n April, Alaska USA Federal Credit Union began operating under a new name—Global Credit Union—to symbolize its expanded service worldwide and bold aspirations for the future. The name change followed its August acquisition of Spokane, Washington-based Global Credit Union, which created one of the fifteen largest credit unions in the nation.

The rebranded financial institution now operates seventy-nine branches in Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Washington, and Italy; has more than 2,200 employees and 750,000 members; and holds $12 billion in assets. A member-owned, not-for-profit cooperative, Global Credit Union offers a full range of financial services, including checking and savings accounts, consumer loans, real estate loans, mortgage loans, credit cards, business services, and personal insurance.

eople really want to look for a place that they can feel like it’s their home,” says Wasilla dentist Tyler Mann. “People want a personal connection to where they go, so we try to be part of the community and participate in community events. We don’t want to lose that connection.”

To keep the connection with his patients, Mann Family Dental had to expand last fall, keeping pace with the community’s growth. The population increase in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough has brought an increased need for all services, particularly healthcare. For decades, Mat-Su residents seeking medical care had two options: wait to get an appointment with one of the few providers close to home or make the trek to Anchorage, neither of which were always practical. But the Mat-Su’s growing population has allowed the number, type, and availability of service providers to begin catching up with demand.

eave a place better than you found it: the Campground Rule is well known and practiced by anyone who roams the outdoors responsibly. Given that the Latin word for camp is the root of the English “campus,” higher education has assimilated the same ethos.

The three main campuses of the University of Alaska system each have an Office of Sustainability to coordinate efforts to reduce the impact of the institution on the environment and to conserve resources for future generations.

he 20MW reactor at Fort Greely was the state’s first—and, for the time being, only—nuclear energy project. From 1962 to 1972, SM-1A provided steam heat and electricity for Fort Greely. Operating costs were too high, though, so the reactor was shut down.

“The control rods, all the radioactive waste, all the radioactive liquids were sent to the Lower 48, but some of the lower-dose materials were left up there for our future efforts,” says Brenda Barber, program manager for the Environmental and Munitions Design Center at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Baltimore District.

n mid-2022 Hilcorp Alaska notified local utilities that it did not have enough natural gas reserves to commit to new contracts as current contracts expired. At the time, contracts with the oil and gas producer were up for renewal in periods ranging from two to eleven years. Many utilities are already taking action to reduce their reliance on natural gas or to secure contracts with other providers. The Fairbanks North Star Borough’s Interior Gas Utility, for example, has already announced its intent to power the Interior with North Slope natural gas.

Whatever plans Alaska’s utilities implement in the coming years to reduce their reliance on Cook Inlet natural gas, a smooth transition depends on ongoing production, which shouldn’t be a problem.

he following update of oil and gas activity on the North Slope is in no way comprehensive—that’s a tall order for any single article. Instead, we have chosen a few projects and drilling programs that highlight recently completed work from 2022 and anticipated work in 2023.

The biggest news on the North Slope for 2023 is that Willow got the green light from the US Department of the Interior (DOI). Following the DOI’s approval, an environmental group immediately sued to halt the project, challenging the Biden Administration’s decision. While the lawsuit is ongoing, a judge denied the group’s requested injunction to halt work. As of April, the Willow project has broken ground on construction of a gravel road. According to ConocoPhillips, its next steps are continuing a review of the DOI’s Record of Decision (ROD) and advancing an internal approval process, moving steadily toward a Final Investment Decision.

The Project as approved in this Decision—Alternative E as described in the Final Supplemental EIS, as modified to include only drill sites BT1, BT2, and BT3 and associated infrastructure—will include the Willow Processing Facility (WPF), Willow Operations Center (WOC), airstrip, and three drill sites (BT1, BT2, and BT3). Gravel roads will connect to all Project infrastructure and will extend from the Greater Mooses Tooth 2 (GMT-2) development southwest toward the Project area. As approved in this Decision, the Project will include up to 199 total wells, four valve pads, three pipeline pads, five water source access pads, pipelines to support Project infrastructure, and up to three subsistence-use boat ramps. BT2 will be located north of Fish Creek to gain access to a portion of the target reservoir. The subsistence-use boat ramps were added to the Project by ConocoPhillips Alaska as mitigation to help offset Project effects on the community of Nuiqsut.

t the corner of Northern Lights Boulevard and Minnesota Drive in Anchorage, three gas stations face each other: Carrs Safeway, Chevron, and Vitus. From one spot, a consumer can read the price of each station’s key product on their illuminated signs. Fuel is one of the few goods whose price is advertised so publicly, to the tenth of a cent.

“It can be the same price for a week, and then sometimes it might change three times in one day,” says Vitus Energy co-founder and CEO Mark Smith.

If the price goes up three times in a day, customers get angry. So why provoke them? “You just want to have transparency. It is the price that it is, and you need to communicate that and let them make their own decision,” Smith says. “I guess if they’re very angry, they’ll drive somewhere else.”

s of February 28, the market value of the Alaska Permanent Fund was $75.6 billion, of which $52 billion is principal, or the seed that grows investment earnings. Today, approximately one-third of the principal comes from earnings redeposited as inflation proofing, one-third comes from special appropriations, and one-third comes directly from the constitutionally required minimum of 25 percent of oil royalty proceeds.

Alaska Permanent Fund earnings come from investments in stocks, bonds, equities, and real estate, but the investment dollars come from—and started with—oil, specifically an initial deposit in 1977 of $734,000 that launched the fund.

olar energy is sizzling. Almost 2,000 customers of the four Railbelt electric utilities have tied solar installations to the grid, according to the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at UAF. Last year, 60 commercial customers of Chugach Electric Association and nearly 600 residential customers added photovoltaic (PV) installations.

“Solar PV is quickly becoming one of the lowest-cost options for energy or electricity generation in the world, and the same reflects in Alaska,” says Edwin Bifelt, founder and CEO of Alaska Native Renewable Industries, which has completed several large installations. “The projects that we’re doing show that solar is very doable from a conception standpoint. You don’t need a lot of heavy equipment assets involved. The biggest challenge for us is the foundation. After that it’s mostly just our labor crews involved.”

reens at the Able Raceway minigolf course in South Anchorage look more verdant than the industrial park across the fence, but looks can be deceiving. Inside a nondescript building, Vertical Harvest Hydroponics (VHH) is pursuing a greener vision. From that office, VHH runs a manufacturing facility in Palmer than makes hydroponic systems for growing vegetables and herbs. Inside cabinets or containers, leaves bask in artificial light while roots soak up nutrients from pans of liquid.

Dr. William Frederick Gericke coined the term “hydroponics” after he developed a commercial means to grow plants in 1929. Until then, it had only existed as a laboratory technique. Hydroponics gained greater acceptance when the US Army used the method to grow fresh food for troops stationed on the Pacific Islands during World War II. By the ‘50s, viable commercial farms existed in America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

ne does not resist the invasion of ideas,” said Victor Hugo, and one idea whose time has come has been bubbling underneath the Aleutian Island arc. Fifty million years in the making, visionaries now are taking active steps toward energizing Unalaska’s electrical grid with geothermal energy tapped from nearby Makushin Volcano.

An exploratory test well in 1983 determined the Makushin resource can supply enough geofluid to generate 500MW for 500 years. The geothermal resource at the base of the active volcano 14 miles from the Aleutian fishing community of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor is well documented, according to Dave Matthews, program manager with the joint venture Ounalashka Corporation/Chena Power (OCCP).

orld War II wrought lasting changes in Alaska. The town of Whittier was built from scratch as a rail port, for example. The Alaska Highway, constructed in a single season, connected the territory to the Lower 48 through Canada. And military interest in oil reserves led to exploration on the North Slope.

The war also gave the state its only currently producing coal mine, now marking its 80th anniversary.

Emil Usibelli, an Italian immigrant, worked in Interior Alaska’s underground coal mines throughout the ‘30s. In 1943, he and his friend, Thad Sandford, obtained a coal lease from the US Army to produce 10,000 tons of coal within a year for Ladd Army Airfield, today’s Fort Wainwright. Rather than tunnel underground, Usibelli worked with a TD-40 dozer and a converted GMC logging truck to till soil away from outcrops, and then he pushed exposed coal into the truck bed.

What charity or cause are you passionate about?
The ACLU… Planned Parenthood… a number of homeless initiative.

What’s the first thing you do when you get home after a long day at work?
Say hello to my cats, which is more their choice than mine.

What vacation spot is on your bucket list?
My sweetie and I are planning a bucket list trip to Ireland, which I’ve always wanted to go to my entire life, and France.

If you could domesticate a wild animal, what animal would it be?
Without a question, red pandas.

nce each, if anyone was wondering how many times Chugach Electric Association CEO Arthur Miller has seen Death of a Salesman and The Crucible by the same-named playwright.

After more than thirty years with the state’s largest electric utility, Miller stepped up to become number-one man in 2022. He comes to the industry with a degree in regulatory economics, which he applied at the Baby Bell telecom now named Qwest before he moved to Alaska in 1990.

Miller had a good dream, once, of becoming an emergency room physician, drawn by the fast-paced, high intensity environment while helping people at the same time. Now he helps people sixty times every second—the frequency of alternating current that Chugach Electric steadily supplies for its member-customers and Railbelt counterparts. Overseeing such a complex operation and ensuring its reliability and affordability is a duty Miller takes seriously.