At a Glance
What book is on your nightstand? Cowboy Up: John Smith Leads the Legendary Oklahoma State Wrestlers to Their Greatest Season Ever by Kim D. Parish: It’s about the legendary John Smith as a wrestler and as a coach and goes through the best season that John Smith had as the head coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys wrestling team.
What movie do you recommend to everyone? Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. If you’re not first, you’re last [he laughs].
What’s the first thing you do after work? Most of the time, I hurry up and get ready to go to wrestling practice [Dickinson is a wrestling coach].
If you couldn’t live in Alaska, where would you live? Nowhere [he laughs]. I love Alaska. But I would probably say either Idaho or Western Montana.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be? A wolverine. They’re the most tenacious animal I know of—they never give up.
At a Glance
What book is on your nightstand? Cowboy Up: John Smith Leads the Legendary Oklahoma State Wrestlers to Their Greatest Season Ever by Kim D. Parish: It’s about the legendary John Smith as a wrestler and as a coach and goes through the best season that John Smith had as the head coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys wrestling team.
What movie do you recommend to everyone? Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. If you’re not first, you’re last [he laughs].
What’s the first thing you do after work? Most of the time, I hurry up and get ready to go to wrestling practice [Dickinson is a wrestling coach].
If you couldn’t live in Alaska, where would you live? Nowhere [he laughs]. I love Alaska. But I would probably say either Idaho or Western Montana.
If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be? A wolverine. They’re the most tenacious animal I know of—they never give up.
Off the Cuff
ete and Tanya Dickinson founded All American Oilfield in 2010. In 2015, the company partnered with Chugach Alaska Corporation. Today the couple retains partial ownership, and Pete Dickinson is president of the company that provides oil and gas workover drilling operations, expertise in project management for oil and gas projects, and labor for operator-owned drilling and workover rigs.
Alaska Business: What do you do in your free time?
Pete Dickinson: I like to spend a lot of time with my family, and we do a lot of hunting and fishing.
AB: Is there a skill you’re currently developing or have always wanted to learn?
Dickinson: I’m always trying to learn better ways, or more effective ways, to motivate people—whether it’s in my wrestling coaching or it’s at work.
AB: What is your go-to comfort food?
Dickinson: Moose burgers. My daughter, Nicole, makes them best.
AB: Other than your current career, if you were a child today, what would your dream job be?
Dickinson: There’s no money in it, but probably coaching college wrestling.
AB: What’s the most daring thing that you’ve ever done?
Dickinson: Well, I’m doing it right now. I am building a gym/wrestling facility for kids.
It’s going to be a 15,000-square-foot [new construction] facility for kids… [that includes] a wrestling room, a CrossFit area, a weight room, a cardio room, and an auxiliary, little gym for yoga or whatever else we need to help pay to make the dream come true.
AB: Where are you building it?
Dickinson: Right outside of the city limits in Soldotna. We’ve already got the property and we’re designing it right now. We’re almost done with the architectural stage and we’re just now getting into engineering.
AB: Dead or alive, who would you like to most see perform live in concert?
Dickinson: Hank Williams Jr.
AB: What’s something you’re superstitious about?
Dickinson: If a coin [on the ground] is tails looking up at me, I walk on by. If it’s heads, I pick it up.
AB: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Dickinson: It’s not all my extravagance, but I spend money on it: taxidermy. We’ve got almost a museum here in our house, and a lot of them aren’t mine, they’re my wife’s or my son Michael’s or my daughter’s. We’ve totally bought into the whole Alaskan idea of hunting and gathering. We only eat wild game and we get it ourselves.
AB: What is your best attribute and your worst attribute?
Dickinson: For my best, let’s say it’s persistence. I never stop going after what I want. I think that there can always be a first and there can always be the best, so it might as well be me or our project or our company or our family.
My worst is always looking for and expecting perfection… I call it attention to detail, but that’s kind of my worst attribute because sometimes I push too hard to get that detail, that perfection. 
Images © Kerry Tasker