A Goldbelt subsidiary picks up another sole-source federal IT order, worth up to $1.3 million

A subsidiary of Goldbelt, the Alaska Native corporation for Juneau, has won a federal contract to provide computer help-desk and systems support for the immediate office of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation — the department's top office. The work, awarded to CP Marine, runs three years and is worth about $429,000, and could reach roughly $1.3 million if two option years are exercised.

Goldbelt is the urban Alaska Native corporation for the Juneau area, created under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and owned by more than 4,300 Tlingit and Haida shareholders whose families have lived in the region for thousands of years. When one of its subsidiaries lands federal work in Washington or anywhere else, the money ultimately flows back to those shareholders in Southeast Alaska — which is what turns a routine IT contract into local news.

These corporations were built to work that way. Unlike a typical business whose profits go to outside investors, Goldbelt's earnings are meant to stay with its people and its lands — funding shareholder dividends and reinvestment in Southeast Alaska. The corporation has put money into local projects like Juneau's Eaglecrest gondola, and its federal-contracting revenue ripples out across dozens of states before circling home.

Goldbelt began in the 1970s in timber, moved into tourism — it still runs Juneau's Mount Roberts Tramway — and today earns most of its revenue from government contracting, in fields like cybersecurity, IT, logistics and engineering. The Transportation Department order is one piece of that portfolio: CP Marine alone has won more than $65 million in federal awards since 2017.

The order was not competed. It was placed under an existing contract the agency uses to issue individual task orders, and Alaska Native corporation subsidiaries enrolled in a federal small-business program can be awarded certain work without competition — a provision Congress created to steer federal dollars toward Native-owned firms.