Cream of the Crop

AGC Members rise to the top in Best of Alaska Business awards

By Vanessa Orr

inning a judged category for construction excellence is feedback that lets companies know their hard work designing, engineering, and building a project is paying off. Being voted as “best” in a category that relies on customers and clients to write in your name as the top in a particular field lets companies know their community outreach, commitment to customer satisfaction, and marketing efforts are on the right track.

AGC members made an impressive showing in the 2026 Best of Alaska Business Awards, published by Alaska Business magazine. Each year, the magazine asks readers to share their opinions about who excels across an array of categories, from best shipping company to best food truck. In each category, the top three winners are awarded the Denali, St. Elias, and Foraker awards in order of votes received.

AGC members swept the Engineering category: Coffman Engineers won the Denali, RSA Engineering Inc. took home the St. Elias, and CRW Engineering Group received the Foraker award. AGC members also dominated the Cargo/Logistics category, with Span Alaska, Lynden, and Carlile Transportation winning the Denali, St. Elias, and Foraker awards respectively. AGC members also made an impressive showing in twelve other categories.

“Winning in the Best of Alaska Business awards is important recognition, and it’s especially meaningful because it shows the support we get from our employees,” says Ben Momblow, vice president, managing principal, Coffman Engineers. “We want to thank everyone who voted for us, and those who put their energy and investment in us—it’s what makes this a great place to work.”

After winning the St. Elias award in the 2025 Best of Alaska Business survey, Coffman Engineers spread the word in 2026, netting the firm the top award in the Engineering category.

Coffman Engineers

Coffman Engineers employees take ownership of creating a fun, healthy work culture, says Ben Momblow, vice president and managing principal.

Coffman Engineers

Coffman Engineers stepped up to the Denali award after having won the St. Elias award last year. Momblow credits its continuing success to an “everyone culture” that creates an environment where each person can thrive and contribute to client success.

“Leadership and the management structure tries to support a healthy culture for employees, but ultimately it’s the employees that make this place so great,” Momblow says. “They take ownership of creating a super healthy, fun culture.

“’Work hard, play hard’ is a little cliché, but it’s also true,” he adds, noting that employees are excited to come to work because of the people they work with. “While our employees show a high level of respect for each other and a high degree of professionalism, they also know if they work hard and put energy into the office space, it’s more fun for everybody. And when you spend a lot of your time at work, you need to have fun, too.”

According to Momblow, its mission is measured by its clients’ success. “Everything we do day-to-day is guided by our mission/vision/value statement, which, boiled down, focuses on client success and doing the right thing,” he explains.

During its forty-seven years in Alaska, the company has worked on a range of projects for the military, oil and gas, and commercial sectors, among other clients.

“The first big project I worked on was Concourse C, at Ted Stevens [Anchorage] International Airport in the late 1990s; we did the structural design, which was a flagship project for us,” says Momblow. “More recently, we’ve been supporting military projects at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson (JBER), Fort Wainwright, and Eielson Air Force Base. We’ve also been working with oil and gas developers on projects on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet.”

According to Momblow, the company relied mainly on word-of-mouth to promote its inclusion in the BOAB list, announcing at a staff meeting that voting was open and sending out an email as a reminder. He added that this recognition helps with recruitment, leading to even more satisfied employees.

For RSA Engineering Inc., which earned the St. Elias Award in the same category, the win came as a big surprise.

“This was our first-time win, and we didn’t do outreach, advocating, or advertising for the award,” says Marketing Director Lisa Anglen. “Reflecting on it, we believe that we won because we’ve built a reputation of long-term responsiveness and technically competent work over the last forty years in business. Our clients and colleagues, and the businesses that we’ve worked for, recognized our contributions to the industry, and we want to thank them for voting for us and believing in us.”

As an employee-owned engineering firm, Anglen says RSA employees have a vested interest and direct stake in the company’s performance and reputation. “Our staff recognizes that every project is a representation of themselves and RSA, and is also, in a sense, business development for the next opportunity to come along,” she explains.

For this reason, RSA principals and management stay involved throughout the life of each project, either visibly present or in the background. “We have an open-door policy if there are any questions or concerns related to a project,” says Anglen. “We also have senior engineers providing oversight and quality control.”

Staff members share lessons learned and also collaborate on new approaches, design standards, and client care. Biweekly staff meetings enable employees to review ongoing projects, air questions and concerns, and request support when needed.

“Our staff is very teamwork-focused; if we need to transition staff to a project that needs more time and attention, our culture promotes being ready to jump in and help out wherever needed,” says Anglen.

She adds that RSA recently went through a novel strategic-planning effort that involved all of its staff members to some extent. “Being employee-owned, all of our staff members in some form have the ability to form how we operate,” she says.

While RSA works in all regions of Alaska, it is best known for its experience leading rural Alaska projects.

“Our staff members are very nimble and willing to travel to any location in Alaska,” Anglen says. “They are willing to jump on small planes, work in any weather, and go to unfamiliar locations. They understand that durability and long-term maintenance are extremely important and they are very energy conscious, understanding the high price of energy or a lack of access to energy in some locations.”

During its four decades in business, RSA has built a reputation working with building owners, municipalities, private industries, and architectural firms on projects including airports, schools, seafood processing facilities, ports, harbors, commercial facilities, and more. The company is currently focused on a number of industrial projects, including the Port of Anchorage.

According to Anglen, receiving votes from the business community when everyone is so busy is especially meaningful. “Recognition is one of the last things that happens,” she says. “It’s hard to stop and pause and find the time to say congratulations to each other.

“One of the biggest things this award does is provide validation for our staff members,” she adds, noting that the company is much smaller than a number of its competitors. “We work so hard day in and day out, focused on client care and project delivery, that we often don’t look around and think about what we’ve done. This award is just as important for internal validation, telling us that we’re doing the right things, making the right choices, and taking the right approaches.”