Hiring shareholders: Alaska native corporations train work force.

• Author: Stomierowski, Peg
• Position: NATIVE BUSINESS

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Alaska Native corporations ANCs), cognizant of the potential chill factor in some shifting winds in federal contracting, continue to help their own through shareholder hire efforts.

"We're all working hard to maintain what we're benefiting from now," said Vicki Otte, executive director of the Association of ANCSA Regional Corporation Presidents and CEOS.

Under federal law, as reflected in a report last summer by the University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research, ANCs are able to exercise a preference for American Indian and Alaska Native applicants, and they face shareholder pressure to hire their own people. The ISER review was partly in response to a 2006 Government Accountability Office report recommending increased Small Business Administration oversight of 8(a) contracting activity.

8(A) RULES

To qualify for 8(a), a socially or economically disadvantaged party--not just a figurehead in the position--must own and control at least 51 percent of the business. Additional assistance is targeted to veterans, women and handicapped persons. A series of 8(a) amendments from 1986 to 1992, ISER noted, exempted ANCs from limitations on the number of qualifying subsidiaries, from some restrictions on size and minimum time in business, and from the ceiling on the monetary value of sole-source contracts. Consequently, between 1988 and 2005, the number of 8(a) ANC subsidiaries grew from one to 154 subsidiaries owned by 49 ANCs. The dollar amount of 8(a) contracts to ANCs, it reported, grew from $265 million in fiscal year 2000 to $1.1 billion in 2004, about 80 percent of which was in sole-source contracts.

If substantial changes in (8a) procedures or enforcement do come to pass, all ANCs aren't likely to be impacted the same. It seems safe to expect that those firms hardest hit would be those most heavily invested in (8a) government-contracting projects.

As the ISER report and local sources also noted, using internships, scholarships, on-the-job coaching and other incentives, Native companies dedicate a substantial amount of time and expense to recruiting, training, developing and retaining Native employees.

Otte, a Doyon shareholder, heads the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional association, and is on the board of her village corporation. "My village corporation, we're so small we know everybody," she said.

Under interviewing procedures, she said, many candidates in Alaska expect to be asked whether...