aula Hill grew up in Hooper Bay, a small Yup’ik community on the Bering Sea coast. Her mother pushed all of her kids to pursue education beyond high school and enrolled them in Alaska’s college savings program to help make that happen.

Hill went on to attend UAF—and now she’s pushing her own daughters, ages 3 and 14, and saving for them too.

“It feels like an honor,” Hill says of being part of the program for a second generation. “Being able to contribute to them after they leave my home and start their journeys. I know it doesn’t really feel like a difference each year, but everything adds up, and by the time they’re done with high school it will really make a huge impact.”

nnovation in Alaska emerges in remote communities, harsh climates, and challenging environments where solving problems requires creativity, persistence, and collaboration—and often urgency, delivering on the leading edge of innovation, against circumstances and limitations faced by relatively few others.

That spirit is exactly what the Alaska Innovators Hall of Fame celebrates. Each year, the program recognizes Alaskans whose ideas, inventions, and leadership are helping shape the state’s future—advancing industries, strengthening communities, and tackling the unique challenges of life in the 49th State. The selection committee is an advisory board formed within the University of Alaska system to promote “research and development as an enterprise and as an engine for economic development in Alaska.”

The 2026 inductees represent three distinct but interconnected forms of innovation: academic research, community-scale energy systems, and sustainable building technology. From protecting infrastructure built on thawing permafrost to transforming the reliability of a remote coastal power grid to developing new tools for energy-efficient homes in Arctic climates, the work of Doug Goering, Clay Koplin, and Tom Marsik reflects ingenuity and dedication to bolstering Alaska’s communities that are leveraging best-available solutions for viability.

he line between enlightened self-interest and predatory greed is easily blurred. In Alaska, this was perhaps most infamously seen a little over a decade ago when Mark Avery, a lawyer and trustee for a local airline, secured massive loans by leveraging a $350 million charitable trust—diverting the funds not into the community but into a private fleet of vintage military planes and a personal security force.

Federal prosecutor Steve Skrocki noted that Avery “burned through $52 million… in six months.” While his blatant theft may be a criminal outlier, the trajectory is a reminder that an unchecked hunger for more, stripped of a moral compass, can scorch an organization faster than any market crash.

Avery’s actions represent the extreme of a philosophy often debated in boardrooms. “Greed is right,” as Gordon Gekko famously declared in the 1987 film Wall Street, but in the real world, “greedy” is rarely a compliment. From an economic perspective, this impulse keeps the gears turning. Whether we call it greed or extreme ambition, the desire for more stimulates market activity and pushes individuals toward greater levels of success, in part because incentives are important. They’re the strategic rewards that align individual effort with company goals, turning personal ambition into the fuel that drives collective accomplishments. Even amassing wealth has redeeming qualities, as it creates the concentrated capital necessary for large-scale philanthropy and global impact.

embers of the Alaska chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) have been part of the massive effort since October to rebuild western Alaska communities affected by Typhoon Halong. Five NAWIC members shared their perspectives on the recovery effort.

“These people, they typically are at home during the holidays,” explains Hughes, Knik Construction’s health, safety, and security manager and a member of the NAWIC Alaska Chapter board of directors.

ight stars of gold have adorned the Alaska flag since the territorial legislature adopted the design in 1927. Stargazing indoors had to wait almost a century, when the state’s first planetarium opened on the UAA campus in 2009, followed within a year by a second at the Anchorage Museum. Now, nearing the centennial of Benny Benson’s astronomical inspiration, the state is getting its third space theater.

The new planetarium opening at UAF this spring is a dream come true. For decades, UAF floated the idea but couldn’t gain solid support until recently. Now, tourists and Alaskans will have a new facility to experience the Great Land and its sky like never before.

he construction industry’s need for skilled human workers continues to grow, and organizations in Alaska are doing their part to encourage young people to learn about careers in the trades.

Alaska has a growing need for workers in construction, transportation, and maritime industries. According to the Associated Training Services report, Regional Construction Trends: Where the Jobs Are Growing Fastest, forty-one states added construction jobs in the past year, showing nationwide growth, and Alaska’s 20.3 percent growth was the highest percentage increase.

While companies are hiring, however, many in the younger generation face significant barriers to entering the workforce.

YouScience’s 2024 Workforce Report: Fixing America’s Broken Talent Pipeline—which highlights employers’ hiring needs, perceptions of student readiness for the workforce, and preferences for educational qualifications versus practical, on-the-job training—notes that 86 percent of employers report that entry-level talent requires substantial or moderate additional training to be successful in their roles.

he Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT&PF) is testing pedestrian safety technology in a pilot project in Kodiak. In early February, DOT&PF installed an advanced system on Rezanof Drive near Cope Street, overlooking Kodiak’s inner harbor, to improve nighttime visibility for pedestrians crossing the road. The pilot project will monitor the system’s durability and effectiveness to determine whether this technology could be used in other Alaska cities.

“The new Smart Pedestrian Lighting pilot in Kodiak is a dynamic pedestrian lighting technology designed to spotlight pedestrians as they enter the crosswalk,” says Sonny Mauricio, DOT&PF public information officer. “Unlike static streetlights, this system actively tracks movement to increase visibility for drivers, ensuring pedestrians are clearly illuminated throughout their entire crossing.”

arthquakes. Floods. Eruptions. Oil spills. Subsea cable breaks. Ransomware attacks. Twenty-first century emergency managers must plan for a growing list of scenarios, some increasingly complex. Since 2004, the Alaska Partnership for Infrastructure Protection (APIP) has helped educate and connect public and private-sector groups that have shared emergency concerns.

uty to shareholders is the guiding star for business decisions by Alaska Native corporations (ANCs). Not only is this principle established by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), but corporations share this perspective when they become shareholders themselves. Equity ownership is one of many avenues for investing ANC assets. As part-owners of other companies, ANCs earn dividends that they return to their own shareholders.

Majority- or wholly owned subsidiaries are too numerous to list. For example, Calista Corporation, one of the twelve ANCSA regional corporations, operates a robust construction business line, strengthened in 2010 by acquiring Yukon Equipment and the Brice family of companies, and again in 2018 by acquiring STG and its sister companies. However, Calista also owns a piece of Delta Constructors; its Bektuq Holding arm acquired a 25 percent interest in late 2019. The minority, non-controlling stake gave Calista a partner in the resource development sector, turning a potential competitor for construction contracts into a source of revenue.

Investing instead of owning is a strategic choice that depends on ANCs’ goals, resources, and liquidity.

ero winning bids for the first federal oil and gas lease sale in Alaska mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA) was nothing to worry about. Instead of investing in offshore tracts in Cook Inlet, interested parties were keeping their powder dry for the main event later in March: leasing in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA).

The sale, the first in the reserve since 2019, saw the second most acreage leased in a single sale, and the revenue is the most ever, in nominal dollars, at $163,696,722 in total receipts for 187 tracts.

While setting the stage for a major realignment of federal policy on oil and gas development, the Trump administration’s push for new oil and gas lease sales has renewed debate between those touting production as an economic necessity and those seeking the protection of the state’s environment, wildlife, and Indigenous traditions.

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