Native partnerships: best of both worlds.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: NATIVE BUSINESS

About five years ago, Cook Inlet Region Inc. started work on an ambitious multimillion-dollar real estate project in Anchorage. A few months later, a financial crisis spreading across the globe hit the United States, derailing thousands of businesses and projects, even in Alaska.

But not CIRI's. That project is now Tikahtnu Commons, the largest retail and entertainment center in Alaska.

"By all means, it should have crumbled," said Jim Jager, director of communications for CIRI, "but it's very successful."

That success is due largely to the partnership between subsidiary CIRI Land Development Co. and Browman Development Co. to develop the project, Jager said. CIRI has long had a strategy of forging partnerships with companies that are leaders in their fields and whose business methods mirror its goals. Browman, based in Walnut Creek, Calif., has worked on many large retail projects in California and the Northwest United States and has strong connections with retailers that are a good fit in Alaska, Jager said.

'ALIGNED INTERESTS!

"You want to have aligned interests," Jager said. "Where projects fail is where the interests don't align," such as when one company wants to develop and sell it and the other is seeking a long-term project. A partnership is only successful if both sides benefit.

CIRI has made a point of partnering with companies that are leaders in their respective fields, such as Hyatt Development Corp. in the hotel/resort industry; T-Mobile USA in telecommunications; and Laurus Energy for their underground-coal-gasification project on the west side of Cook Inlet.

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Partnerships allow companies to share the risk and to combine disparate strengths to get a project done.

"We partner with companies that have both the ability and the incentive to make the joint project a success," Jager said.

HISTORY LESSON

Since their creation under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Alaska Native corporations have formed hundreds of partnerships with non-Native firms in diverse lines of business, from construction to tourism to mining to government contracting. Such partnerships allowed the corporations to share the risk in new enterprises and to develop competency in their selected fields.

Under ANCSA, Alaska Natives dropped their aboriginal land claims in return for title to 44 million acres of land and $962.5 million. Twelve regional corporations were created to manage the lands and money, and given a dual mandate...