Deko Harbi, Shannon Smith, and Tali Stone are former Alaska foster youth. All three recently visited the Capitol in Juneau as part of a trip organized by Facing Foster Care in Alaska....

Alaska State House Representative Kevin McCabe of Big Lake landed in Kodiak with the Coast Guard in 1981. He raised his three sons there before he began work as a pilot. That work took him to East Anchorage and eventually to Big Lake. He...

Mindy O’Neall is the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly Chair and the Executive Director of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. CCHRC is a non-profit organization located near the Univerity of Alaska Fairbanks that for the past ...

Rep. Andrew Gray is the usual host of this podcast, but in this episode he is the guest. He is interviewed by his Legislative Aide Kyle Johansen at the request of his other legislative aide Claire Bredar in honor of her bir...

Legislative Lobbyist Reed Stoops moved to Alaska in 1971 after his youth on the East Coast. He worked as a Committee Aide to Kay Poland in the State Senate and then took a job in the Department of Natural Resources in Gov. Jay ...

Alaska State House Representative Jubilee Underwood of Wasilla lost the August 2024 primary to the incumbent Representative David Eastman. Few folks thought that she had a chance of winning that race, but come November, Und...

Michael Rovito is the deputy director of the Alaska Power Association (APA). The Alaska Power Association is the statewide trade association that represents the electric utilities that supply power ...

Alaska State Senator Rob Yundt was born and raised in Wasilla and stumbled into wrestling as a 7th grader. Little did he know that wrestling would change his life ultimately leading to a career as a professional Mixed Martial Arts f...

 Alaska State Senator Matt Claman first laid eyes on Alaska while working as a cook for a mining company the summer before his senior year of college. After law school, he made his way back to Alaska settling in Anchorage. In the mi...

Dr. Brock Wilson is the newest faculty at UAA’s Institute of Social And Economic Research (ISER). Brock recently earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Oregon where his primary area of study was labor economics. His most impo...

Alaska State House Representative Bill Elam of Kenai and Nikiski served for almost six years on the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly before running for the open House seat created when former Rep. Ben Carpenter ran for the Alaska ...

Representative Frank Tomaszewski of Fairbanks got his start in local politics opposing a plan by North Star Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins to build a parking lot near Frank’s home. He ran for the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly in 2019...

Anchorage Attorney Pat Galvin grew up in southern California and hoped to be a sports agent. He never intended to be an attorney, to live in Alaska, nor work in state government. But as a relatively young lawyer he got a job in Governor ...

Sarah Vance spent her early life in north Texas and Oklahoma before moving to Homer, Alaska, at age 10. She had not paid much attention to politics until a 2017 Homer City Council resolution to make Homer a sanctuary city for immigrants....

Alaska State Refugee Coordinator Issa Spatrisano does her work through Catholic Social Services' Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services (RAIS)...

Former Alaska State Senate Minority Leader Hollis French moved to Alaska from Colorado when he was 20 to work in the oil industry. After earning a law degree, he worked as a prosecutor and then, when the opportunity presented itself, ran...

Bronson Frye is the Alaska representative for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, local 1959. At age 19, he apprenticed in Anchorage with the union as a painter after growing up in Homer. Bronson became the union rep i...

Dr. Mimi Benjamin has been a family practice physician for over 35 years, the last 14 in Juneau. She is the former Medical Director and creator of the Bartlett Regional Hospital Hospitalist program, which started in 2017. She is the 2018...

After 29 years at the Alaska Literacy Program, Lori Pickett recently retired and handed off the executive director responsibility to Deepika Ramesh Perumal. Both women are interviewed on the show today where we discuss their lives...

Megan Edge is the Prison Project Director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska. At age 19, Megan got her first job in a newsroom, and she worked as a journalist for seven years covering local Anchorage issues, state polit...

Writer and former Anchorage Assembly member Charles Wohlforth is the author of more than ten books and numerous articles about science and the environment, politics and history, medicine, travel, and as-told-to biography including his 20...

Former Alaska State House Representative Kyle Johansen was first elected to represent his hometown of Ketchikan in 2006. Two years later he became the Majority Leader in the Republican-led House. After being re-elected as Majority Leader...

Michelle Macuar Sparck is the director of strategic initiatives of the organization Get out the Native Vote. Get out the Native Vote is a non-partisan effort in Alaska to mobilize Alaska Native and American Indian Voters. Michelle Sparck...

Michelle Turner is an environmental scientist who serves as the president of the Anchorage Democrats. Her day job is as a Principal Scientist with over 25 years of professional experience providing analysis and strategic advice under the...

Tom Pittman is the new Executive Director of Identity Inc. which was established in 1977 as the Alaskan Gay Community Center. Over the years, Identity has had different roles and purposes within the Alaska LGBTQIA2S+ community but has al...