purchases are for delivery only, and currently only within ZIP codes close to the Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau warehouse stores. The Kirkland, Washington-based retailer’s first showroom was opened in Puerto Rico, and Anchorage is the second. Costco has been using the 58,000-square-foot Toys “R” Us building for years as a shipping center; adding a showroom involved fencing off the stock areas from the front end, creating aisles for shoppers to browse.
Huna Totem Corporation
The village corporation for Hoonah acquired a stake in Chukka USVI, owner of Cruise Ship Excursions in the US Virgin Islands. This is the first joint venture for Huna Totem Corporation and Chukka since they announced a partnership last year to develop, promote, and expand tourist attractions throughout the Caribbean and Alaska, since both have an interest in the responsible evolution of port development to destination development. “We struck a partnership with Chukka for many reasons, but one of the most important is the perfect alignment of our values and our commitment to the communities we serve,” says Huna Totem Corporation President and CEO Russell Dick.
New Pacific Airlines
Scheduled flights are on hold for the sister carrier of Ravn Alaska. New Pacific Airlines will try to make money with its 757 fleet by chartering instead. The company ended its only routes—weekly circuits out of Ontario, California to Reno, Nevada and Nashville, Tennessee—in March and April, announcing a partnership with Elevate Aviation Group, an aircraft management company in Miami Beach, Florida. “At New Pacific Airlines, we are dedicated to redefining the standards of aviation services,” says CEO Rob McKinney about the pivot to charter flights. Adds Elevate Aviation Group’s president Randy McKinney (no relation), “We anticipate unlocking innovative possibilities and redefining the experience for sports, entertainment, corporate, and other large group charter clients.” Trans-Pacific flights through Anchorage remain the company’s long-range goal, as described on its website.