Contractor of the Year: honorable mention: Alaska Interstate Construction LLC.

• Author: West, Gail
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: BUILDING ALASKA

Completing the packed 2010 construction season will be fulfilling for Alaska Interstate Construction LLC. The company's roster of projects has included some of the most high-profile jobs across the state.

"We've worked all over Alaska," said Steve Percy, AIC's president. "AIC has built ice roads, gravel road and pads, installed piling and done a variety of projects for a variety of clients from the North Slope to Southeast.

"We do a lot of work for mining companies, as well as oil and gas," he said. "We do pioneering access for initial mine development along with site grading, drainage and dam construction for the mine itself. We've done work at Pogo, Fort Knox, Kensington, Red Dog--almost every working mine in Alaska."

Begun as a heavy, civil contractor in 1989 on Alaska's North Slope, AIC has gone from an incorporated company to a limited-liability corporation owned, in equal shares, by Nabors Drilling Co. and Cook Inlet Regional Native Corp. Inc. Today's firm encompasses three divisions: mining, public works, and oil and gas. According to Percy, the firm's annual portfolio of work averages about $120 million a year, and that work supports 52 salaried staff, 37 hourly staff and about 350 craft employees during the peak construction season.

High on AIC's 2010 business list was the completion of the avenue named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Anchorage. At $25 million, this 7,500-foot, five-lane road linked Elmore Road to Boniface Parkway and is part of an ongoing effort to ease traffic pressure on Tudor Road.

Further afield, Kotzebue's Shore Avenue erosion project--at slightly more than $33 million--consists of rebuilding approximately 4,400 feet of road which erosion had narrowed to less than two lanes in places. The new road will be paved and have sidewalks, a pathway, parallel parking and an open space on the seaward side.

Ken Yockey, AIC's vice president of construction, added that the company is installing a galvanized sheet pile wall along the street to protect it during breakup.

"The final product will look...