All-Season Support

Fairweather LLC provides a range of services to help clients succeed

By David A. James

hen embarking on industrial jobs in remote regions of Alaska, companies face a multitude of challenges: preplanning, engineering, logistics, operations, aviation safety, medical care, and weather forecasting, for example. That’s where Fairweather LLC comes in, with its large staff of professionals to supply expertise.

“It depends on what the client needs,” Fairweather President and General Manager Rick Fox says, summarizing the company’s range of services.

For nearly half a century, Fairweather has been handling details that allow businesses to bring their visions to fruition.

“We fill in all the gaps where they need help,” Fox explains. “We’re supporting our clients to reach their goals.”

Founded in 1976 by Sherron Peary, a friend of Fox’s since high school, the company began by providing aviation-related weather forecasting at remote drilling locations. From there, Fairweather quickly expanded into other arenas, including runway certifications, coordinating materials deliveries, engineering, and—crucially—supplying rigs and other worksites with trained medical professionals able to provide routine and emergency care in places where clinics and hospitals might be hours away.

During Fairweather’s early years—before he was involved in the company—Fox worked for oil major Shell on offshore exploration projects in the Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi seas and often found himself interacting with Fairweather employees. “They had weathermen and medics on the rigs with us,” he recalls.

During the ‘90s, Fox relocated to Louisiana, but when Shell purchased some leases in Alaska in 2005, “they asked me to come back up, open the office, and get started.” Five years later, Fox retired and was asked to join Fairweather. “Eventually I became a half owner of the company.”

Much of Fairweather’s work continues to revolve around drilling, he says. “We typically do operational forecasting, like sea and ice conditions for offshore, and weather for onshore.

“Aviation support is another big piece,” Fox adds, explaining that Fairweather provides “forecasts for planes before they try to approach an airport.”

They do a lot more as well, he continues. “We support the industry in every way. Everything from project management to drilling engineering, completion engineering, logistics, and civil engineering. Most of our teams are set up to do projects or drilling programs.”

Smaller companies that can’t afford the resources to do the services-related jobs themselves comprise a sizable portion of Fairweather’s client base, Fox notes. “This is a big deal and they need a lot of help. We want to get it done right for them.”

One of those companies is Alaska-owned Furie Operating Alaska. “We’ve got people involved with [Furie] in different areas, and we’re glad for their success,” Fox says.

Furie president and CEO John Hendrix values his company’s partnership with Fairweather, calling it “a local company that has survived and thrived since 1976. They have great people with great depth in the sciences and engineering that I would highly recommend. Fairweather is currently managing and supporting our offshore Cook Inlet drilling program. The project is currently on schedule to deliver much needed natural gas for Alaskans in July.”

Fox says his company also maintains relationships with businesses that can address concerns that Fairweather can’t. “Where we don’t have the expertise, we know people that do,” he explains. “Sometimes we end up putting together a program and a lot more of the work is done by others. But we’re supporting our client to reach their goals.”

In Alaska’s famously unpredictable economy, Fox says the key to Fairweather’s longevity has been its ability to quickly adapt to new circumstances. “We look at what work is out there and we figure out how we can adjust our plan to take on what the clients need. We’ve seen times when exploration was very slow and other times when they were stacked on top of each other and we could hardly get all the work done.”

The pandemic brought entirely new and unprecedented challenges as worksites simply shut down. But thanks to its medical staff and experience, Fairweather won a federal contract running vaccination clinics across the state. “We did a lot of things to support our community and keep our people employed during COVID,” Fox says.

Doyon, Limited recently acquired 90 percent of Fairweather, which currently has about 360 employees.

“They’re a great Alaska company to work with, they bring strengths to the table that we didn’t have before,” Fox says of Doyon, adding that the future looks rosy for Fairweather and for Alaska. “It’s a very exciting time. I expect over the next couple of years, we’ll see more and more activity.”