Chugach Alaska Corporation, or CAC, is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Chugach Alaska Corporation was incorporated in Alaska on June 23, 1972.[1] Headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, Chugach Alaska Corporation is a for-profit corporation with over 2,200 Alaska Native shareholders[2] primarily of Chugach Alutiiq, Eyak, and Tlingit descent
CAC's new leadership immediately involved CAC in a series of diverse enterprises that required less risk and lower capitalization than the big resource-oriented projects the company had taken on in the past. These new ventures positioned CAC as a service provider, focusing on facility management, services for the oil industry, personnel and computer services, and tourism.
CAC's new strategy began to pay off in 1994, when the company won two contracts with the U.S. government. The first paid CAC $1.2 million annually to maintain family housing units at the Adak Navy base in Alaska. The second provided CAC $4.5 million a year to provide an array of base services operations for the King Salmon Airforce Base in Alaska. CAC performed both contracts successfully and was eager to win more. To do so, the company formed a subsidiary, Chugach Development Corporation (CDC), which qualified for bid preferences in government services contracts under the Small Business Administration's Section 8(a) program. "This is what shaped our life after bankruptcy," a company executive stated in the Alaska Journal of Commerce for August 12, 2001. After landing a base operations contract in Wake Island, Alaska, in 1996, CDC was awarded a multi-year contract worth $18 million to oversee base maintenance and operations at the U.S. Navy base on Whidbey Island, Washington.
CAC moved into other new areas as well. In 1996, the firm entered a four-way partnership with a Nebraska telecommunications company called MFS Network Technologies Inc. and two other Alaska Natives regional corporations to form Kansas Telecom Inc. Kansas won a contract from Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to build and operate a $100 million fiber optics communications system along Alyeska's 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline corridor. The project, which was slated to take over two years to complete, was intended to provide state-of-the-art digital and voice communications systems for Alyeska and to upgrade operations control along the pipeline. CAC held a 25 percent stake in Kansas and appointed one of its own corporate vice-presidents as Kansas' first chief executive. (After the project's completion in 2000, Alyeska terminated its contract with Kansas; CAC reduced its stake in the venture to 5 percent). Also in 1996, CAC joined with North Employment Services to form another subsidiary, Chugach North Technical Services, which provided temporary contract personnel services to private employers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
CAC's post-bankruptcy strategy was hugely successful. The company returned to profitability in 1994 and gross revenues rose from $32 million in 1994, to $35.5 million in 1995, to $52.5 million in 1996. By 1996, CAC had paid down its debts to $4 million and had a backlog of $300 million in contracts. Although its debt prevented CAC from paying its Native shareholders a dividend, CAC's numerous base contracts throughout the Northwest provided much-needed jobs to Chugach shareholders living both in Alaska and Washington.
While CAC spent much of the mid-1990s de-emphasizing its resource-based operations, the company still hoped to exploit the natural resources, particularly timber, of its land. Beginning in 1996, CAC sought to complete a process that it had begun in its 1982 settlement with the U.S. government. ANCSA had transferred to CAC timber-rich land in the Carbon Mountain Tract of the Copper River Delta east of Cordova, Alaska. This property was completely encircled by United States Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, though, and CAC wanted to build a road that gave it access to its property. Under the terms of ANCSA and the 1982 settlement, CAC was guaranteed an easement across USFS land to access its property, but the easement still had not been granted by 1996, despite CAC's compliance with applicable environmental prerequisites.
In response, CAC twice turned to the U.S. Congress in 1998 and 1999 for legislative solutions that would allow for the road. Both efforts failed. CAC was under considerable pressure from environmental groups and administration officials to give up on the planned road and future logging and instead negotiate a conservation easement and a settlement. However, CAC was resolute, viewing the matter as one of sovereignty rather than payment. "What this is really about is the federal government keeping its promises," CAC's Brown told National Wildlife in 1999. After a flurry of negative publicity, CAC was eventually granted its easement in 2000. Given the state of global timber markets, however, the company postponed any work on the road.
Despite the media's attention to timber, CAC continued to focus primarily on its post-bankruptcy enterprises, particularly government service contracts. Michael Brown left his post in 1999 and was ultimately replaced by Barney Uhart, who continued his predecessor's business plan. In 1999, another of CAC's government services-oriented subsidiaries, Chugach Management Services (CMS), won a base maintenance contract at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, worth $170 million. That same year, CMS moved even further from its home territory when it was awarded a $500 million contract to manage base facilities at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
Success in the 21st Century
CAC won its most significant government services contract in 2002, when it teamed with Lockheed Martin and Bechtel to provide support services for the missile-testing site on the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. The total procurement for the three companies was worth over $2 billion and allowed CAC to hire 1,200 new employees.
In the late 1990s, the company continued to diversify its operations. Through its subsidiary Chugach Telecommunications & Computers, Inc. (CT&C), CAC won a contract to operate a worldwide seismic network used to enforce the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. CT&C also validated software for the Navy's Tomahawk missile program and tracked space debris for the Naval Space Command. Another subsidiary, Chugach Support Services, ran Job Corps facilities in Alaska, San Francisco, and Roswell, New Mexico. CAC's Ship Escort Response Vessel System escorted oil tankers into and out of Prince William Sound. In 2002, CAC bought the Fairbanks, Alaska-based McKinley General Contractors, which it converted into a new subsidiary, Chugach McKinley Corporation. In 2003, Chugach McKinley won a five-month contract to take over construction operations at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
CAC's success was apparent in the early years of the new century. In 2000, the company paid out a dividend to its shareholders for the first time in 11 years and increased the dividend payment annually thereafter. Revenues for 2002 topped $355 million, a jump of 28 percent from the previous year. The company's future looked bright. "There are a lot new things on the horizon," Uhart told the Alaska Journal of Commerce in 2003. "Actually business couldn't be better. There's really not a lot to complain about."
Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) is one of the most successful of the 12 Alaska Native Regional Corporations that were formed in 1971 as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The company, whose shareholders are 2,000 Native Alaskans of the Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian peoples, controls about 900,000 acres of mostly coastal land in the Chugach region of Alaska (south-central Alaska and Prince William Sound). Since emerging from bankruptcy in 1991, CAC has followed a new corporate plan. Rather than focus exclusively on developing its rich natural resources of timber and fisheries, the company has become a leading provider of government services contracts, ranging from managing U.S. military bases to employment services to telecommunications. Through its six subsidiaries and numerous joint ventures, CAC now oversees 51 such projects in 21 states and six foreign countries.
A current listing of Chugach Alaska Corporation's officers and directors, as well as documents filed with the State of Alaska since CAC's incorporation, are available online through the Corporations Database of the Division of Corporations, Business & Professional Licensing, Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1971
Employees: 5,000
Sales: $354 million (2002)
NAIC: 561210 Government Base Facilities Operation Support Services; 611710 Educational Support Services; 236220 Construction Management, Commercial and Institutional Building; 561310 Employment Placement Services
Key Dates:
1971: Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act creates Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC).
1982: Congress passes the Chugach Natives Inc. Settlement Agreement.
1989: Exxon Valdez spill threatens CAC's operations.
1991: CAC enters Chapter 11.
1994: CAC secures its first base operation services contract.
1996: Partially CAC-owned venture, Kansas Telecom, wins Alyeska Pipeline contract.
2000: CAC obtains easement to access timber stands in Carbon Mountain tract.
2002: CAC is awarded support services contract for Kwajalein missile testing site.
The Chugach region encompasses about 10 million acres (40,000 km²) in Prince William Sound and coastal areas of southcentral Alaska, including the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Chugach Alaska Corporation's land entitlement under ANCSA includes about 378,000 acres (1,530 km²) of both surface and subsurface estate and a further 550,000 acres (2,200 km²) of subsurface estate, for a total of 928,000 acres (3,760 km²). As of 2006, CAC has received about 94% of its total entitlement.
Address:
560 East 34th Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
U.S.A.
CAC's new leadership immediately involved CAC in a series of diverse enterprises that required less risk and lower capitalization than the big resource-oriented projects the company had taken on in the past. These new ventures positioned CAC as a service provider, focusing on facility management, services for the oil industry, personnel and computer services, and tourism.
CAC's new strategy began to pay off in 1994, when the company won two contracts with the U.S. government. The first paid CAC $1.2 million annually to maintain family housing units at the Adak Navy base in Alaska. The second provided CAC $4.5 million a year to provide an array of base services operations for the King Salmon Airforce Base in Alaska. CAC performed both contracts successfully and was eager to win more. To do so, the company formed a subsidiary, Chugach Development Corporation (CDC), which qualified for bid preferences in government services contracts under the Small Business Administration's Section 8(a) program. "This is what shaped our life after bankruptcy," a company executive stated in the Alaska Journal of Commerce for August 12, 2001. After landing a base operations contract in Wake Island, Alaska, in 1996, CDC was awarded a multi-year contract worth $18 million to oversee base maintenance and operations at the U.S. Navy base on Whidbey Island, Washington.
CAC moved into other new areas as well. In 1996, the firm entered a four-way partnership with a Nebraska telecommunications company called MFS Network Technologies Inc. and two other Alaska Natives regional corporations to form Kansas Telecom Inc. Kansas won a contract from Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. to build and operate a $100 million fiber optics communications system along Alyeska's 800-mile trans-Alaska oil pipeline corridor. The project, which was slated to take over two years to complete, was intended to provide state-of-the-art digital and voice communications systems for Alyeska and to upgrade operations control along the pipeline. CAC held a 25 percent stake in Kansas and appointed one of its own corporate vice-presidents as Kansas' first chief executive. (After the project's completion in 2000, Alyeska terminated its contract with Kansas; CAC reduced its stake in the venture to 5 percent). Also in 1996, CAC joined with North Employment Services to form another subsidiary, Chugach North Technical Services, which provided temporary contract personnel services to private employers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
CAC's post-bankruptcy strategy was hugely successful. The company returned to profitability in 1994 and gross revenues rose from $32 million in 1994, to $35.5 million in 1995, to $52.5 million in 1996. By 1996, CAC had paid down its debts to $4 million and had a backlog of $300 million in contracts. Although its debt prevented CAC from paying its Native shareholders a dividend, CAC's numerous base contracts throughout the Northwest provided much-needed jobs to Chugach shareholders living both in Alaska and Washington.
While CAC spent much of the mid-1990s de-emphasizing its resource-based operations, the company still hoped to exploit the natural resources, particularly timber, of its land. Beginning in 1996, CAC sought to complete a process that it had begun in its 1982 settlement with the U.S. government. ANCSA had transferred to CAC timber-rich land in the Carbon Mountain Tract of the Copper River Delta east of Cordova, Alaska. This property was completely encircled by United States Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, though, and CAC wanted to build a road that gave it access to its property. Under the terms of ANCSA and the 1982 settlement, CAC was guaranteed an easement across USFS land to access its property, but the easement still had not been granted by 1996, despite CAC's compliance with applicable environmental prerequisites.
In response, CAC twice turned to the U.S. Congress in 1998 and 1999 for legislative solutions that would allow for the road. Both efforts failed. CAC was under considerable pressure from environmental groups and administration officials to give up on the planned road and future logging and instead negotiate a conservation easement and a settlement. However, CAC was resolute, viewing the matter as one of sovereignty rather than payment. "What this is really about is the federal government keeping its promises," CAC's Brown told National Wildlife in 1999. After a flurry of negative publicity, CAC was eventually granted its easement in 2000. Given the state of global timber markets, however, the company postponed any work on the road.
Despite the media's attention to timber, CAC continued to focus primarily on its post-bankruptcy enterprises, particularly government service contracts. Michael Brown left his post in 1999 and was ultimately replaced by Barney Uhart, who continued his predecessor's business plan. In 1999, another of CAC's government services-oriented subsidiaries, Chugach Management Services (CMS), won a base maintenance contract at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, worth $170 million. That same year, CMS moved even further from its home territory when it was awarded a $500 million contract to manage base facilities at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.
Success in the 21st Century
CAC won its most significant government services contract in 2002, when it teamed with Lockheed Martin and Bechtel to provide support services for the missile-testing site on the island of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. The total procurement for the three companies was worth over $2 billion and allowed CAC to hire 1,200 new employees.
In the late 1990s, the company continued to diversify its operations. Through its subsidiary Chugach Telecommunications & Computers, Inc. (CT&C), CAC won a contract to operate a worldwide seismic network used to enforce the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. CT&C also validated software for the Navy's Tomahawk missile program and tracked space debris for the Naval Space Command. Another subsidiary, Chugach Support Services, ran Job Corps facilities in Alaska, San Francisco, and Roswell, New Mexico. CAC's Ship Escort Response Vessel System escorted oil tankers into and out of Prince William Sound. In 2002, CAC bought the Fairbanks, Alaska-based McKinley General Contractors, which it converted into a new subsidiary, Chugach McKinley Corporation. In 2003, Chugach McKinley won a five-month contract to take over construction operations at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
CAC's success was apparent in the early years of the new century. In 2000, the company paid out a dividend to its shareholders for the first time in 11 years and increased the dividend payment annually thereafter. Revenues for 2002 topped $355 million, a jump of 28 percent from the previous year. The company's future looked bright. "There are a lot new things on the horizon," Uhart told the Alaska Journal of Commerce in 2003. "Actually business couldn't be better. There's really not a lot to complain about."
Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC) is one of the most successful of the 12 Alaska Native Regional Corporations that were formed in 1971 as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The company, whose shareholders are 2,000 Native Alaskans of the Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian peoples, controls about 900,000 acres of mostly coastal land in the Chugach region of Alaska (south-central Alaska and Prince William Sound). Since emerging from bankruptcy in 1991, CAC has followed a new corporate plan. Rather than focus exclusively on developing its rich natural resources of timber and fisheries, the company has become a leading provider of government services contracts, ranging from managing U.S. military bases to employment services to telecommunications. Through its six subsidiaries and numerous joint ventures, CAC now oversees 51 such projects in 21 states and six foreign countries.
A current listing of Chugach Alaska Corporation's officers and directors, as well as documents filed with the State of Alaska since CAC's incorporation, are available online through the Corporations Database of the Division of Corporations, Business & Professional Licensing, Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development.
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1971
Employees: 5,000
Sales: $354 million (2002)
NAIC: 561210 Government Base Facilities Operation Support Services; 611710 Educational Support Services; 236220 Construction Management, Commercial and Institutional Building; 561310 Employment Placement Services
Key Dates:
1971: Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act creates Chugach Alaska Corporation (CAC).
1982: Congress passes the Chugach Natives Inc. Settlement Agreement.
1989: Exxon Valdez spill threatens CAC's operations.
1991: CAC enters Chapter 11.
1994: CAC secures its first base operation services contract.
1996: Partially CAC-owned venture, Kansas Telecom, wins Alyeska Pipeline contract.
2000: CAC obtains easement to access timber stands in Carbon Mountain tract.
2002: CAC is awarded support services contract for Kwajalein missile testing site.
The Chugach region encompasses about 10 million acres (40,000 km²) in Prince William Sound and coastal areas of southcentral Alaska, including the southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. Chugach Alaska Corporation's land entitlement under ANCSA includes about 378,000 acres (1,530 km²) of both surface and subsurface estate and a further 550,000 acres (2,200 km²) of subsurface estate, for a total of 928,000 acres (3,760 km²). As of 2006, CAC has received about 94% of its total entitlement.
Address:
560 East 34th Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
U.S.A.