Kake Tribal Corp.: dividends through diversification.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: Company Profile

From logging to salmon ham, this village corporation is building its future by creating new jobs.

Profitability and the creation of jobs are the goals of Kake Tribal Corp., an Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANSCA) firm headquartered in the largely Tlingit village of Kake.

The corporation's prime focus is logging, with growing interests in fisheries, and plans to diversify into commercial construction, contract roadbuilding and bioremediation of polluted real estate. The corporation currently employs around 200 people.

Kake Tribal is one of four local entities that controls and directs the economy of the town, along with the City of Kake, the federally recognized local tribe known as the Organized Village of Kake, and the Kake Non-profit Hatchery. But, as a for-profit privately held corporation, Kake Tribal is fundamentally different from its partners and rightly spearheads the entrepreneurial efforts of what has become a very entrepreneurial town.

Kake, population around 800, lies on the northwest corner of Kupreanof Island about 30 air miles from Petersburg. Basically stretched along one three-mile road, Kake has modest homes, several trailer parks and a smattering of down-home-looking businesses, including a small teen arcade-hangout, two small groceries and a restaurant. Timber clearcuts begin just out of town.

Unemployment used to be rife in Kake, especially in winter. And the idleness and poverty often resulted in deep despair -- Kake residents traditionally had to be treated for more than their share of self-inflicted wounds.

But now, Kake is the only small town in southeast Alaska with a labor shortage, says Kake tribal president and CEO Gordon Jackson. This year, several seine boats couldn't make all the opening because their crew members had found higher-paying jobs.

"Anybody who wants to work can work," Jackson says proudly.

Three years ago, the cold-storage plant was closed. This year, it will process more than 5 million pounds of fish. The logging division, once feared to be running out of wood, received a 75-million-board-foot boost when the corporation settled a 1991 lawsuit against the regional Sealaska Corp. in February.

Even the setbacks are pounced upon as opportunities. When the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation sued Kake Tribal to force it to clean up its fuel-soaked land at the Point McCartney sort yard and log transfer site, the corporation didn't run out and hire experts. Instead, Kake Tribal made...