Short Bio

My professional career has focused on finding creative solutions for human progress mixing the best features of the private and public sectors. My public service career of twelve years was centered on election to the Alaska Legislature. My public service included many leadership positions including Speaker of the House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee Chairman and Chairman of the Alaska Criminal Code Commission. I was involved in many creative solutions and institutions for Alaska; the $ 60 Billion Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation organized by constitutional amendment saves in perpetuity 25% of all oil revenues to fund state government and dividends annually cash to all Alaskan citizens; the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is an award winning marketing organization; the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank is devoted to financing remote businesses not fitting mainstream banking; and the Medical Indemnity Corporation provided physician malpractice insurance due to lack of private sector insurance.

A second career of twenty-two years was devoted to establishing and growing an innovative startup seafood company from incubation to over $ 100 million in sales, one thousand employees and markets in twenty-two countries. I was a founder, CEO and Chairman of Silver Lining Seafoods and NorQuest Seafoods. These two companies developed added-value, consumer and specialty products for international markets from remote Alaska locations developing new jobs, new markets for fishermen and new products to satisfy specialized demands.

Since the sale of NorQuest Seafoods in May, 2004 through 2012 I worked on national health care reform. My goal was to blend my private and public sector experiences and skills in developing public policy solutions.  Essential Inventions is a Washington DC based non-profit that works on the advancement of access to health care for all global citizens. At Essential Inventions my work focused on a Patent Pools for Essential Medicines for developing countries and a new R&D funding mechanism – the Prize Fund – for medical innovation.  The Prize Fund was introduced as legislation by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in Congress.

I have worked for the Herndon Alliance, a national group, that assists health care reform advocates in more effectively communicating their policy ideas.  My  focus at  Herndon has been to assist health care reform groups to  build support in the business community for health care reform. In July, 2008 I moved to Washington DC to open the national office for Small Business Majority as national policy director to be directly involved in the efforts to get Congress to pass comprehensive national health care reform and promote other policies for America’s 28 million small businesses.

Currently I am working to develop the Best Practices Wiki a free public repository of best practices in many fields to help leaders and managers of small and medium size organizations build their organizations and achieve success. Along with this work I have published,“Six-Word Lessons to Build Effective Leaders: 100 Lessons to Equip Your People to Create Winning Organizations”.