June 2012

Shell Poised for Alaska Prospects

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is poised to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska after spending nearly $4 billion and waiting out more than five years of delay.

By Zaz Hollander

WISEWOMAN Wins Outstanding Rural Health Award

The Outstanding Rural Health Program award “recognizes a community, regional or statewide program involving one or more health professionals or entities that promotes or facilitates the development of rural health delivery systems,” according to the Alaska Rural Health Conference Steering Committee, which presents the awards. “Factors considered include coordination of services, networking, collaboration, innovation in development and implementation and lasting impact of the program on populations served.”

A (Second-Growth) Cabin in the Woods

This summer, a crew of carpenters is at work on a cabin in a quiet Alaska town. It’s an Alaska dream cabin, with unique hand-crafted joinery and big windows offering stupendous views. It’s also something more: This home—and the wood of which it is built—is on the leading edge of an emerging economic opportunity: second-growth restoration forestry in Southeast Alaska.

By Dustin Solberg

Wealth Management for Alaskans

Wealth Management is Big Business in Alaska. Local investment and banking firms say their business has increased during the last few years as the population ages. Census figures indicate the number of Alaskans 65 and over increased 54 percent since 2000.

By Joette Storm

Alaska Rural Ports Update

Alaska has more miles of coastline than all other U.S. states combined. So it’s no surprise state and federal agencies spend millions of dollars each year investing in, improving and creating services for the boat-going public.

By Rindi White

‘If you got it, we brought it’

From the Editor, June 2012 Alaska Business Monthly

Susan Harrington, Managing Editor

Cranked up Exploration

Exploration for oil and gas in Alaska has really cranked up, but there are questions whether the pace is enough to dent the continued decline in production from the big oil producing fields on the North Slope, or to provide enough new natural gas to offset looming shortages in Southcentral Alaska.

By Mike Bradner

View from the Top - Mr. Whitekeys

Mr. Whitekeys came to Anchorage in the early 1970s. On his first day in town, he got hired to operate a jackhammer, which he’d never done. On his third day, he saw a newspaper ad for a piano player at Chilkoot Charlie’s. “I figured I could be every bit as good at playing the piano as I was at running a jackhammer,” he recalled, “and I got the job.”