Native Industry has Huge Impact on Fairbanks Economy.

• Author: STRICKER, JULIE
• Position: Brief Article

Payroll and spending by Native organizations add more than $300 million to the Fairbanks economy.

Athabaskans have lived in Interior Alaska for thousands of years, imprinting the region with their rich cultural and societal legacy, but achieving little economic impact.

Times have changed. In just the past two years, Native organizations have rewritten the skyline of Alaska's second-largest city. A float down the winding Chena River through the heart of Fairbanks takes visitors past the recently completed Chena River Convention Center, backed by the Chief Peter John Tribal Building where Tanana Chiefs Conference is headquartered.

Less than a mile downstream on the northern bank is Doyon Plaza, which opened in spring 2000, and is the base of Alaska Native regional corporation Doyon Ltd. Doyon also is behind a new housing development rising a few miles downstream, and owns an industrial park in South Fairbanks that houses the headquarters for Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.

Across the river from Doyon Plaza rises the partly Native-owned Marriott Springhill Suites hotel, which will be operated by a Native corporation when it opens in 2001.

Underpinning the new architecture is a financial base that rivals that of Fairbanks' two traditional economic mainstays: government and gold mining. In 2000, a study commissioned by the three major Fairbanks-based Native organizations: Doyon Ltd., Tanana Chiefs Conference and Fairbanks Native Association, showed that this foundation runs deeper than even the participants realized.

The bottom line is that payroll and spending by Native organizations add more than $300 million to the Fairbanks economy, according to Brian Rogers of Information Insights, the principal consultant for the study.

Native-owned organizations' direct payroll adds up to $87 million, which generates another $63 million in indirect payroll in the Fairbanks region, Rogers says.

"I think a lot of us were surprised when we added up all the payroll numbers--that they came to the equivalent to the UAF payroll," Rogers says. "To see that Alaska Native entities generate the same amount (as UAF payroll) was unexpected."

According to the Alaska Department of Community and Economic Development, government agencies provide nearly half of all employment in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Eielson Air Force Base, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the borough school district are the primary public employers, while Fairbanks Memorial Hospital and...