Afognak Native Corporation names Alutiiq LLC executive Autumn Sellars interim CEO

Afognak Native Corporation has named Autumn Sellars, an executive at its federal contracting subsidiary, as its interim chief executive, effective Thursday.

The corporation's announcement Friday doesn't mention her predecessor or say why the change was made. In September, Dan Corbett was Afognak's chief executive when the corporation bought a majority stake in Weaver Bros., the Alaska trucking company. As of Saturday, Afognak's leadership page listed Sellars as interim CEO and didn't list Corbett.

The announcement also doesn't say whether the board plans to search for a permanent chief executive.

Sellars joined Alutiiq LLC, Afognak's government contracting subsidiary, in 2017, when Alutiiq bought her company, Alcyon Inc. She was most recently Alutiiq's operations and compliance executive, and has also worked as a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin.

Afognak is the village corporation for more than a thousand Alutiiq shareholders descended from the village of Afognak, which the 1964 earthquake and tsunami destroyed. Survivors built Port Lions. The corporation formed in 1977 from the merger of two village corporations and holds 248,000 acres in the Kodiak Archipelago.

Most of its business has been federal contracting through Alutiiq. The Weaver Bros. deal expanded its commercial work in Alaska: its subsidiary Afognak Commercial Group bought a majority of the company, which has hauled freight around the state since 1946, along with Doyle's Fuel Service and Doyle Transport.

"We're investing in a proven Alaska business, not changing it," Corbett said at the time.