Prior to the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), Alyeska made a commitment to the Alaska Native community to recruit, train, employ and promote Alaska Natives. This commitment was defined in Section 29 of the Federal Agreement and Grant of Right-of-Way for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Alyeska’s Alaska Native Program supports the TAPS Owners’ contractual commitment with the Federal Government. Section 29 of the Federal Grant of Right of Way is an agreement that simply recognizes Alaska Natives as land owners, like all private land owners, must be compensated for land use and occupancy by TAPS. Instead of cash payments, Alaska Natives opted for jobs and job training opportunities on TAPS. Section 29 is a program to fulfill the Right of Way agreement between TAPS owner companies and Alaska Native people.
In 1974, Alyeska signed the original Alaska Native Utilization Agreement (ANUA) with the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) to afford Alaska Natives recruitment, testing, training, placement, employment and job counseling opportunities on TAPS. In the agreement, Alyeska committed to hire Alaska Natives for 20 percent of its workforce.
Alyeska and the Department of Interior renewed the commitment to Section 29 in September 2007. The new agreement removes the three-year renewal process and establishes our commitments in perpetuity, retains the overall 20% goal of Alaska Native hire and an annual budget of 2.1 million. Over the past four years Alyeska as a company has met and exceeded the Section 29 goals, and remains committed to maintaining these percentages for the life of the Grant of Right-of- Way.
Alyeska offers training and development to all of its employees, including programs specifically for the development of Alaska Natives. The company continues to maintain an employee development program which hires promising Alaska Native candidates and other minorities, and women to grow them into valued employees through the Building Foundations for Excellence Program. This program focuses on transferring knowledge within the workforce. Participants gain experience and receive training in areas such as leadership, management, technical operations, engineering, safety and regulatory compliance.
Since 1996, Alyeska has awarded more than $8 million to Alaska Native students pursuing higher education. The investment yields a more qualified and diverse pool of candidates to fill these technical positions. Alyeska has been funding engineering scholarships for the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP) at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) since 1995 and provided funding for the construction of the new 14,000 square foot ANSEP building on UAA’s campus. In 2007, the company made a multi-year commitment to the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University to help support university education for rural Alaskan students and for developing experienced technical and craft professionals into vocational instructors. Additionally, Alyeska funds two full-ride Master degree scholarships through the University of Alaska Fairbanks through 2011.
In August 2007, our commitment to continue our long-standing partnership with the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) was announced. Alyeska will provide over the next six years a total of $473,000 in monetary support as well as over 30-plus volunteers annually to assist in ensuring that the AFN Convention is a success.