Anchorage firm gets $77,900 more work at the Phoenix building it maintains

The company that keeps the gates working and the fire panels wired at a federal building in downtown Phoenix is owned by Yup'ik and Athabascan shareholders from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Tunista Logistics Solutions, an Anchorage firm, took over operations and maintenance at the Phoenix Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in February under a contract worth up to $6.2 million. This month it picked up two more jobs at the same building — replacing a barrier arm gate and repairing a fire panel — worth about $77,900 together.

Tunista belongs to Yulista Holding, which is wholly owned by Calista Corporation. Calista is the regional corporation for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a roadless stretch of Western Alaska where villages are reached by plane or river and heating fuel arrives by barge. Money earned in places like Phoenix is money that comes back to those shareholders.

The work came through 8(a), the federal program that steers certain contracts to disadvantaged small businesses without competition. Congress opened it to Alaska Native corporations and tribes in 1986. It works differently for them than for other participants, on the reasoning that an ANC's profits serve thousands of shareholders rather than a single owner. Both August orders were placed as tasks under the February contract, which is why federal records show no bidders and no set-aside on either.

That arrangement is now under scrutiny. In December, Sen. Joni Ernst asked 22 federal agencies to pause 8(a) sole-source contracting and review awards back to 2020, naming Calista among the corporations she cited as examples of problems in the program. Calista rejected the characterization, saying the senator had misread how contracting rules apply to Native corporation subsidiaries.

The Small Business Administration has not approved a new 8(a) applicant since August 2025, and awards to Native-owned firms fell about 26 percent through April against the same period a year earlier.