january 2011 volume 36 • issue 1 Photo by M. Scott Moon, Peninsula Clarion Peninsula Moon, M. Scott by Photo Peak builds ice road for Kenai exploration NordAq to explore long-term gas prospects on CIRI subsurface estate Peak Oilfield Service Co. (Peak) is the Cook Inlet Land Exchange and will building a 3-mile ice road and 1-acre ice receive royalties if gas is produced. pad to provide access to NordAq Energy Inc. (NordAq) for exploratory drilling The project has generated jobs for on CIRI subsurface estate below the about 150 Kenai Peninsula residents Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. Peak and many subcontractors, according to is constructing the 30-foot-wide road a NordAq representative. using a mixture of freshwater, ice chips and snow. Ice roads are not common on “There have been so many people the Kenai Peninsula, and it has required in the community involved in the unusual measures, including renting project and community support three snowmakers from the Alyeska ski has been tremendous,” the NordAq resort and trucking ice from local salmon representative said. processing plants. Drilling is expected to begin late in NordAq plans to drill the “Shadura” gas January or early February and will be prospect in the Refuge and will target concluded by early March. the Beluga formation sands between 6,000 feet and 11,000 feet deep and CIRI and Nabors Industries Inc. each the Tyonek formation sands between own 50 percent of Peak. Peak provides 11,000 and 14,500 feet deep. Directional a variety of equipment, maintenance, drilling from an off-refuge site to reach support, construction and general these targets was not feasible because contracting services to oil, gas and of the distance involved. The ice road chemical projects on Alaska’s North accesses NordAq’s drill site with minimal Slope, the Kenai Peninsula, the environmental impact because it follows Matanuska Valley and Valdez. Peak wetlands and winds around timber also provides procurement, safety, islands to avoid tree cutting. CIRI engineering services and electric power Peak Oilfield Service Co.’s ice road project has created jobs for about 150 received the subsurface acreage as part of systems across Alaska. people on the Kenai Peninsula. Learn more by visiting www.peakalaska.com. Performance update Visit CIRI.COM CIRI’s private equity portfolio, CIRI shareholder venture investments strong discount programs CIRI’s private equity and securities investments CIRI started investing in private equity in 1997 as portfolio currently is comprised of publicly a means to diversify its overall portfolio. Private CIRI shareholders, their spouses and children traded securities and private equity funds that are equity and venture capital funds are managed are eligible to receive a 30 percent shareholder comprehensively analyzed and selected for their by third-party managers who raise funds from discount with CIRI Alaska Tourism strength and growth potential. continued on page 2 Corp. when booking a day cruise with Kenai “The company has in recent years Amyris, a Westly Group investment, produces sustainable fuel Fjords Tours or Prince William Sound Glacier alternatives to petroleum. Pictured is a microscopic look at yeast Cruises, or reserving a room at Talkeetna maintained about one-third of its assets in a diverse portfolio (colored in blue) producing and excreting BioFene (colored in gold), Alaskan Lodge or Seward Windsong Lodge. the precursor to renewable diesel and chemicals. For additional information or to make your of private equity, marketable Amyris of courtesy Photo reservations, call Alaska Heritage Tours at securities and venture capital (877) 258-6877. Limited availability, investments,” said Patrick restrictions, taxes, fees and terms and Duke, CIRI chief financial conditions apply. officer. “These investments lost significant value when world CIRI has also obtained discount benefits for financial markets crashed in fall CIRI shareholders for wireless phones and 2008. However, when tax benefits plans with ACS, GCI and AT&T. Visit are included, CIRI’s private www.ciri.com/wireless to learn more. equity and securities portfolio has recovered the value it lost during the crash.” CIRI is on Facebook! Get the latest CIRI news and updates at facebook.com/cirinews PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 2 NONPROFIT NEWS 4 IN TOUCH 5 CONDOLENCES 6 SHAREHOLDER NEWS 3 CIRI SPOTLIGHT 5 MISSING SHAREHOLDERS 5 raven’scircle 2 A word from the president Alaska must improve urban and rural education options By: Margie Brown, CIRI president and CEO Recently, Governor Parnell asked me to offer my suggestions about education the Molly Hootch decision require reevaluation. In fact, I fear that without reform in Alaska. I thought hard about what advice to offer. My analysis is an honest look at success at the high school level for small village schools, shaped by my family’s own experiences with Alaska’s education system. This we are shirking our duty to inquire and we threaten allowing a generation generational view begins with my grandfather, Adams Hollis Twitchell, whose of high school students arriving at college or trade school unprepared and impact on my family continues today. undereducated. And in today’s competitive world, undereducation places these students at a severe disadvantage. My grandfather was mostly a self-educated man with a mind inclined to natural science and a hunger for life-long learning. His life in Western Alaska U.S. testing has scored Alaska students near the bottom among the states, would come to include owning and operating trading posts and reindeer with Alaska Native students ranking among the worst performing groups in herds. And it would include raising a family and providing his children with the state. And these trends are getting worse. Alaskans are barely in the game opportunities for formal education. when our academic scores are below average and fewer than half of Alaska Native students graduate from high school. These statistics are ominous Educating children in remote, rural Alaska then was much different than because educational attainment directly correlates with virtually every quality today. For grandfather’s children, including my father, formal schooling of life measurement, including employment, income, propensity to crime and began at the mission at Holy Cross. After receiving encouragement from substance abuse, and even life expectancy. his Jesuit teachers, my father traveled alone to Fairbanks from the small community of Flat to attend high school. Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC), a CIRI-affiliated nonprofit, has developed several programs that are steadily improving Alaska Native and American Traveling away from home for schooling was the only realistic option at the Indian academic performance. CITC’s school-within-a-school program has time. Much more recently, the decision in the Molly Hootch lawsuit and the been in Anchorage grade, middle and high schools for nearly a decade and is resulting Tobeluk consent decree changed schooling options dramatically. steadily improving participant proficiency and scores on standardized basic Coming providentially at the same time as the wealth poured into state assessment tests and high school graduation qualifying exams. coffers from the royalties from Prudhoe Bay, these legal actions led to the state opening 105 secondary schools in rural Alaska, providing Alaska Native CITC educators have determined that children throughout the state the option to attend high school in their own the biggest challenges to improving communities, including for the first time, in rural Alaska. Not only would performance for all Alaska Native and these new schools provide for grade school and middle school children, they American Indian students in Anchorage would also incorporate high school students as well. are the homelessness (and near- homelessness), residential transiency While the 1972 Molly Hootch decision was a landmark, the world has and family instability among changed dramatically in the last 39 years. I believe now is the time to students. CITC is addressing these accurately reassess the impacts of that decision. Failure to carefully consider problems by building its innovative its effects nearly four decades later would be a disservice to our children and Dena’ina House residential school grandchildren. in east Anchorage for Native and American Indian students Clearly there were excellent outcomes from the Molly Hootch lawsuit and aged 14 to18. Dena’ina House Tobeluk consent decree. No longer would parents of grade school children will provide comprehensive face the prospect of the entire family leaving home and village so children education services that experts could go to grade school - the very decision my parents made when they and policy makers expect will decided they must move from our village of Takotna. Sending young children significantly improve students’ away to school was unacceptable to them. Providing for schooling in a home academic performance and village for young children was a huge and necessary change in the law. life outcomes. But when considering today’s high school age children, and the challenges continued on page 6 they face in an increasingly competitive marketplace, I feel the impacts of Charles G. Anderson, Aleut, Thomas P. Huhndorf, Yup’ik, Penny L. Carty, Aleut, Erik I. Frostad, Athabascan Chairman Secretary Assistant Treasurer Jeffrey A. Gonnason, Haida CIRI Board Roy M. Huhndorf, Yup’ik, Michael R. Boling, Athabascan, Hallie L. Bissett, Athabascan Chairman Emeritus Treasurer Katrina