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ABOUT OUR BOARD

Linda Harrigan - President and Treasurer - Ms. Harrigan manages The Lu Young Children’s Fund supporting all fundraising efforts and identifying non-profits that fill the organization’s mission to help Alaska’s native children live healthy, happy, and productive lives. She comes to the job with more than 30 years of experience supporting the C-Suite executives of Fortune 500 companies. Previous jobs include Jack Ferguson Associates, a Washington, DC-based lobbying firm for Fortune 500 companies; Capital Guidance, a $2B private equities firm; and Colfax Corporation, a $4B specialty fluid handling company. Ms. Harrigan also spent the last 30 years working with children, many of them touched by cancer or impacted through the cancer diagnosis of loved ones. After earning her master’s degree in Grief Counseling and Thanatology, she served as a Board Member with Hospice of Charles County in Alaska, where she founded and implemented Camp Sunshine, a grief camp for children suffering from the loss of a loved one. She also founded and implemented Camp Coho in Anchorage, Alaska, a one-day grief camp for native Alaskan children.

 

Duncan C. Smith - Board Member and Secretary - Mr. Smith engages primarily in a legislative and administrative government relations practice representing clients with business, legislative, and regulatory challenges and opportunities in connection with a wide range of issues, including transportation, infrastructure, and public facilities; maritime; environment; defense and homeland security; federal budgetary matters; economic and natural resources development; government contracting; public finance; non-profits; and election, lobbying, and ethics compliance.  He has decades of experience in the public arena.  Previously Mr. Smith was a staff counsel to the House Merchant Mine and Fisheries Committee and was a U.S. delegation congressional advisor to the International Maritime Organization.  He is also a retired Coast Guard Reserve Rear Admiral. 

 

Michael G. Anderson - Board Member - ​Mr. Anderson serves as the Executive Director for the Native American Contractors Association, a 40-member government contracting trade association representing Native community-owned businesses that advance the economic development interests of over 1 million Native Americans across the United States.  Mr. Anderson is a Native Hawaiian from Maui, Hawaii, and is a 1975 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy.  He has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Northern Colorado, and a Masters in Strategic Military Studies from the Air University.  After retirement, Mr. Anderson became the Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative Don Young from Alaska.  He left Capitol Hill in April 2009 to become president of Wolf Creek Fabrication Services, Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chugach Alaska Corporation.  He was later promoted to positions in business development, and finally served as Chugach’s first Director of Government Relations in January 2014 before he was selected as NACA Executive Director in April 2015.

 

Jack Ferguson - Board Member - Jack Ferguson joined the staff of Representative Don Young of Alaska in 1973, starting as legislative director and rising to chief of staff.  He worked on the legislation that authorized the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Aug. 4, 1973.   Jack began working for Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens in January 1976 as the chief of staff for the Office of the Deputy Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate.  As a Stevens aide, he worked directly on shaping the statutory language and the policy decisions that were incorporated into ANILCA.   Jack opened JFA on April 1, 1978, as an advocate for Alaska and for many organizations and companies that do business within Alaska.  Jack holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from the University of Oregon.  His dissertation was on “Congressional Consideration of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.”
 

Gail Anagick Schubert - Board Member - Gail Anagick Schubert serves as the President & CEO of Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC), an Alaska Native regional corporation serving 17 villages in the Bering Straits region. Gail was born and raised in Unalakleet, Alaska, and is an Inupiat. She serves as Chair of the Alaska Retirement Management Board and the Alaska Native Justice Center, Vice Chair of the ANCSA Regional Association, Vice Chair of Akeela Treatment Services, Treasurer of the Alaska Federation of Natives, and Vice Chair of the Native American Contractors Association. Gail is an ATHENA society member, YWCA Woman of Achievement awardee, and a 2014 recipient of the Northwest Indian Bar Association’s Unsung Hero Award. Prior to joining BSNC in 2003, Gail practiced law in Anchorage for more than a decade after starting her career on Wall Street.  Gail earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University's Johnson School of Management, and a Juris Doctorate from Cornell Law School.  She is admitted to practice law in Alaska and New York. 

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