Alaska Native Village Corporations with regional corporation levels of success.

• Author: Slaten, Russ
• Position: ALASKA NATIVE CORPORATIONS

When the state was divided into twelve regional Alaska Native Corporations through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, village corporations seemed to be created in the shadow of the regional corporations. In today's business climate, some village corporations have reached a similar level of success as the regional corporations or even eclipsed them.

Chenega Corporation

Anchorage-based Chenega Corporation, the village corporation of Chenega, located more than ninety miles southwest of Valdez in the Prince William Sound, reported gross revenues of $885 million in 2014. It ranked number 5 in Alaska Business Monthly's Top 49 owned and operated Alaskan companies by gross revenue--the highest ranked Alaska Native village corporation and fourth among all Alaska Native corporations on the list. Chenega Corporation has 5,200 employees worldwide, with 440 employees based in Alaska.

Chenega primarily provides government services including security, healthcare, IT, environmental, military intelligence, operations support, and professional services. Its commercial services include electrical, communications, green energy power systems, and Arctic applications services. Although Chenega's more than $1 billion in reported annual gross revenue from 2010 to 2013 dropped in 2014, it remained the highest ranking village corporation on the Top 49ers.

Tatitlek Corporation

In most Native corporations the president handles the shareholder and overall corporate responsibilities and the CEO is responsible for the corporation's business interests. The titles are reversed but the duties remain the same at the Tatitlek Corporation, based in the Prince William Sound area, thirty miles south of Valdez. Martin Hanofee, president of the Tatitlek Corporation, reports to CEO Roy Totemoff on Tatitlek's subsidiary and investment activity. Before becoming president in May, Hanofee was the Tatitlek Corporation senior vice president of operations and has been with the corporation for seven years.

In 2014 the Tatitlek Corporation reported $129.3 million in gross revenues and has about 1,100 employees across the United States. Through its ten subsidiaries, Tatitlek provides IT services, construction services, range operations, and professional services to governmental entities. Tatitlek has real estate holdings in Alaska and the Lower 48 and continues to invest in the satellite imagery business stemming from the acquisition of GeoNorth LLC in 2010.

"From a revenue standpoint [GeoNorth] is one of our smallest subsidiaries, but from a future standpoint it represents one of our biggest initiatives. It represents a technology that is virtually endless--a global technology, and we're not relying solely on the government space, which tends to ebb and flow," Hanofee says.

Hanofee attributes much of Tatitlek's success to a "steady, savvy, and consistent" board of directors. He says the board, as part of management of the corporation, gives him a clear vision for the operation and direction of financial and corporate assets.

Tatitlek saw the landscape of opportunity change with the added challenges in government contracting in 2011 and 2012, so the corporation chose to diversify its business portfolio while continuing its government services.

GeoNorth invested in a multi-mission Direct Receiving Station in Fairbanks for optical and radar satellite imagery in September 2013. Through GeoNorth's partnership with Airbus Defense and Space, GeoNorth has priority tasking and downlink capabilities for all Airbus satellite constellations to be applied in both the commercial and government arenas, Hanofee says. GeoNorth's initial imagery applications were focused on oil and gas projects; Arctic research; emergency response; maritime domain and awareness monitoring; and environmental, forestry, and transportation projects, among others.

"Nearly all of the [Airbus] satellites are polar orbiting, and our Direct Receiving Station is extremely polar, so we get frequent passes from the satellites, which allows us to provide near real-time imagery," Hanofee says. "And when you're looking to make business decisions, it is very important to have timely, accurate data--so that's our niche."

Tatitlek has 357 shareholders, and only 66 of those shareholders and descendants live in Tatitlek. The village can only be reached by boat or airplane and lacks infrastructure, Hanofee says.

"There are many of our younger shareholders that work for the corporation--and many of them have advanced degrees--and we're really exploring ways to bring technology back to the village," Hanofee says. "We're into...