My Farewell to the AVEC Family

Thirty-three years ago, I came to Alaska looking for adventure and a job. When I was hired at AVEC I found both. Back then, without a permanent address and using pay phones to check my voice mail box, I was unsuccessful
in selling my four years of experience as an engineer to consulting firms in Anchorage. After a month in town, I ran into some college students who were going to spend their summer traveling around Alaska working for an electric utility. I applied and was hired for the summer as a general laborer, an AVEC “thousand-hour” employee. I needed the money and figured I could do anything for six months, then find a real job. That summer I worked in Toksook Bay, Tununak, Savoonga, Gambell and
Wales; moving fuel tanks and transformers with bottle jacks and come-a longs, building living shelters out of connex vans and trying to apply paint in the never less than moist breezes coming off the bearing sea. A tiny cog in the machine that provided electricity to thousands of people in rural Alaska. The people I met and the places I went taught this small-town boy from a frugal family on the east coast what it really meant to be from a small town and how to make do. The ethos of improving lives by working together using ingenuity and the resources at hand not only got under my skin it fed my soul. I stuck around. I was given other opportunities. The communities and coworkers welcomed me into the AVEC family. Working for AVEC allowed me to have my own family. I got married;
we bought land, built a house and raised two children, all of which continue to return rewards for which I will be eternally grateful. I am a project-based person that likes to fix things. At AVEC there are always projects to build and things to fix. The people I’ve worked with, coworkers, community members, financial contributors, and contractors have made the work enjoyable and successful. After three decades I am stepping away from my “thousand-hour” job. I am grateful for the opportunities and education I have been provided at AVEC. I am proud of the progress made and humbled by the faith which our communities and contributors put in AVEC (and me) to get the job done. I am envious of those that will continue to render the progress and reap its rewards. I will miss the projects, the challenges, and especially the people that have made my career so rewarding. Thank you, AVEC family.

Published September 2026