74&W Exclusives: Debbie Atuk

74&W Exclusives

You’re an Alaska Native and you sit on the board of the Bering Straits Native Corporation, which is an example of a structure known as an Alaska Native Corporation, or ANC. Most readers aren’t familiar with ANCs. Can you describe them and explain how they’re similar to or different from other corporations?
Alaska Native Corporations maintain ownership of our ancestral lands. They also manage the operations and retained earnings generated from the original cash settlement from the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act that passed in 1971. Through that Act, 12 regional Native Corporations and almost 200 Village Native Corporations received settlements, the largest of which generates $3 billion in revenues annually. The ANCs are organized and run like any for-profit corporation, and they pay taxes to the U.S. government.

What are the actual assets that ANCs hold?
You can compare them to a corporation like Alphabet that builds and acquires businesses that will earn income for their shareholders. The ANCs own and operate fishing vessels; timber and mining operations; oil and gas services; oil rigs; manufacturing plants; aerospace contract manufacturers; hotels; and construction, telecom, and IT companies (these are examples only, and not an exhaustive list).

Then how are ANCs different from other big corporations or holding companies?
The difference in the way the ANCs run is that they are, philosophically, a large family business. We can inherit or bequeath our shares, but we cannot sell them. Also, while each ANC is a separate legal entity, we share the income from our natural resources as a way to balance the uneven distribution of land-based wealth. So those with oil, zinc, or timber, for example, share that largess with the rest of us. Those without many resources, like my ANC, the Bering Straits Native Corporation, generate income by building other businesses and federal contracting, which is to say evaluate, bid on and fulfill federal contracts.

It seems like the sense of responsibility, or the generational burden, must be more profound for an ANC than for other kinds of corporations, right?
Absolutely. Our risk is not just to our shareholders and employees but to the sovereignty of our lands. Alaskan ANCs own the title to 44 million acres. This land is our birthright. It is imperative that these corporations remain intact and functioning to provide stewardship over it. That’s not something that a standard U.S. corporation is expected to achieve. There are very few U.S. corporations over 100 years old and of the ones that exist, we see them significantly downsizing or failing. Think GE, Sears, and FAO Schwarz. But the ANCs have to exist in perpetuity. We’re coming up on 50 years next year, and that is just the beginning for us.

You are Inupiaq. For those of us unfamiliar with Alaska Native cultures or Alaskan history, tell us a little bit about this group.
The Inupiat have occupied lands along the northwest coast of the Bering Sea and the northern coast of Alaska for thousands of years. Many Inupiat still live in villages that are tied together by familial bonds formed by marriages. They say that, at one time, the villages in the Bering Strait region were separated by a two-day walk. In fact, my great-grandmother was very independent and was said to have walked some 50 miles from her home village of Rocky Point to Wales to start a new life for herself.

Are the Inupiat considered a tribe?
The Inupiat of the Seward Peninsula speak a different dialect than the Inupiat of the North Slope of Alaska, but we are considered one ethnic group. The Inupiat don’t organize ourselves as a tribe, but the U.S. government does, so we have tribal governments in Alaska that were created under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.  

Despite your upbringing in Nome, your involvement with the BSNC, and your deep cultural ties, you also have had a lot of exposure to life outside of Alaska. You graduated from both the University of Chicago and Dartmouth, and you work on the institutional side at SkyView Investment Advisors. How long have you been working in the financial space, and what initially got you interested in a career on "The Street"?
I started my career in finance at ABN AMRO in 1999 after I graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Economics. I don’t recall receiving much career counseling, but I went to recruiting events on campus and came to realize that financial analysis skills would be useful for me to have if I wanted to be involved with the Alaska Native Corporations. I needed to know how money works to help grow and protect our shared assets. So I made it my mission to get into finance then and there, and ultimately got an MBA from Dartmouth. And now I bring that to my role on the Bering Straits Native Corporation board and serve as the treasurer.

The Supreme Court recently made a pretty significant ruling that impacts Oklahoma. Namely, that much of Tulsa and other areas are actually tribal territory, not federal. From the perspective of a Native person, how significant is this ruling?
This is huge, and it will be interesting to see how both parties proceed. Most Americans think that the ability to bypass state laws and operate casinos on sovereign land are the biggest benefit to tribes. But sovereignty itself--the recognition of our right to live on our ancestral lands and govern ourselves—is arguably the best redress we have from the federal government.  Sovereignty enables tribes to negotiate state tax collections, which is a significant financial benefit to the tribal members. This is just one of the many implications that will be affected by this ruling.

What are some of the other major implications?
To me, one of the most significant tests of sovereignty is whether or not tribal courts have the right to try non-tribal members. This issue has also gone to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not uncommon for non-indigenous men—it’s usually men—to commit violence on tribal lands and escape justice due to jurisdictional issues. This has become an issue in the Violence Against Women Act in Congress. Think about this: Non-Native men rape women in Indian Country and are not subject to the tribal judicial system because we were only ever allowed to judge our own people. But we don’t get justice from state or local authorities when the crimes are committed on our land because it’s outside their jurisdiction. With this ruling, Oklahoma tribes are now in a high-profile position to press forward on jurisdiction: Can U.S. citizens be held accountable in tribal courts of law in Oklahoma? As the body of the tribal case law for Oklahoma tribes grows, other tribes will adopt similar legislation. That is a major win, in my opinion.

Shifting to a different current event: the pandemic. It is a global pandemic, but it is hitting the United States especially hard. What has been the impact on Alaska Native people?
So far, Alaska’s case numbers are low and largely concentrated in Anchorage. There have only been 2,132 cases statewide, of which 753 have recovered. But cases have grown exponentially recently, and there is concern in the villages.

Is that because of physical isolation and distance from healthcare providers?
Partly. Some villagers must travel by small plane or boat to reach the regional providers scattered throughout the state that provide healthcare to anyone who needs it. My understanding is that the regions have been able to manage the case loads so far. The local village governments and regional health providers are keeping close tabs on who is coming and going, and many have mandatory quarantines once you enter the village. They know that whole villages were wiped out by the influenza epidemic in 1918. At that time, the serum that saved lives was only given to whites. We obviously don’t have that concern today. A bigger concern than isolation and distance is the housing conditions in the villages.

How do those housing conditions affect COVID rates?
Many people live in overcrowded homes. Inupiat villages are susceptible to infectious disease in the same way as parts of New York and Houston and Los Angeles, where racism, low-paying jobs and densely populated housing leave people with high rates of underlying health problems. 

Shifting to something more positive now: The Beringia Settlement Trust was something you actively supported in your work. Tell us a bit about that.
The Beringia Settlement Trust is a fund established in 2018 to provide health, education, cultural preservation, and economic benefits to Alaska Native people. It’s written in very broad language. I’d like for us to identify our priorities and establish programs with clear, measurable goals that will strengthen our communities by making them safer and healthier.

Do you see the Beringia Settlement Trust as a means of building on the efforts of the ANCs?
I do. The 1971 land claim settlement established a tie between corporations—a capitalist notion—and traditional land use and ways of living. But it hasn’t been a magic bullet. For example, my ANC generates $400 million a year, yet we still have villages in our region living in conditions similar to those in developing countries when it comes to water and sewer. We can’t leave our villages stranded. I think the Settlement Trust is an efficient way for us to make meaningful change. We need to tie the success of the corporation to the health, education, and financial stability of our shareholders and descendants.

You're coming to the end of your first term on the board of directors for BSNC, and you were appointed as treasurer. You are currently in a re-election year. What are some of your goals, your vision for the future in terms of the BSNC and its shareholders?
First, I would like to see the Bering Straits Native Corporation take our federal contracting expertise and become commercially competitive. And this should be from an array of industries so that we have a diversified revenue base. Second, I want us to help the smaller corporations in our region with business development to generate income and provide jobs. And, finally, we have to continue to bring our young people into the fold and show them what the ANCs mean to all of us, but most importantly what it means to them. They are going to inherit what we are creating today. The ANCs are turning 50 next year. This generation and the next must be prepared to take us through the next 50.

That’s an interesting point. What’s your sense for young people’s interest in the traditional way of life?
There are young people who want to stay in our villages and continue to live semi-subsistence lives, and that’s great. We need them. They’re keeping our traditions alive. But we need to find a way for that life to be both economically and socially viable. Our villages suffer from high rates of poverty, alcohol, drug abuse and criminal activity. I think this is where the ANCs could do better. We could help build successful corporations in partnership with villages that could lead to an increase in the quality of life for our people.

And is there an exit path for those who are inclined to leave, even temporarily as you did?
There certainly are people who want to leave the villages for any number of reasons, but they often need education to succeed. They can get that through distance learning—if they have access to high-speed internet, which most of them don’t. Last-mile internet projects are extremely expensive.

Yet another challenge. It must be pretty daunting.
Yes. I’m not trying to make this sound easy, because it’s not. We’ve been grappling with some of these issues for more than 100 years. We’re talking about standing up businesses from small villages only accessible by plane or boat. But it’s happening, and more can be done. We, the Alaska Natives, need to figure this out amongst ourselves. And fortunately, we now have viable corporations that provide all of us with some income. We have resources at our disposal. There has never been a time when we were better connected to what the world has to offer. We have more opportunities than we had 50 years ago. More importantly, though, we don’t have a choice. We have to get this right.

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Raised in Nome and Anchorage, Alaska, Debbie Atuk is Inupiat and a proud shareholder and Board Treasurer of Bering Straits Native Corporation and is also a shareholder of Sitnasuak Native Corporation. As a portfolio specialist and relationship manager for Skyview Investment Advisors, she focuses on growing and preserving the assets of Alaska Native and Native American clients. She previously served as the Treasurer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Director of Business Development for Colville Tribal Federal Corporation, and Investment Banking Analyst for SG Cowen. Debbie received her BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Learn more at www.DebbieAtuk.com.

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