ANCSA CEOs Quarterly Meeting at Doyon LTD

The ANCSA CEOs group had their most recent quarterly meeting in Fairbanks on June 18th.   George Cannelos and I had the opportunity to update the group on the activities here at the Denali Commission.

George mentioned a statement that Matthew Nicolai of Calista once said to him.   In essence the work that the Denali Commission does in building infrastructure allows us to focus on creating economic opportunities for the residents within our regions.

We had a great meeting with the CEOs and would like to sit down with each region in the near future to determine what their priorities are to determine how we can recalibrate and align our efforts at enhancing rural Alaska.

Advisory Committee Meeting

Advisory Committee Members met on June 10th, 2008 at the offices of Bristol Bay Native Corporation.

The committee reviewed the current Denali Commission policies and provided comment on how these policies apply to the Economic Development program.   The comments are being forwarded to the Denali Commission Commissioner 's for review.

Letters of Interest update

The original 68 LOIs were previously reduced to 17 projects that fit within the criteria set by the committee review process.   The 17 projects were then asked to supply more information at the level of a Request for Proposal.   16 of the project proposals met the deadline for submitting more information.   They will receive a final review at out next meeting set for July 8th in Nome, Alaska.