Tropical Alaskans going south: business owners find work in Pacific Territories.

• Author: Friedman, Sam
• Position: SMALL BUSINESS

The Alaskans who fly to the tropics in January aren't all headed to beach vacations. Some are going to work.

An unusual number of Alaska businesses operate in both the 49th State and in far-flung US territories in the Pacific Ocean. They cite a handful of motivations for investing in these distant operations: an anticipated US military construction boom, difficult island logistics that Alaskans are well-suited for, and political ties that unite non-contiguous parts of the United States.

Mobile Law Firm

Even though he handles some of the most high-profile legal cases in Fairbanks, attorney Bill Satterberg doesn't stay in Alaska much longer than necessary to qualify for the permanent fund dividend.

For about a quarter of the year he's "virtually" in Fairbanks, calling into court hearings while he sits on his porch in the middle of the night, some 4,500 miles way at his other home in Saipan.

Saipan, population forty-eight-thousand, is an island about an hour north of Guam that Satterberg first visited in 1978 on a scuba diving trip. It's the largest island in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Satterberg got an attorney job with the local government while handing out resumes on that vacation and has practiced law off-and-on there ever since. Satterberg owns land on the island, and in the 1980s he and his wife adopted two daughters from the region.

"I don't think I would ever leave Alaska permanently, although I'm a little frustrated with the direction this place is going," he says. "That's why I like Saipan. It's the way Alaska was a number of years ago, during the pipeline days."

Other Alaskans like it too. Some of Satterberg's first work in the 1980s was for Alaska construction firms that were moving to the area. He helped a more recent wave of Alaska businesses in the last ten years.

A half dozen Alaska attorneys have also worked in Saipan, he says. A University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate owns Godfather's, a bar on the island.

"It's the same type of mentality that we see in Alaska," Satterberg says. "Kind of individualist, used to logistical issues, used to remoteness, maybe used to having wilted lettuce as opposed to all the commodities of home. It takes that sort of an adventuresome spirit."

There are practical reasons why Alaska business owners seek out this US Commonwealth as well.

The commonwealth uses US currency and has US area telephone code, but the federal tax rate is lower in the commonwealth than in the...