Chugach backed USS Ted Stevens commissioning and worked on its cybersecurity

Chugach Alaska Corporation sponsored the USS Ted Stevens Commissioning Committee, which hosted events in Anchorage and Whittier before the Navy commissioned the destroyer on Oct. 3. Its federal services company, Chugach Government Solutions, helped prepare the ship, now in Juneau for a port call.

"As the ship advanced toward commissioning, our people worked to modernize its network backbone, strengthen its cybersecurity, and keep critical systems running reliably," said Chugach CEO Jonathan Dalrymple, a Navy veteran, in a release Wednesday.

Chugach, an Alaska Native corporation formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, represents more than 3,000 shareholders. It calls Stevens, Alaska's senator from 1968 to 2009, a determined advocate of that law. "Senator Stevens believed Alaska Native people should have both ownership and opportunity, and he spent his career working to make that real," board chairman Sheri Buretta said. Sponsors are Stevens' wife, Catherine Stevens, and daughters Susan Stevens Covich and Lily Stevens Becker.

That arm has served Navy shipbuilding, facilities, aviation and information warfare commands for more than 20 years. A September 2024 Defense Department contract notice lists Chugach Solutions Enterprise as holder of a Naval Information Warfare Systems Command support contract with a five-year ordering period and a ceiling of about $98.7 million. Its first delivery order obligated $497,971 in fiscal 2024 Navy operation and maintenance funds.

Katherine Carlton, Chugach's president, told a Commonwealth North panel in Anchorage on May 26 that the corporation turned to government contracting after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill hurt its businesses, growing with help from the federal 8(a) program.

Alaska News covered the ceremony. Capt. Mary Katey Hays commands the ship's roughly 340 sailors. Chugach said it is the first Navy ship commissioned in Alaska since 2013.

Chugach is reviewing its lands near Whittier, including the Shotgun Cove Road corridor and Prince William Sound granite. "Whittier has been a crossroads for our people for thousands of years, and it still is," Carlton said.

A Juneau Assembly proclamation on Sept. 14 set the port call for Oct. 7 to 10. The destroyer then heads to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.