Alaska Native Heritage Center Hires Edenshaw as Executive Director
The Alaska Native Heritage Center has hired Emily Keneggnarkayaaggaq” Edenshaw (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq) as Executive Director.
As the ANHC executive director, Edenshaw will provide sound organizational management and visionary leadership to ensure sustainable ANHC success. With the goal to build and mentor ANHC’s senior management team and staff, Edenshaw will work closely with the ANHC board and staff to implement ANHC’s mission, vision, and strategy. Edenshaw will also oversee all ANHC communications, finances, community engagement, management, and development. Edenshaw will also promote ANHC through cultural tourism work to both Alaska and the tourism industry.
“The ANHC Board is excited to welcome Keneggnarkayaaggaq to ANHC as our new ED,” says Tabetha Toloff, ANHC Board Chair. “She is an amazingly strong Alaska Native woman who is passionate about our Alaska Native cultures and has solid business expertise, fundraising, and development skills and is networked throughout the state of Alaska and beyond.”
Originally from Emmonak, Edenshaw is the great granddaughter of Axel and Pearlie Johnson, granddaughter of John and Cecilia Sipary, and daughter of John Neeley and Helen Miller. Her Yup’ik name means a person with a beautiful persona, spirit, aura, and friend. Edenshaw and her husband Devin have three beautiful sons and two adventurous daughters.
Currently, Edenshaw is a second year PhD indigenous studies student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Edenshaw also holds an executive master of business administration degree in strategic leadership from Alaska Pacific University and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public communications from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Edenshaw has worked for both public and private sectors: the Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, First Alaskans Institute, VICE Media, The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, Southcentral Foundation, The Pebble Partnership, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, and Alaska Communications.
“It is truly an honor and privilege to serve my community in this capacity,” says Edenshaw. “I’m so excited and humbled to work alongside the Board and Staff to continue to advance the critical mission of the Alaska Native Heritage Center.”
Alaska's relationship with oil began in 1902 when The English Company, soon renamed the Alaska Development Company, struck oil at Katalla, 47 miles southeast of Cordova. Katalla became a boom town, and a refinery was built in 1911, mainly supplying fuel to fishing vessels. A total of 154,000 barrels were produced over twenty years until Christmas Day 1933. A fire destroyed the Chilkat Oil Company refinery, and it was not rebuilt. Katalla disappeared from the map ten years later when the post office closed for good.