Recruiting regional business: Kodiak business managers seek customers among Southwest Alaska neighbors.

• Author: Hill, Robin Mackey

Two years ago this fall, 14 Kodiak business people went hop-scotching across the Bristol Bay region and down the Aleutians on what was billed by the Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference as a business opportunity trip. Marideth Sandler, executive director of the non-profit regional development organization known as SWAMC, explains that the objective was for people from Kodiak and the towns they visited to begin talking about doing business together.

Wayne Stevens, executive director of the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, says the trip was beneficial for Kodiak business people with something to offer and for rural residents looking for goods and services. Among those Kodiak businesses that soon found themselves with clients or new contacts in Sand Point, Dillingham, King Salmon or Dutch Harbor were representatives of City Mortgage and Western Alaska Land Title. "You've got to know the people before you can do business with them," says Stevens.

A second trip in spring of this year almost immediately brought results for Ed Randolph, an insurance agent based in Kodiak. "I made lots and lots of good contacts," says Randolph, who's been working in Kodiak about 10 years. "Pick it and they need it. Anyone who's willing to do just a little bit can establish a business relationship."

The idea of reaching across Shelikof Strait to do business with those in Bristol Bay or along the Aleutians is nothing new, says Randolph, who is past president of the Kodiak chamber and a member of the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce. "We've always talked about trying to make Kodiak more of a regional hub. Over the years we've been trying to pull the various points together."

Adds the Kodiak chamber's Stevens: "We're starting to look beyond the shores of Kodiak Island, looking at the other 20,000 residents in the region that need goods and services. It's thinking beyond those traditional geographical roles." For too long, say Stevens and others, residents in Bristol Bay and Dutch Harbor have relied on Seattle for their goods and services. Alaska businesses hoping to whittle out a niche need to make themselves available to area residents and to work toward changing firmly established business patterns.

Meeting over a cup of coffee with Kodiak business people is an important first step in doing business together, say residents of those communities that were visited. While people in outlying areas learn what goods and services are available, Kodiak residents learn more about...