Federal contracting in Alaska: Mendenhall Glacier visitor center plan gets more design money in federal contracts

The U.S. Forest Service added $28,772 this week to an Anchorage firm's design work on a master plan for the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, bringing the federal government's commitments on that work to more than $3.2 million.

It was the largest of 10 federal contract actions involving Alaska companies recorded Nov. 2 to 4. Most of the rest were small, routine purchases, but they show the range of work Alaska firms do for federal agencies, from wildfire planes to office paper to a desk job in Virginia.

The Forest Service hired ECI, Inc. for the visitor center work in September 2023. The order is tied to the Great American Outdoors Act, the 2020 law that pays for maintenance backlogs on public lands, and runs through March 2027. The newest money is for master plan design, according to the federal record.

The Interior Department paid two Anchorage aviation shops to keep planes flying. Alaska Aircraft Sales got $17,638 for maintenance on an aircraft in the U.S. Wildland Fire Service's government-owned fleet in Alaska. Dominion Propeller got $15,000 for propeller maintenance on fixed-wing planes. Both orders came under standing agreements for repeat work.

The Coast Guard hired Sholl's Security Solutions of Kodiak for $8,576 in locksmith work at the Base Ketchikan armory through the end of November.

An Anchorage company, PACARCTIC, holds State Department orders for an administrative assistant in Arlington, Virginia. This week the department trimmed about $3,000 in leftover money from two of those orders, which together total about $223,000 over two years.

And the General Services Administration placed three small orders with ASCI Federal Services, the Anchorage warehouse that stocks federal offices around the state: about $1,960 in copy paper, $232 in toilet paper and $44 in writing pads.