nton “Tony” Johansen says it’s a good thing he’s a little gullible. There’s a long tradition at Associated General Contractors (AGC) of Alaska of keeping the recipient of each year’s Hard Hat award secret until the moment the recipient is announced at the Saturday evening Dinner Dance that caps each AGC Annual Convention.

Great Northwest Inc., the company Johansen jointly owns and where he works as vice president, frequently has a table at the AGC Dinner Dance. But this year, someone had the idea that the company should purchase a second table and invite college students to attend the festivities.

“That was all a ruse; there were no college students,” Johansen says.

And coincidentally, Johansen’s brother and two of his daughters, along with their significant others, also planned to attend the Dinner Dance this year.

“They all had plausible stories as to why they were going to be there,” Johansen says.

Alaska is, after all, a big village, and the construction industry is a smaller community within it. One person’s spouse works in the Brice family of companies; another works at Siemens—there were good reasons for a few more family members to be at the celebration than usual, and when the table set aside for college students suddenly opened up, Johansen says it seemed like a natural idea to move the family members to the Great Northwest tables.

So it was that they were all on hand to give Johansen a standing ovation—along with the rest of the audience at the Dinner Dance—when he was chosen as AGC of Alaska’s 2025 Hard Hat recipient.

In making the announcement, Robby Capps, a Hard Hat recipient himself, noted that Johansen, who grew up in Valdez and Fairbanks, had placed a priority on education both in his own life—having graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from University of Alaska—and in the lives of those around him.

After working in the Alaska Department of Highways’ Engineer in Training program, Johansen returned to school and obtained a master’s degree in civil engineering with an emphasis in construction management from Stanford University. Johansen returned to Fairbanks and worked as a project manager for H & H Contractors, then served under then-Governor Tony Knowles’ administration as the Department of Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF) Northern Region director. After five years in that role, Johansen returned to the private sector with Great Northwest, Inc., where he’s been since 2000.

“Tony understands the value of early entry into the construction industry as a career path, with his longtime position as trustee on the Operating Engineers Training Trust and past role as trustee for the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center. He strongly supports the hiring and development of UAF engineering graduates in their business,” Capps said.

Johansen says three of Great Northwest’s professional engineers schooled at UAF. The company frequently employed graduates of UAA’s construction management program and graduates of the UAF Community and Technical College (formerly Northwest Community College), which offers an associate’s degree in construction management.

Johansen says AGC’s focus on educating the next generation has kept him involved in the organization. Last year AGC of Alaska donated $200,000 to help establish a new endowment to enhance training for and increase enrollment in construction programs at UA, a move Johansen advocated for.

“That helps every contractor, actions like that,” Johansen says. “We see a lot of value for Great Northwest coming from Associated General Contractors.”

Johansen says education isn’t the only reason he appreciates AGC and wants to stay involved. AGC’s lobbying efforts, from advocating for more transportation funding to stepping in when a statute or regulation change makes doing business difficult, has been indispensable to the company.

“We work with AGC and its lobbyist to solve those problems,” Johansen says.

Capps noted that Johansen plays an active role in those lobbying efforts.

“Tony has attended several annual AGC legislative fly-in events and has participated in several AGC of America conferences. Tony’s voice is strong and his messaging clear when advocating for education, specifically STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] and the importance of these skills to the construction industry,” Capps said.

“Tony presents a loud and well-respected voice, based on his DOT and contractor knowledge, when participating in the AGC of Alaska DOT Committee. Additionally, Tony was appointed in 2016 to serve on the Governor’s Statewide Highway Advisory Committee where he had the opportunity to advise the governor regarding issues of design, construction, maintenance, and operation of our state highway system,” he added.

Being involved in AGC, much like being involved in the construction industry, Johansen is walking in his father’s footsteps.

Woodrow Johansen, for whom the Johansen Expressway in Fairbanks is named, was an engineer for the Territory of Alaska Road Commission, then district engineer for the Interior District, carrying the title while the department shifted from federal control to state control when Alaska became a state. He eventually became Northern Region director, a job he held until 1980. Woodrow became a Hard Hat in 1979.

Tony Johansen says he attended his first national AGC conference in 1983. He served as AGC of Alaska Board President in 2012 and is both an AGC Life Director and an Emeritus Life Director. And now, thirteen years after serving as president, he holds AGC’s highest honor, the Hard Hat. It may look like a natural progression, but Johansen says it came as a complete surprise.

“It was very humbling to have all those people decide that I should get this award. I feel very honored,” he says.