December employment was down an estimated 0.3 percent, or 900 jobs, from December 2017. Retail, manufacturing and professional and business services each lost 400 jobs while information and financial activities each fell by 200.
The Alaska Airlines board of directors has elected three new company officers: Constance von Muehlen, senior vice president of maintenance and engineering; Ron Calvin, vice president of inflight; and Jenny Wetzel, vice president of labor relations.
NANA Regional Corporation entered the new year with two key new hires to executive positions—one executive position of the overall regional corporation and one to lead Tuuq Drilling under NANA’s Commercial Group.
Rosanne D’Arrigo of the tree-ring lab at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York recently told the story of Alaska’s year without a summer. She attended the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union last month in Washington, DC.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks has again been included on US News & World Report’s lists of the best online programs.
Three world-class mining prospects are the Donlin Gold prospect in Southwest Alaska, the Upper Kobuk Mineral Project in Northwest Alaska, and Pebble in the Bristol Bay region of the state. All three are near or in the permitting phase.