05.21.26 RDC Breakfast Forum: Huna Totem Corporation

Thank you, Joe. I'm sure Paulette would be pleased to know that her words were spoken this morning. And it was really fun as we had a little chance to network and visit, catch up this morning. There's a lot of people, as I've lived and worked around the state, I've had a chance to interact with many of you. Caitlin and Tor, they introduced themselves in the roundtable.

We may bring them into our Q&A. And if you If you didn't get a chance to meet them, I encourage you. They both are growing our South Central operations, which I will wrap up with in a minute. I'm going to make a few introductory remarks, ask Mike Torres to talk a little bit about Hoonah Tech, and then I will wrap up with some highlights on some of our tourism operations. So with that, I've been— I'm really pleased, as I talk about Hoonah Totem, and as Joe described, have had a long relationship with the organization.

To see the growth. I've worked with— I am from Nome. I am a Sitnasok and Bering Strait shareholder. Two organizations that I've worked with throughout my career have really pushed me and challenged me as we've thought about growth opportunities, shareholder hired, visibility in the community. One of them was many years ago when I worked with Goldbelt.

And then similarly in this role with Hoonah Totem. Many of you know, working for or with Native corporations, it's different than other roles. And I just want to begin my remarks talking about our three pillars in terms of leading with culture, community, and business excellence. As we share our brief remarks this morning, and if there's time for Q&A, it's something that we remind ourselves about, we work at, we strive to excel in all of these areas. And there's always work to be done as we go forward.

So again, just that unique combination combination of working for a for-profit corporation and keeping those, you know, keeping these other pillars in mind.

Hoonah Tohtem has been growing rapidly, and as many Native corporations have experienced, it's, you know, there have been times of challenge, there's been times of a lot of self-reflection, and there's been times of reaping the benefits of all of that work. And we just held our shareholder information meetings this last week in Anchorage. And in Hoonah. And we're reminded at that time of who we work for, what we're doing this for. And it was just really, um, the mics appear all week as we, as we do those meetings, this presentation, and some Memorial Day activities coming up this weekend.

And, you know, in this, in this audience, there's no question that, you know, we can't do the things that we want to do for our shareholders in terms of scholarships and leadership development opportunities and, and some of those other investment or without business success. So again, we're investing investing in businesses, want to succeed in the business community. And it is something that our board and our shareholders remind us all the time, that we're working on behalf of the Hoonah K'awu people, the people with ancestral ties from Glacier Bay and Hoonah, not only today, but for the future.

As I said, I'm going to make a few brief remarks and hand the podium to Mike and then come back. But I just want to share a few numbers. Last year at our annual meeting in June, our shareholders adopted descendant enrollment, and that was a huge— that was a huge milestone for the organization as we think about the next 50 years and beyond. Many of our shareholders, many of our shareholders had gifted or inherited shares from their ancestors, but as that— as descendant enrollment was adopted, all lineal descendants of original shareholders were eligible for another 100 for 100 life estate shares. Again, as somebody who's lived and worked around Native corporations, I think that's so critical, thinking about how we have to engage and involve our younger people so that they can hold, they can hold the reins and they can lead the organization going forward.

So actually, when enrollment started, we had a huge response, and we're actually very close to 2,000 shareholders now. We have 8 tourism businesses, over 600 employees. Mike and I will talk a little bit about that in our remarks. But in peak season in Hoonah at Icy Strait Point, we have nearly 350 employees. So again, really significant growth there, growth in some of our other investments.

$125 Million in community impact since 2024— I'm sorry, 20— 20— 2004, largely in Hoonah. As we've grown with cruise ship volume, employment, property tax payments, donations in the community, local purchasing, we expect that to continue to grow. We are projecting in Hoonah about $20 million in, in that direct community impact this year. But again, $125 million in our communities since our tourism activities began, and nearly 1,400 scholarships. So again, I'd like Mike to come up— whoops, make sure I hit that right— to talk a little bit about Hoonah Tech, and then I'll come back to the podium.

Thank you, Susan. Good morning, everybody. Pleasure to be here with you today. I will keep my remarks pretty quick so Susan can continue on with the rest of our presentation. I kind of wanted to start off on why Hoonah Tohtem joined in on federal contracting.

You know, they spent a lot of their time developing their tourism business, and that really started back in 2000, 1999 era. And they did so in order to save a very important building that they acquired that was very central to the community itself. And they built a business around that building and that community and really brought a lot of value to the shareholders and jobs in an economy that was changing from the transitional way from logging and timber. Once they were established, you know, the board had the foresight of looking at different opportunities in order to diversify, and federal contracting seemed to be a natural fit, not only because of the advantages that Native organizations have in the federal contracting space, but also because it matched the culture, and the commitment to service. Alaska Natives have a long history of actually being in the armed services and being central to the security of our nation.

And that really kind of played in with the entry into federal contracting, the commitment to service. A lot of folks that we employ as a federal contractor have that dedication as well. They are very talented individuals that can do a lot in their life, but they're— really focus on the mission of our customers and making sure that again we promote the national security that we all enjoy today. So really the value was there, the portfolio strengths was there, you know, the diversification went from tourism on something that would allow us to flatten out some of our cash flow and have year-round revenue. Those are all good reasons to be in federal contracting, and of course, the federal market or the federal government is the largest supplier or the largest procurer in the world itself, the largest economic driver itself.

So I don't think it's any surprise to anybody here in the room that this past year has been very challenging for federal contractors, in particular Native contractors. There's been a number of executive orders that have been focused on consolidation and having procurements run through GSA, updates to the Federal Acquisition Regulations, and a lot of attacks on Native contractors with misinformation and questioning our integrity. And the truth of the matter is, you know, federal contractors deliver a significant value to the government itself. In the way they deliver services. They also deliver value to our shareholders, value to Alaska with the proceeds that they make and reinvest into Alaska communities.

It just— Hoonah Totem entered into the federal market in 2019, and in 2020, we all know that we had the pandemic. So as we had a halt on cruise ships coming into Alaska, Hoonah Sec was able to carry some of that load and be able to continue to produce revenue and actually expand during the pandemic years. Which again helped us get through the tough times, but then also helped us really launch once the pandemic was over and invest in communities like Hoonah, Kewaak, and Whittier, where we have cruise destinations at this point in time. So this is just another one of those challenges, and I'm proud to say that the Native community and contractors are coming together and really focusing on advocacy and helping to, you know, get our message across in creating a new narrative on federal contracting, concentrating on the values and what we deliver for not only our community but for the communities where we employ folks. We are in 28 states at this point in time, and in each one of those states, we pay taxes, our employees purchase services and things like that, and I think that message gets lost.

We're not taking away from communities. We're actually giving to communities as contractors.

Again, on part of the new message and the new narrative that we're trying to focus in by banding together is, you know, focusing in on compliance and really promoting, you know, the integrity in which we do business, the accountability which have, and really kind of the discipline, right? There are a lot of regulations in our industry, and in order to be able to really facilitate the government's goal, we have to be good stewards of the federal taxpayers' dollars and things like that. So, you know, that's something that I'm very proud that we do as an organization. I'm very proud that all the other Native organizations that we work with also have that accountability as well.

And really, again, our path forward, even though we're facing headwinds at this point in time, is continue to invest in our leadership and grow our people and such. Strengthen our partnerships with our customers, again, with our fellow Native contractors. And their employees, they're some of our best advocates that are out there. They could tell, you know, the folks that they're working with hand— day in, day out, you know, about some of the benefits that we give back to our communities, that we invest into our shareholders and such. And again, disciplined growth.

As we go forward, you know, we know that we're in a new environment. We know that it's competitive out there. We really need to focus in on where we actually bring the most value and be able to focus on that value and present that to our customers itself. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Susan.

Well, on the theme of partnerships, I just also want to recognize that as I describe some of the successes and highlights of a few tourism products that we have, we wouldn't be here without some of— many of you in the room, cruise line representatives, community representatives, Native corporations, current and former employees of Hoonah Totem and some of our contractors, including some of the marketing public relations firms. Again, it's a team sport.

I'd like to start with this slide. There's been an intentional effort to partner and grow and create a— Alaska Native tourism strategy where there are opportunities for us to partner with people to show our visitors more about Alaska Native culture, about our people, how we live, how we lived in the past, how we live today. And again, a key to that is this theme of partnering with communities and really showcasing, you know, showcasing the original people who lived here and providing economic opportunities. One of the most gratifying things, I think, for the work that we do, not only broadly in the visitor industry, but specifically with Hoonah Totem, is create opportunities for people to come back home. Certainly so many people had to leave for education, had to leave for career.

When I mentioned there are 350 seasonal jobs in Hoonah, a community of just over 950 people, that also includes a lot of supervisor, manager, and year-round opportunities. So again, it's, you know, we see that. As I move to To talk more specifically about Icy Strait Point, this is our first tourism destination. Mike was alluding to the historic cannery that really anchors this development. This was the first privately owned cruise destination, of course, Indigenous owned.

We're beginning our 23rd season. I already mentioned the significant employment, but also the significant contribution to the tax base. As I mentioned, we're projecting $20 million in local employment, purchasing, property tax, commercial passenger vessel excise tax, in a lot of ways that that money sticks right in the community. Many of our guides are from Hoonah, and they're showcasing their way of life, Tlingit culture. It's certainly been an award-winning destination, and some of our milestones are really impressive.

We're expecting more than 700,000 visitors this summer, and we expect to pass the 5 million guest mark in July of 2026. We're expanding the destination certainly as the market evolves. They're looking for not only different ways to, you know, from adventure products and different ways to experience Alaska up close, but we're making more investment in our cultural attractions and experiences and also the support infrastructure. We have employee housing in Hoonah and we need to continue to expand that and upgrade that. So again, lots of ways that we're investing in the product in the community.

Klawock has some parallels to Icy Strait Point. We developed Klawock Island in partnership with Doyon, who's been a partner in several of our investments, but also working on Prince of Wales Island. This is a partnership with Klawock Keeneah, the local visitor corporation. And there's a lot of parallels with Hoonah. Similarly— similar in terms of deep cultural roots, a desire to attract and retain the younger people and families in the community, and a decline in other economic opportunities in the region.

In 2004, we welcomed our first guests. This is developed a little bit differently, a little smaller scale than Hoonah. We had 6 cruise calls, a handful of carefully curated attractions that showcased the local seafood, the cannery, the hatchery, Last year we had about 2 dozen calls, and we're expecting nearly 60 this year. So this is more small and mid-sized ships, but as we grow, we'll be looking at what infrastructure and what community planning is needed. And as we, as we talked about earlier, there's an emphasis on local hiring, local sourcing, and community partnerships.

Project that I've been focused on as my primary responsibility for the last year and a half or so that I've been an employee of Hoonah Totem is Oak Landing, a development in downtown Juneau. I've been impatient, and as I stand here next to my friend Joe and think about the 15 years that it took to get your development timeline, I maybe need to take a breath and be a little more patient. But this Cruise ship dock and waterfront development in downtown Juneau will be the 5th dock in a community that has a 5-ship limit, but only 4 local docks in the downtown area. There's 2 publicly owned and 2 privately owned docks. If you know Juneau and you're coming into the downtown area, this is just as you approach, just as you approach the curve into downtown.

Easy pedestrian access into the downtown shops and attractions. Our next door neighbor is the Coast Guard, and right behind us is the Ramada Hotel, and KTOO. So again, very easy access into the downtown core. It's a— there's a signalized intersection right there. So one of the things that we've been touting from a local resident standpoint is it will help reduce vehicular congestion because tour vehicles will be able to come in and out of the site.

That is one of the top concerns, complaints from residents, is that downtown vehicular congestion. So it also improves harbor safety. As I mentioned, we have a 5-ship limit.

For Downtown Docks, this summer we'll have 95 ships at anchor in downtown Juneau. And I mean, what that does, it's not only that, you know, the ships are at anchor. I saw a post, it was just a couple of days ago, Elizabeth or others may have seen it too. It was a passenger who was on a ship at anchor. They were really excited to spend time in Juneau.

All the tenders were full that morning until noon, and their ship left at 4:00. So one, there's a passenger impact. You know, there they are, looking, looking at our beautiful little community. But also, um, it— that has an economic impact on the community when people just physically can't get to the community until, um, you know, until all— until there's space. So 95 ships are, are at anchor.

As we complete this project, which we're aiming now for 2028, um, we'll have ships that will be able to be at a dock. We'll have considerable construction spending. We're using as our first $150 million as our first phase investment estimate. Certainly we expect to be among the top 5 property taxpayers once that dock and uplands are complete. And unlike other docks in Juneau and more similar to our development in Hoonah, there'll be some waterfront dining, waterfront retail, extension of the sea— very popular with residents and visitors— seawalk around the perimeter of the site.

So again, it will be, will be an attractive development The city is very encouraging that we help create more year-round traffic to that area. The economic benefits, I know, are something that— while I spent many years with McDowell Group and had great economic data, sometimes that's beside the point with residents. And so part of what we've been talking about with this project is, you know, we're increasing downtown parking, we're increasing the public event space. Maritime Festival just happened. Brew Fest is something— is a popular annual event that would like to use this site.

The SeaWalk. Again, there's a lot of advantages, including the fact that our next-door neighbor, as I mentioned, is the Coast Guard. We've been working very carefully with them to be sure that their anticipated pier that will accommodate the icebreaker Storis and any future vessels are compatible with our plans and positioning of the dock. We've also introduced the Coast Guard to the capabilities of Hoonah Tech. Should we be able to help them with any of their development work there?

So again, we're excited. In April, we signed the tideland lease with the City and Borough of Juneau. The conditional use permits were actually issued in 2023. So this has been— we've had, we've, we've had to exercise patience, but as we sign that lease, reconfirm our preferential use commitments with cruise lines, and shore up our financing, we are really excited about digging dirt, driving pilings, and getting this project to completion.

Which brings me up to the South Central area in the last couple of slides that I have before We see if there's time for questions. Chugach Glacier Gateway in Whittier, this new to us, new cruise ship terminal and double berth pier. We had our first cruise ship calls in 2024. At the end of the season, we had one call. We welcomed 27 ships and about 76,000 guests last year.

And we're poised for growth in this year, not only some new new ships into the market, but also as the project over in Seward, there's a couple of ships that are coming over. We're pleased to host them until the Seward project is complete. But again, we're poised for growth. The significance, of course, you recognize this up here, is that these, that these turn ports help facilitate visitors spending more time in Alaska pre- and post-cruise. We're excited about that.

And we're also excited about, with Alaska Coach Tours, another one of our investments with Doyon, how we can begin to expand our footprint with Doyon and with other partners up in not only South Central and into the interior. There's some additional services that are offered at the terminal, as you might expect: car rental, parking, tour sales, luggage storage, downtown shuttle, and As Sherri mentioned, we are really proud to be selected to host the commissioning of the USS Ted Stevens later this fall and look forward to hosting approximately 4,000 people from around our country to celebrate that vessel and Alaska. So we're really excited about that.

And the last slide that I have, and again, it's not a— just highlights of some of our activities, but this is our newest acquisition, Portage Glacier Cruises. In 2025 was the first year under Hoonatotem management, but it's been around since 1989 as a Holland America product. It's located just about 10 miles from Whittier. So it's something that as we work with cruise lines, we can help, help, help them as they create packages for their guests. But also the 1-hour tour is very budget friendly.

Family-friendly, excellent for your visiting friends and relatives, independent travelers. And so we hosted about 30,000 guests last year. A continuing theme, we want to— we are positioned for growth. So we encourage all of you to get to Portage Glacier. In front of each of your chairs, you've got a coupon or a card that has buy one, get one at 50% off.

So we hope that you take advantage of that. If you need more cards, Kaitlyn has some, or there's some on the tables if you've got some coworkers or other family that you'd like to join. Mike and I are going to go do the tour today. I'm excited about that. And because we really want you guys to get there, as we get to the door prize portion of this, we've got some tickets for you.

So again, that wraps up our formal comments. Gunas-cheesh. And we look forward to questions.

So if you have a question, raise your hand. Jennifer's got mics. She'll come around. Want to make sure that people up here can hear you as well as others so that the context is met when it comes to the answers. I'll just take a quick moment of privilege to say a couple things.

Susan, don't get too patient. You know, that's how things lag, and that's not what Alaska needs right now. So keep, keep pushing hard. You know, at PICA, it took a long time to get to this point. But, you know, we are going to be moving rather quickly to the next phase of the project.

And my 8:30 meeting is on our next project, Kwaka. And, and then just tying it back to to Icy Strait. I've been there. It is an amazing opportunity if you get the, the chance to go. A fantastic zipline ride, but more importantly, great beer.

And Connor mentioned the Pick a Beer. I just want to make sure folks know that a couple things. Number one, it's a partnership with King Street that all we had to do was pay for the artwork on the can, which Future Elder did for us. So it's turned out to be great. And one more little tie-in: every can sold results in a donation to ARE.

So our friends there at Alaska Resource Education will— yeah, I know you don't know Becky. It's something we have kind of kept to this point. So, so go have a beer.

Any questions for Susan or Mike?

I have one. We've got one back here too. Okay.

So Mike, do you have an estimate of the overall economic impact of 8, not just tuna, but how much business Native corporations overall are doing in that regard?

I really should know the answer right off the top of my head, but I don't. If I had to guesstimate at this point in time, I think 2023 numbers were the last one that we saw as far as revenue, and I want to say it was around $23 billion.

But I can circle back and get you that answer.

And Mike, you mentioned in your remarks that— and acknowledged that federal contracting has been a challenge here. Has that been as a result of changes in regulations or anything that Congress has done? What are those challenges? What does that look like?

So it's a compilation of a couple of items. With the change of administration, there's always a little bit of change in focus, so we're used to that, and we're used to recovering from that change rather quickly. With the current administration, there are a number of executive orders that were issued, and they drastically changed the entire federal market space itself, not just 8, but again, how the government wants to do business itself. So there is currently an effort to rewrite the Federal Acquisition Regulations that kind of— we all abide by in procurement and things like that, and kind of dictate how contracts are led and competition and such. There has also been some executive orders that have been issued on consolidation.

Whereas changing from individual agencies releasing their requirements to more centralized— having all the requirements come out of GSA, General Services Administration, as the result of trying to find some efficiencies. That and the workforce reduction itself. So there was a loss of a lot of federal contractors— or excuse me, federal employees in 2025 with all the reduction of force and the early outs and such. So we've lost knowledge with our customers. We've had the administration shrink or kind of reroute how procurements are let, and then we had the rules changed on us as well.

And then while all this is going on, we've also had a lot of misinformation out there about federal or Native contractors. And attacks on the 8 program itself, which Alaska Native contractors are able to take advantage of. So the compilation of all that, there's been some slowdown in procurement itself. Instead of releasing new requirements, they've been extending requirements. You know, they've shuttered some agencies itself, and a lot of agencies have lost budget where others have gained.

So there's just a time of flux at this point in time. It's important, again, that we all band together, we work together, concentrate on our efficiencies, and we really kind of pull ourselves through this continuous challenge. I am optimistic overall. I think there are some really positive things that have happened in the course of the year. But again, you know, the challenges aren't going to go away any time soon.

So I think Connor asked me to give a call to action. If I had anything to ask you guys to do, I would ask you guys to kind of support your Native contractor organizations, speak up, you know, with your legislators itself, and if there's any federal contractors out there looking to get involved in some of the advocacy efforts, NACA is a great organization to join itself. Thank you.

Okay, last call.

Walter.

Yes, question for Susan.

So big picture question. Looking at your tourism activity, tourism activities in your development, so what would you say is the biggest obstacle, the biggest challenge that, that you face that you would like, uh, if you had your magic wand, you would see fixed?

There's so— there's many small things, but on, on a big thing, one of the things that I think that would be good for Alaska is more variety in our cruise ship itineraries as we go forward. And that could be regulatory, it could be market, but there's really two flavors. I mean, there's a, there's a round, 7-day round trip or a cross-Gulf. But I think that as our industry matures and more communities decide that they want to step into this industry and we build the infrastructure and the product base to go with it, I think that, you know, and some of that's federal, federal regulations, the passenger, Service Vessel Act, but also just market. And, you know, so I think that maturity in the industry and a game changer for all of Alaska would be breaking through some of those things and creating more variety and bringing more communities into this industry.

I see Elizabeth nodding. No.

All right. Well, that brings us to the end of our program. I do have—.