“Beach People News” A Newsletter for the Shareholders of Tyonek Native Corporation December 2008 TEBUGHNA HENEK Merry Christmas The Tyonek Native Corporation Board of Directors, Management and Staff would like to wish each and every shareholder a safe and happy holiday season. IN THIS ISSUE Special Shareholder Meeting ...... Cover Settlement Trust Info.................. 5 Shareholder News....................... 8 Easy Holiday recipes................... 10 Shareholder Interviews................ Back Page Christmas New Year Wish I made a Christmas wish for you, For a holiday full of pleasure, Friends and family all around, And memories to treasure. I wish for you a Christmas filled With joyous holiday cheer; I wish you a Merry Christmas, And a very Happy New Year! By Joanna Fuchs SAVE THE DATE A special shareholder meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. February 28, 2009 at the Embassy Suites Ho- tel, 600 E. Benson Blvd. in Anchorage, Alaska. For the sole purpose of voting on the establishment of a Shareholder Settlement Trust. Proxy Materials will be mailed soon. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend this very important meeting. A hosted lunch will be served beginning at noon.
Transcript
“Beach People News”
A Newsletter for the Shareholders of Tyonek Native Corporation
December 2008
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
M e r ry C h r i s t m a sThe Tyonek Native Corporation Board of Directors, Management and Staff would
like to wish each and every shareholder a safe and happy holiday season.
IN THIS ISSUE
Special Shareholder Meeting ......CoverSettlement Trust Info.................. 5Shareholder News....................... 8Easy Holiday recipes................... 10Shareholder Interviews................ Back Page
Christmas New Year Wish
I made a Christmas wish for you,For a holiday full of pleasure,Friends and family all around,
And memories to treasure.
I wish for you a Christmas filledWith joyous holiday cheer;
I wish you a Merry Christmas,And a very Happy New Year!
By Joanna Fuchs
SAVE THE DATEA special shareholder meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. February 28, 2009 at the Embassy Suites Ho-tel, 600 E. Benson Blvd. in Anchorage, Alaska. For the sole purpose of voting on the establishment of a Shareholder Settlement Trust. Proxy Materials will be mailed soon. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend this very important meeting.
A hosted lunch will be served beginning at noon.
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
Our Tebughna people are well known for imple-menting innovative ideas that benefit our future generations. We also have a knack for creating busi-ness models of opportunity that benefit all Alaskans. Recently, the Tebughna have scored another success which will not only benefit our people but the Alaska Native people in general. To date this is the first time that the Small Business Administration has given a Native Corporation approval to allow up to 49 % of the outstanding stock of an ANCSA Section 8(a) en-tity to be transferred to an ANCSA Settlement Trust. If approved by TNC shareholders in February our shareholders will benefit from the Tebughna Settle-ment trust in two ways. We will no longer pay taxes on dividends and the tax savings to our corporation will allow us to invest in new ventures in the future.
Our Tebughna Elders have instilled in us the impor-tance of preserving our rivers, land, and animals by teaching us such values as: “When we leave a place, leave it as if we were never there.” This taught us that caring for our land and rivers was of utmost impor-tance in our Dena’ina society. It taught us that all of our land, its animals, and sea creatures were some-thing that we must respect, nurture, and replenish. This puts us in a unique situation where it is vital that we create a conservation easement to surround our most treasured river. This puts us in a position to balance out the bear to moose ratio so that our grandchildren can enjoy the food that was abundant to us. It puts us in the position to seek ways to re-store the salmon habitat so that the beluga will rein-state its presence in Cook Inlet.
Today many other Native villages, village corpora-tions, and regional corporations respect and look to Tyonek for guidance in regards to future growth and development. Following are just a few reasons why our fellow Alaska Natives have respected Tyonek in the past: Tyonek lands do not contain any public right-of-ways: Tyonek owns its own airstrip, port fa-cility, industrial site, and homes; we have been able to continue to commercial and subsistence fish on our land and shores; we helped begin the land claims settlement act; and we funded the first AFN meet-ings.
In the near future we will be known to have begun the first Tribal Conservation District; the Chuitt
River conservation easement; the first ANC settle-ment trust to derive from 8(a) funding; for creating the newest city; for creating our own aggregate busi-ness; and for providing comprehensive Tebughna cul-tural and educational activities for our membership.
This year may you all reach your highest potential. May all of your travels be safe. May you, your chil-dren and grandchildren be healthy. May all of your challenges be few. May all of your blessings be abun-dant. May we all look forward to the future with suc-cess. May we all walk in the Light of the Lord’s love.
Whatever you do in life I hope you succeed in good health-A Dena’ina Blessing
Donita L. Hensley
Yagheli da idahdi’ina - Greetings, hello friends:
PRESIDENT’S REPORTby DONITA L. HENSLEY, President
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MerryChristmas
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
CEO’S CORNERby TOM HARRIS, Chief Executive Officer
Dear TNC Shareholders:
We hope that this Holiday Season brings happiness to you and your families and the New Year brings new goals and new achievements. This past year has been a phenomenal year of achievement on a number of levels for Tyonek Native Corporation.
First, TNC has completed one of the most successful years in its history. The stellar performance of the Tyonek Group (Tyonek Services and Tyonek Manu-facturing) has produced the highest revenues in the Corporation’s history of over $130 million. The Tyonek Group, under the leadership of Bart Garber, Scott Pfeifer, and Bill Jolly, are closing in on a decade of one of the most impressive growth rates of any Alaska Native Village Corporation. We also gratefully ac-knowledge the contributions of former TNC CFO, Mr. Don Girvan, who has recently retired from the Tyonek Group.
Tyonek Contractors, LLC, under the leadership of Don Standifer, has complet-ed one of the strongest years in its history greatly increasing the financial per-formance of not only TC, LLC, but also all of Tyonek’s Alaska Division with the highest Shareholder and Shareholder family hire rate, ever. Thank you, Don.
We welcome the announcement of the appointment of Mr. Dennis Tipelman as the new Tribal Administrator for the Native Village of Tyonek. In the coming months the NVT Council and the TNC Board of Directors will be entering into in-depth strategic planning that will chart our path to protecting the interests of Tyonek in the next several years of development.
The Board of Directors of TNC has approved the calling of a Special Shareholders meeting to approve the creation of Settlement Trusts for Tyonek. The proxy statements for the meeting will be sent to you shortly. We encourage your careful review and support for the Settlement Trusts that will provide the opportunity for tax protection for future distributions to shareholders.
As we prepare for the future we are grateful for the success of this past year and have many reasons to be hopeful for the future. We are most grateful for your continued support. Thank you.
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May Peace be your gift at Christmas and
your blessing all year through!
~Author Unknown
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
Tyonek Group Updateby BART GARBER, President, The Tyonek Group
The big news for ADI this past quarter is that we have opened a shop at the North Forelands complex to begin support of West side development. We have begun renting and leasing equipment and space to oil field clients in the past month. As we get more of the equipment and buildings operational, we should be able to provide a broad array of services to construction and oilfield operations.
We are beginning our planning for lodge operations for the 2009 season. We have held negations with the current operator and are looking at other alternatives for the use and operation of the lodge. One of the major projects that we will begin this spring is to connect the lodge to the Chugach power. This will give us more flexibility in operating the lodge longer into the winter season.
On the construction front, ADI signed a MOA with Peak Oilfield Services to solidify project working agree-ments on the west side of Cook Inlet. Peak is a subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region and Nabors drilling. We also signed a teaming agreement with a construction company in the state of Washington to increase our capacity to engage in 8 (a) projects.
Alaska Division, Inc. Updateby CHUCK AKERS, Chief Executive Officer-Alaska Division, Inc.
TMG
TMG operations in Madison are boom-ing. The electrical shop has hired anoth-er round of technicians on the Sikorsky contract putting the count at about 45. This nearly fills the current electrical as-sembly and manufacturing space. By the start of the new year renovations of the old warehouse space in the main build-ing should be well under way and allow TMG to relocate its existing bonded stor-age to the location and free up space for more electrical production work. These changes will be necessary should we suc-ceed in two substantial bids for helicop-ter electrical components.
On the mechanical side, the old paint shop in building #2 has been renovated to accept our mechanical quality op-erations. This modification will allow greater through-put for our mechanical operations.
TMG started operations in Tampa, FL in support of the SOCOM contract. The primary activity will be software de-velopment and support.
On the marketing front, we have a num-ber of significant bids in the process of review and development. A second bid
with Sikorsky is due in January and we are awaiting decision on a multiyear con-tract on Army helicopter parts. TMG also has a number of obsolete parts in re-view in the CTR (continual technology refreshment) program with the Army and equipment manufacturing orders for SOCOM (special operations command). These contracts are in the millions and represent in total a possible multi-year backlog.
TG Management
Mary Waldorf the new executive admin-istrator for the Tyonek Group is busy organizing the group. Mary has already reviewed, corrected and published all TG FY08 minutes and resolutions. She is presently working with Karin Grif-fith, TG IT Director, to develop and put into place the Tyonek Group Share-point site that will allow all TG manag-ers and board members to access all TG company organic documents, reports and governance documents in electronic form. Mary is also working with Dave Marshall, TSG VP of Contracts and Jill Seger-Harris, TMG Head of Adminis-tration, and TNC personnel, to develop
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a central document and licensing re-tention and monitoring system for the Company.
TMG with the help of TG personnel re-cently sent out notice of a TG internship opportunity to TNC shareholders. The announcement makes clear that the cur-rent positions will be contingent on the skills and goals of the successful appli-cants. TG, in cooperation with TNC of-ficers, are developing an Intern program that will provide a real education experi-ence for the successful applicants.
Finally, as part of our plan to grow the Tyonek Group Division, the TG board has promoted Scott Pfeifer to President of the Tyonek Services Group, Inc. and Bill Jolly to President of the Tyonek Man-ufacturing Group, Inc. Bart Garber has been named President and Chairman of the Tyonek Group. Susan Mason, head of contracts for TMG, was appointed VP of TMG and Kevin Dixon was appoint-ed VP of TSG. Besides being chairman of TSG and TMG, Bart Garber manages the management support group for TG which includes Karin Griffith , IT Di-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
Tyonek Enterprise Development, Inc. Updateby JOHN MCCLELLAN
Relationships
As said in Tyonek’s recent presentation to AFN, “Tribal cultures throughout the world regard healthy communal interdependence as a preferred demonstration of individual development. This is why a tribal child is encouraged to grow from ‘I can do it myself’ to the well-balanced ‘I can do it with and for others’ when she or he learns to share...with an honored tribal elder.” The same cultural lesson holds true for the business world.
Tyonek Enterprise Development, Inc. (TEDI) is negotiating formal contract relationships with the organizations and businesses with which we will be working in the future. In early October at a press conference during the Leading Change 2008 Conference, Tyonek Native Corporation, the Native Village of Tyonek and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough signed a negotiated Memorandum of Understanding to jointly support and develop the Cook Inlet Ferry. In early November Peak Oilfield Services and Alaska Division, Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tyonek Native Corporation, signed a negotiated Teaming Agreement for joint construction work in West Cook Inlet. Other relationships are being negotiated with PacRim Coal for their Chuitna Coal Project, with TDX Power for their Chakachamna Hydroelectric Project, another Native village corporation for projects on their lands, and with ESS for camp services in West Cook Inlet, among others.
In these new business relationships, Tyonek is very much in the role of the tribal child, learning – by doing – from those with more experience and resources. Eventually, Tyonek will mature and be able to do business with and for others on its own. Tyonek will then be able to return even greater dividends and self-reliance to its honored tribal shareholders.
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T E B U G H N A H E N E K
Settlement Trust
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rector; Alicia Casteel, HR Director and Suzanne Chandler, Controller. Mr. Garber will also be responsible for coordi-nation of the two divisions and the development of a busi-ness development and public relations strategy in key states and Washington, D.C..
Tyonek Services Group
Tyonek Services Group ended the year strong. Tyonek had a very successful year providing the government contract support in aircraft maintenance and IT. At our Jacksonville
location, the government requested Tyonek to provide travel-ing aircraft mechanics to repair aircraft around the US. This is a special level of services that Tyonek is now able to provide and puts the company in a more competitive level of aircraft maintenance.
At Ft. Bragg, Tyonek has been able to continue to expand the services offered to the government. We have grown on our Publics Works Team and Directorate of Information Man-agement Team. We have grown from 21 to 48 employees at Ft Bragg during this last year. Tyonek Services Group is positioned for continued growth in support of both of these areas
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 (TG UPDATE)
Instructions on completing the Proxy.
* Put a check mark or X on the line indicating whether you would like to see the establish-ment of the trust or not.
* Sign your name here on the signature line. Even if you are signing for a custodian, sign your own name
* Print your name here on the “print name” line even if you are signing for a custodian.
* If you are signing for a custodian, write their name here.
* Write in the date here.
* Write in your address on the line provided.
Proxy Label
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
WHO's WHO at tNC
Board of Directors & Date Last ElectedTed S. Kroto Sr. - Secretary (5-19-07)Emil McCord. - Vice Chair (5-19-07)Susanna L. Moon - Chair (5-31-08)Donita L. Slawson - President (5-20-06)Donald Standifer Sr.– Director (5-20-06)Jaison Standifer - Director (5-31-08)Michaelene Stephan - Director (5-20-06)Rober t Stephan, Sr. - Vice President (5-19-07)Terry Stephan - Asst.Sec./Treasurer (5-31-08) Board MentorsSeraphim Stephan, Sr.John Evans
Young Adult Advisory MembersSteven HolleyBilly StephanApril Standifer
Staff at Anchorage OfficeTom Harris Chief Executive OfficerDonita L. Hensley PresidentMarc Stemp Chief Financial Ofcr./COO Geri Simon Gen’l Counsel & Chief Admin Ofcr.Chuck Akers AK Division Chief Executive Ofcr.Rober t Stephan Sr. Land Security (Tyonek)Peter Merryman Expediter Cathy Antush Corp. Acct’g ManagerRon Davis Dir. of Financial Planning & AnalystKaren Leslie A/P TechnicianScott Pfeifer VP. Government ServicesKevin Dixon Program Mgr., Govt. ServicesJames Anderson Operations Mgr., Govt. ServicesDavid Marshall VP of Contracts for Govt. ServicesKarin Griffith IT Director Becky Peratrovich Corp. Communications Mgr.Jonalyn Najera Office ManagerRose Chuitt SH Records Clerk/Admin AsstTeresa Standifer Records TechnicianOpen Position ReceptionistSteven Holley Lands TechnicianMisty Buckles Intern
Questions and Answers About the TNC Distribution Trust
Q. What is a Distribution Trust?A. A Distribution Trust is a separate legal corporation that holds assets for the shareholders and distributes some of those assets from time to time.
Q. How is a Distribution Trust good for TNC share-holders?A. When the Trust distributes a check to the sharehold-ers, those funds are, in most cases, tax free.
Q. Does TNC benefit from a Distribution Trust?A. Yes, TNC benefits. The funds in Trust come from TNC and TNC subsidiary earnings, and the transfer of those funds into the Trust are taxed at a lower rate.
Q. Who will be the running the TNC Distribution Trust?A. Your TNC Board of Directors will serve as the Trust-ees of the TNC Distribution Trust. When a shareholder is elected to the TNC Board, that person automatically becomes a Trustee of the Trust.
Q. How long will the TNC Distribution Trust last?A. Shareholders can end the Trust, but only in ten year intervals. Therefore, the Trust would come up for re-newal in 2019.
Q. When will the Distribution Trust start? A. Before the Trust can begin, a majority of shareholders must vote “YES” in a special shareholder’s meeting. Af-ter that, it will take at least a year to legally modify TNC subsidiaries so that assets can be transferred to the Trust.
Q. Has the Special Shareholders Meeting been sched-uled?A. Yes. The meeting is scheduled for 11:00 a.m., Febru-ary 28, 2009 at the Embassy Suites in Anchorage. De-tails concerning the Distribution Trust and Shareholders Meeting will be sent to you in the mail in January.
Q. How Many Shares Must Approve the TNC Distri-bution Trust?A. A majority of the shares present at a shareholder meeting must approve the TNC Distribution Trust, as-suming a quorum is present. Please help in ensuring that all shareholders benefit from this unique opportunity.
T E B U G H N A H E N E K
blades, buttons, ceramic shatter and even bone. They also took bark, charcoal, and soil samples for later analysis, but because it is so early in this stage they still have a lot to go through. They have said that the pits they sampled go back a few hundred years, they don’t have an exact date because they have not gone through all of the artifacts but invited us back any time we wanted to check status and I intend to take full advantage of that offer! Other then that I have been doing lots of research on different topics and writing a lot of reports on my findings, and working on getting another internship position available which I am hoping will be sooner then later. Happy Holidays!
YAAMs were also present at AFN with our information booth alongside TNC intern, Misty Buckles. We received a lot of in-terest from other corporations and individuals. I hope to be contacted by corporations to talk about their setting up a simi-lar program as our YAAM’s program.
In the next YAAMs meeting, there will be discussion on options of en-tering into a memorandum of un-derstanding with the First Alaskans Institute to synchronize our efforts of the education and advancement of young, up and coming Native leaders.
The YAAMs committee has been very busy since the last news-letter. The Committee is working to create a draft Code of Conduct and Compliance to help future YAAMs and mentors in participating in the committee. Upon completion by the YAAM’s Committee, the document will be sent to the Gover-nance committee for review. Upon support of the Governance Committee, it will then be submitted to the Board of Directors for final approval.
During the Elders and Youth conference, I represented YAAMs and Tyonek as an emcee. This was a great opportunity for me to meet prominent figures of Alaska such as Mark Begich and Julie Kitka and learn more about public speaking. Some in-triguing words were spoken by Dr. Walter Soboloff, a Tlingit elder who will be celebrating his 100th birthday this year. Most notably to me was a statement that he made, “respect the person that you will become”.
Young Adult Advisory Memberby STEVEN HOLLEY, Chairman-YAAM Committee
Internshipby MISTY DAWN BUCKLES, Intern
In the past two months I have been very busy attending conferences and meetings in Anchorage and Tyonek. In October I attended the Elders and Youth conference and helped with a booth at AFN promoting our YAAMS and Internship program. At Elders and Youth I was appointed to represent CIRI for the Elders and Youth Conference next year and am very excited for the chance at this great opportunity. While running the booth at AFN Elizabeth and I got a lot of positive feedback on our programs and a few people from other corporations were interested in set-ting up a youth leadership program of their own. We also got an invite from Aleyeska to come up and give them a presentation and attend one of theirs with the goal being improvement to both our youth leadership programs, we are planning to make much more of these presentations in the future and are going to be working on setting that up. In November I was invited to the office of Ste-phen Braund and Associates to view the artifacts that were found at Ladd Landing, thanks to the 2+ years of dedication that PacRim has put into this site we now have a little more information to add to what we already know about Tyonek. The artifacts that they did manage to recover they found in the fire pits so there was not many remains although there were some very interesting findings; most of it being just bits and pieces but there were a few bigger pieces that they were still analyzing. Some of the bigger pieces consisted of an oil lamp that could hold oil on both sides depending on how long you wanted it to burn, a few unidentified tools with noticeable wear which some were thought to be chopper, sharpening stone, hammering stone, and the bits and pieces ranged from beads, copper arrowheads and
Button
Bone Spear
Copper Blade
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T E B U G H N A H E N E K
During the week of September 2, 2008, shareholders Michaelene Stephan, Robert Stephan Sr., Billy Stephan and Susan Tomsic took in three Seattle Mariners vs. New York Yankees games in Seattle.
This is the second year they have watched these teams, also taking in the Seattle Mariners vs. Boston Red Sox the first year. While there Bobby and Billy were asked to be on National Television as they wore opposing team jerseys. During the third game Susan was asked to spin the wheel that was televised on the big screen at Safeco Field. The prize options on the wheel were: Team store certificate, food, surprise, funny nose glasses or game tickets. She won two front seat game tickets.
Next year the plan is to attend the Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees while visiting their mother Selina “Doris” in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
(Shown: LTR) Robert Stephan Sr., Michaelene Stephan, the Mariners Mascot, Susan Tomsic and Billy Stephan.
TNC shareholder, Brian J. Musuda graduated from Rob-ert Service High School in Anchorage on May 15, 2008.
In 2006 While attending the University of Alaska Fair-banks’ Upward Bound Program, Brian decided that he wanted to pursue a degree in Civil Engineering.
During his junior year he participated in a six weekend pre-college course at Alaska Native Science Engineering’s program at UAA. While there they put together software and desktop computers that he was able to take home and continues to use today.
This summer while continuing his pre-college course with ANSEP Brian also worked ina nine week ANSEP intern-ship with CIRI’s Peak Oilfield Service Company. He is now attending UAA full-time with scholarships received through the CIRI Foundation, Tyonek Native Corpora-tion and money he earned with ANSEP to help with his college tuition and housing.
Brian is the son of Michalene stephan and Nial Masuda, Sr., grandson of Selina Joshua of Black River Falls, Wis-consin, Melva and Seraphim Stephan Sr. and Mitsue and Robert Masuda of Anchorage.
Shareholder News
MARINERS VS. YANKEES
CONGRATULATIONS BRIAN!
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T E B U G H N A H E N E K
Marie Allowan Robert Berg Christine Brewer Caylee Brewer Cody Brewer Christopher Burnett Daniel Bushey Winnie Chickalusion Anita Constantine Dianna Evans Jaden Evans-Lauvale Annabell Goozmer Makalya Goozmer Katelynn Laub Joseph Rider III Joseph Rider IV Laura Setuk Simeon Standifer Leonard Trenton
To ensure that each shareholder re-
ceives all correspondence, newsletters,
job announcements, etc., it is impor-
tant for shareholders to notify TNC of
all address changes. The Tyonek Native
Corporation needs help locating the
following shareholders. If you know of
the whereabouts of these shareholders,
please have them contact TNC by mail,
e-mail, or fax us their current address.
TNC needs your help locating Shareholders!
Shareholder News
In May of this year, TNC Shareholder Rosa Green received her High school Diploma and became officially certified as a “Microsoft Office Specialist” in “Microsoft Office Word 2003” through the Alaska Technology Learning Center in Anchorage, Alaska. Rosa is the daughter of TNC Shareholder Donald Standifer Sr. and Pat ? . 35 year old Rosa plans to continue her education.
CONGRATULATIONS ROSA!
Shareholder Ronnie McCord’s daughters Des-tiny and Traci Key shown above, attend the Aquarian Charter School and participated in the Running Club. This was their end of the year pizza party with others from the Run-ning club.
1. In a large bowl, combine gelatin and sugar. Stir in boiling water until mixture is dissolved. Stir in pineapple juice and lemon juice concentrate. Di-vide into 2 containers, and freeze until solid.
2. To serve, place gelatin mixture in punch bowl, and chop into pieces. Pour in ginger ale.
PARTY PUNCH IX
You can find the nutrition information at www.allrecipes.com. The web-site also has a little calculator which can help with measurements for whatever batch size you need. You can also add recipes to your ownrecipeboxfileand/orshoppinglist.Youcane-mailrecipestofriendsandfamilyandyoucanaddyour own recipes or post a review about a certain recipe. The punch recipe was submitted by DeAnna Peal and the Holly cookies recipe was submitted by Heather Dolan. If you have any favorite recipes that you’d like to share with other TNC shareholders, please e-mail them to [email protected].
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Tyonek Native Corporation1689 C Street, Suite 219Anchorage, AK 99501(907) 272-07071-877-TNC-MOOS
PRSRT STDUS Postage
PAIDAnchorage, AK
Permit #537
In the month of October, TNC coordinated and held interviews with several elders and sharehold-ers on the topic of navigability of the Chuitt River. The informa-tion collected will be used to sup-port BLM’s stand that the Chuitt River is non-navigable and help in TNC’s formal answer to the state’s claim that it is navigable. TNC expects to receive a report from DNR on this issue, in which TNC will have 90 days to dispute any claim.
