Alaska News

Business People

• Outstanding Alaska business leaders will join the Alaska Business Hall of Fame at the annual Junior Achievement recognition event in January. Business peers recently selected Jo Michalski and Jana Hayenga, retail store owners; the Odom brothers — John, Jim and Bill — of Odom Corp.; Dana Pruhs of Pruhs Corp.; and Sherron Perry, founder of Fairweather LLC, an oil and gas service company. These business leaders are honored for their direct impact toward furthering the success of Alaska business, demonstrated support and commitment to Junior Achievement's programs and demonstrated commitment to Alaska business.

Conrad Houston Insurance has announced the hiring of two personal lines account executives. Kathy Miller has extensive experience working with a broad range of clients to provide auto, homeowners and umbrella liability insurance. She is licensed to do business with Safeco, Progressive, Foremost and many other insurance companies. Angela Cole has worked with high net worth clients and will be providing homeowners, auto and umbrella liability insurance through Safeco, Fireman's Fund, Umialik and other insurance carriers.

Ahtna Inc. has announced that William "Matt" Tisher has joined the company as chief financial officer. Tisher most recently was employed with Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corp., an Alaska Native village corporation with $300 million in revenues and more than 40 subsidiaries. While at UIC, he performed at the executive level, providing internal and external financial reporting, planning, budget development, business plans, due diligence on investments, banking compliance, and relationships with banks and external auditors.

David Fleming of Alaska has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program G rant to Mexico in business, the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently. Fleming is one of more than 1,800 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2014-2015 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential.

GCI announced the promotion of two employees, Duncan Whitney and Susannah Scholl. Whitney was promoted to vice president for product management and Scholl to vice president for information and technology. Whitney joined GCI in 1993 and has worked in many departments within the company including IT, commercial marketing and Internet services. Most recently, Whitney served as vice president of data services in product management and as a program manager for GCI's Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial Initiative. Scholl has been with GCI since 2002 and until her promotion was employed as director of business services in IT, overseeing a wide range of issues including data security, compliance, systems integration and strategic financial planning.

Cynthia Trapp has joined Umiaq, LLC as an associate scientist in the Environmental Department. Trapp has more than 16 years of experience in the petroleum industry with expertise in emergency response and management, regulatory compliance and stakeholder engagement. She has gained first-hand experience in responding to numerous and varied petroleum industry incidents, and has directly participated in both corporate emergency response operations and field based response activities.

Dave Goggins, former vice president of operations for TelAlaska, has assumed the role of president and general manager. Jason Louvier, formerly the outside plant engineer, was promoted to vice president of operations. A TelAlaska employee for nearly 35 years, Goggins has worked in all of TelAlaska's communities and thoroughly understands the company's operations in those culturally diverse and geographically challenging areas of the state. He has served on the Western Telecommunications Alliance executive board and committees for the Alaska Telephone Association. Louvier has more than 17 years of experience in leadership and engineering roles in telecommunications, the last 10 with TelAlaska. He is certified as a Project Management Professional with the Project Management Institute.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Alaska District selected Bruce Sexauer as the new chief of the civil works branch. Sexauer previously served as the district's chief of the planning section as well as the lead planner and project manager on multiple studies. He began his Corps career in 1993 with the Seattle District where he served in many capacities, including hydraulic engineer, project manager, plan formulator and program manager. Sexauer transferred to the Alaska District as a senior planner in 2003.

Alaska Dispatch News welcomes items for the Business People column. To submit, email a press release in either Microsoft Word or as text in the body of an email. We cannot process PDFs. Email to biz@adn.com. Photos must be attached as JPEGs rather than embedded in the Word document. Label JPEGs with the subject's name. Call Kathleen Macknicki at 257-4452 with questions.

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