My wife recently had hip replacement surgery at Alaska Regional Hospital. It went just fine, and she is doing great.

What was interesting, though, was that when we told people she was going to have the operation, the typical response was "Oh, are you going Outside for that?"

We found that strange. Going Outside hadn't even crossed our minds.

The hospitals and doctors in Alaska are perfectly competent and capable. Besides, this is where we live. We want to "do business" here in the community, keeping dollars in Alaska. I expect most people feel this way.

In her most recent State of the State speech, the governor spoke of many things, including the need for self-sufficiency. She praised training and education and said we all have a responsibility to seek work and not rely on the government.

Few would argue with this. But let's go a step further and encourage employers in the state, and the state itself, to seek out and select qualified Alaskans to do the job.

Mark Hamilton, president of the University of Alaska system, seems to feel the same way. In a recent talk to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, he spoke of the need to "grow your own" as the preferred way to build up the workforce here. He noted that $82 billion has left the state since completion of the pipeline. He's talking about paychecks to nonresidents.

As an example, Hamilton explained that the cost of "renting" health care workers from Outside is tremendous. The university is doing its best with limited resources to train nurses and other health care workers to meet state needs. More state funding would help and go a way toward the governor's self-sufficiency objective.

I'm not saying we need local-hire or Alaska-preference laws. I'm just saying do it because it's the right thing to do and in everyone's best interest. We can build a more diversified and thriving economy if we stick together. Lord knows the oil industry has been good to us, but that can't last forever.

Alaska is almost 50 years old, and the Anchorage area has a population of almost 300,000. This is not your father's Alaska. You don't have to go to Seattle to do your shopping anymore. There is no reason to look elsewhere for medical, marketing, insurance, legal or financial experts. That expertise is right here.

I hesitate to say this, but maybe, just maybe, Alaskans still suffer from a bit of an inferiority complex -- the notion that we still must look elsewhere for certain skills, that we are just not up to snuff in certain areas. I reject that notion. That's old thinking.

A colleague at work, and longtime Alaskan, opined that downtown Anchorage really wasn't much to brag about. I beg to differ. Downtown Anchorage is a happening place. There are all kinds of events and cultural activities. It is busy most of the time, in contrast to many cities where downtown is dead in the evening and on weekends after workers flee to the suburbs.

Maybe this is just human nature. Have you noticed that a new employee's ideas seem to get more attention than those of a co-worker who has been there for a long time? We take for granted what we have and somehow can't quite believe that those closest to us are just as smart as the new guy. People with British accents sound smart, right? The Europeans are so sophisticated. It's the "Emperor's New Clothes" all over again.

Alaska firms may not have national name recognition or the cachet that Outside firms bring or Outside consultants recommend. But I'll bet my bottom dollar that in the vast majority of cases we can provide as good or better a product or service. We are perfectively competent even though we don't have a Seattle ZIP code. Resist the urge to go shopping Outside. Why go out for hamburger when you've got steak at home!