The Importance of Giving Your Employees CRAP by Rindi White

Let Your Voice Be Heard Nationally by Rindi White

Teaming Up by Matt Nevala

F. Robert Bell & Associates by Nancy Erickson

Environmental Management, Inc. by Kevin Klott

Propel Insurance by David James

Strategy for Safety by Rachael Kvapil

President’s Message by Gary Klebs

Executive Director’s Message by Alicia Siira

New Members

Calendar of Events

CLC Grill & Chill

AGC Sporting Clays Shoot

HB160 Is Signed

AGC Anchorage Golf Tournament

Human Resources Update by Stephanie Haydn

Safety Report by Chris Ross, CSP, CPLP

AGC Fairbanks Golf Tournament

In Memoriam

Financial Services & Contractors by Lori McCaffrey

Occupational Health by Kristen Connors

Contractors & the Law by Eric P. Forner & Alix K. Town

Member News

Advertisers Index

Jenith Ziegler
ChemTrack Alaska Inc.

David Haynes
First National Bank Alaska

Pearl-Grace Pantaleone
Cornerstone General Contractors

Gary Klebs
KLEBS Mechanical

Aspen Knight
Coldfoot Environmental Services, Inc.

Alicia Siira
Associated General Contractors of Alaska

Christine A. White
R&M Consultants Inc.

Rindi White
Editor

Monica Sterchi-Lowman
Art Director

Linda Shogren
Art Production

James K Brown
Graphic Designer

BUSINESS STAFF
Charles Bell
VP Sales & Marketing
257-2909 cbell@akbizmag.com

Janis J. Plume
Senior Account Manager
257-2917 janis@akbizmag.com

Christine Merki
Advertising Account Manager
257-2911 cmerki@akbizmag.com

The Alaska Contractor is published by Alaska Business Publishing Co. Inc. for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska. Contents of the magazine are not necessarily endorsed by AGC of Alaska or Alaska Business Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Copyright 2020 by the Associated General Contractors of Alaska. For information about articles in this edition or for permission to reproduce any portion of it, contact Alaska Business Publishing Co.

t’s been a hell of a year. Through it all, the staff, board, and committees at Associated General Contractors of Alaska, or AGC, have been relentless advocates for an industry that continues to lay the foundation for an even sturdier Alaska economy.

When the pandemic hit, AGC immediately began lobbying congress, state, and local leaders to categorize construction as an essential service to keep our members working. They created a COVID-19 specific website within the AGC homepage where we housed industry-specific documents and templates for our members, including up-to-date state, federal, and local mandates, as well as safety and travel templates for essential businesses and information on financial relief packages.

hether it was at the office, a company event, or simply out in the community, it has been so refreshing to see our members’ smiling faces again. I have never felt more connected to our industry or its fantastic participants.

It’s no secret that, like much of the world, the construction industry finds itself wrestling with supply-chain disruptions causing material shortages that have resulted in record costs and problematic delays.

“Some of these incidents had only tangential or indirect effects on construction supplies,” writes the Associated General Contractors of America’s Chief Economist, Ken Simonson. “But collectively, they demonstrate the interconnectedness and the fragility of a global supply web on which even purely domestic industries, such as US construction, depend.” Nationwide, prices for lumber and certain steel products have tripled, Simonson adds, and lead times have become completely “unpredictable.”

he 2021 pre-construction season started out normally for Chris Reilly, project manager and vice president of Rain Proof Roofing. After surviving an unpredictable pandemic year filled with health mandates, manufacturer closures, and unusual weather patterns, he and his staff began the usual process of ordering materials in the winter so they would arrive at the start of construction season in spring.

Reilly had already noticed a price fluctuation in several categories of raw materials. However, it wasn’t until May when the real surprise hit—several suppliers told him it might take up to three months to fill his orders.

eff Kortes knows the construction industry. During his twenty-five years in human resources, he worked in a variety of industries including construction, providing HR duties for companies large and small.

“We built cooling towers for refineries and power plants for organizations all over the Lower 48,” he says.

He’s also a US Army veteran. He says the basis for employee retention is the same wherever the job is: you retain quality employees by showing them Caring, Respect, Appreciation, and Praise, or CRAP. That’s the funny acronym Kortes uses to help companies shift their focus to a people-first mentality.

ike is our visionary,” says Heath Martin, co-owner of KLEBS Mechanical, Alaska’s largest full-service residential and commercial plumbing, sheet metal, and mechanical services contractor.

In 2018, Mike Klebs joined forces with Martin to buy KLEBS Mechanical from his father, Gary Klebs, who started the company in 1986 as a commercial sheet-metal contractor. Since then, it has been Mike Klebs’ vision that has kept KLEBS Mechanical steady through the Alaska economy’s ups and downs.

nchorage is running out of space for its trash. The city’s existing central transfer station, or CTS, started life as a garbage shredder and was never meant to serve as a waste transfer station. Meanwhile, the municipality’s 275-acre regional landfill is steadily filling—and once it does, there’s no place for a new landfill site.

That’s why Anchorage Solid Waste Services, or SWS, is working on several projects that will extend the life of the regional landfill by twenty years or more and provide recycling and waste diversion options that will save Anchorage residents money in the long-term.

“It behooves us to take care of the landfill we have because once it’s gone, solid waste costs will increase,” says Mark Spafford, SWS general manager.

ssociated General Contractors of Alaska is proud of its partnership with Governor Mike Dunleavy and Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities to pass HB160, which codifies the Construction Manager/General Contractor procurement method as another tool in the DOT&PF toolbox. We look forward to further collaboration with DOT&PF as best practices and standards are implemented for this method so it will benefit our state and contracting community.

AGC of Alaska would like to extend a thank you to the many AGC members who testified and wrote letters of support on this bill, especially Executive Board Vice President Sarah Lefebvre, as well as our partners at DOT&PF and Rep. Grier Hopkins (Fairbanks) and Sen. Robert Myers (North Pole) for pushing it across the finish line before the end of session.

There are good ideas. And then there are multi-million-dollar ideas. PND Engineers, Inc.’s patented OPEN CELL SHEET PILE system, or OCSP, is an example of the latter.

The company has designed more than 200 projects valued at more than half a billion dollars since company co-founder Dennis Nottingham came up with the design and tested it on a pair of temporary bridge abutments built on the North Slope for Atlantic Richfield Company in 1980.

PND President Jim Campbell says contractors like Construction and Rigging, Inc. (now West International Group) and Swalling General Contractors, LLC deserve a lot of credit for agreeing to build the first projects using the OCSP system.

hen it comes to providing the best service for its clients, the secret to success for Environmental Management, Inc., or EMI, can be summed up in two words: flexibility and adaptability.

“We don’t believe in cookie-cutter solutions,” says EMI co-owner Shayla Marshall. “We strive to find creative solutions to meet our client’s needs.”

Environmental Management, Inc. is an Anchorage-based company that has specialized in environmental consulting, engineering, and training services since 1988. While the bulk of EMI’s projects are located in Alaska, Marshall says it also provides professional services across the United States and internationally.

an you spare six to eight hours over the course of a year? If pressed, most people could probably find a way to free up that small amount of time, particularly if it meant including unique-to-Alaska input into policy decisions on a national stage.

Tom Krider is a lawyer at Seattle-based firm Oles, Morrison Rinker Baker, LLP, which has been an Associated General Contractors of Alaska member since 1991 and operates an Anchorage office. Krider says he has spent the better part of the twenty-three years he has worked at Oles handling cases for Alaska clients.

Krider has for the past several years served on the Associated General Contractors’ ConsensusDocs Drafting Council. ConsensusDocs is a contract document platform overseen by a coalition of twenty organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. The goal of the group is to help industry members develop contracts that protect the best interests of the project.

hank you to all the golfers, sponsors, companies, and individuals who donated door prizes—and to our volunteers who made this year’s tournament a success.

ometimes, small changes can significantly increase highway safety. In October 2020, Great Northwest, Inc. completed a project that addressed a four-mile hotspot along the Richardson Highway. A corridor study first identified Milepost 353-357 as fast-growing and problematic in 1983.

Since 1993, the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, or DOT&PF, has worked to address access control along the Richardson Highway between Smithson Street and the Old Richardson Highway. After many years of project development, public involvement, and right-of-way acquisitions, this stretch of road has been modified to reduce potential vehicle conflict.

ia Carson may be indecisive about her playing status early next year when it’s time for the 2022 Contractors and Camo three-on-three hockey tournament.

“I’m on the [tournament] board, so I guess I’ll be involved in some way,” Carson says jokingly. “I hope to bring some creativity, help with visuals and on social media.”

Whether or not she gears up for the charitable event hosted in Anchorage by the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, Challenge Alaska, and the Alaska Warriors program, one thing is clear for Carson and dozens of other Alaska-based military veterans like her: Skating with the Warriors and supporting one another on and off the ice is worthy of a million Facebook likes and Twitter retweets.

ny building project is complex on multiple levels. But for contractors conducting large scale operations—especially those working in Alaska’s remote locations under extreme climate conditions—countless details must be attended to.

One of the most important is insurance. Finding the right carrier can be a major job in itself, as the purchased coverage needs to include not just the many potential liability exposures that contractors know they face but even ones they might not have considered.

This is where Propel Insurance comes in. Propel offers services that can take the burden of choosing the best policy off of the contractor. Propel is an insurance broker specializing in matching clients in construction and other industrial fields with providers best suited to the unique needs of individual projects. They don’t sell policies; they help clients find the best policy at the best price. And according to sales director Brent Heilesen, the company specializes in helping Alaska contractors.

ecently I sat down with Paula Bradison, CEO of Bradison Management Group, or BMG, and Alaska Executive Search, or AES, to discuss her work with contractors in Alaska.

Following a long career in healthcare, Bradison founded BMG. At the time, she focused her expertise on supporting a variety of industries, working with organizations to develop lean processes and enhance operational efficiencies. She purchased AES, a forty-year legacy Alaska firm, in 2016. Both organizations have a history of championing Alaska businesses.

As a fourth-generation Alaskan, Bradison knows what it takes to live and thrive in Alaska. After five years of leading both organizations, and following the challenges brought on by the pandemic, Bradison decided it was time to employ the methods she uses to support her clients and develop her own team.

ccording to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2002, the overall accident rate for the construction industry in Alaska exceeded the national average. This accident rate was deemed unacceptably high by the Alaska Department of Labor, Alaska Occupational Safety and Health, or AKOSH. The Construction Health and Safety Excellence Program, or CHASE, was developed to address this issue.

I sat in on a recent presentation on the CHASE program, delivered to the local chapter of the American Society of Safety Professionals and then had the opportunity to interview Donald “Donnie” Farwell, the CHASE program director for AKOSH, about the current CHASE program in Alaska.

educing energy costs is a major consideration for many businesses and government entities because lower energy costs translate into improved profitability and cash flow, and investments in sustainability can add significant value to assets.

In fact, studies show that sustainable technologies such as infrastructure control systems, building envelopes, and solar power can reduce utility bills by 50 percent or more. In some cases, sustainable construction isn’t even an option—it’s a mandate.

However, the initial investment required for sustainability projects is often a deal-breaker. Often, businesses that are interested in energy efficient upgrades, retrofits, or projects are unsure how to pay for it.

t has been more than a year and a half since the World Health Organization, or WHO, declared the COVID-19 outbreak an international public health emergency. As outbreaks continue to ebb and flow, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, along with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, and the US Department of Transportation, or DOT, continue to evaluate best practices and issue guidance for employers aiming to keep our employees and workplaces safe as we chart a course to get back to business.

One of the most foundational points for employers looking to push through pandemic challenges and reduce risk of exposure to their team is a continued layer of control with basic infection prevention measures.

These have proven to be cost-effective solutions and can mean the difference between smooth operations and production delay:

• Continue to use transparent shields or solid barriers to separate workers from other people where social distancing cannot apply to fixed workstations, such as reception areas and cash registers.
• Use masks and face coverings in indoor environments with high traffic and areas where several people occupy the same space.
• Ensure employees and job sites are well-stocked with hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies.
• Continue to respect social-distancing guidelines.
• Increase ventilation where possible.

With students back in school and the onset of the annual cold and flu season, these measures are equally effective at preventing the spread of the more innocuous illnesses that can also cause lost time for businesses.

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill has been approved by the US Senate and is headed to the House of Representatives to be voted on this fall.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is focused on investment in new and existing roads, utilities, and broadband internet throughout the country. The bill was sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators—including Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican—and includes a significant amount of money earmarked for Alaska across a wide variety of project categories. Examples of the funding specifically earmarked for Alaska projects are provided in the frame at right. For a more exhaustive list, read the bill at https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684.

Associated General Contractors of Alaska would like to welcome Fairbanks Branch Manager Emily Braniff, who joined the AGC crew this summer. Braniff was born and raised in Fairbanks. She says her father moved to Alaska in 1959 as a young man in the US Air Force. He met her mother in Dawson City in 1974 and the two have since been inseparable. Like many Alaska students, Braniff left Alaska to attend college, but she returned home to be nearer her family. In Alaska, she earned a Certified Municipal Clerk certification while working as Deputy City Clerk II for the City of Fairbanks. Braniff has a son who recently graduated high school and is working with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Braniff says she has a hearty respect for the construction industry, is proud to be a part of building Alaska, and is proud her son is working in the industry too. When she’s not working, she loves to garden and spend time with her dog and her family. Braniff says the 42nd Annual AGC of Fairbanks Golf Tournament was a wonderful jump-right-in kind of event for her.