Two fledgling Haines manufacturers have won the top awards at Sealaska’s second Path to Prosperity competition, each netting $40,000 for technical and consulting services they can use to build their businesses.
Fairweather Ski Works and Port Chilkoot Distillery won the dual, top prizes in the competition that began with 27 start-up businesses from around Southeast.
“It’s a great opportunity for both of them and great recognition for Haines for them both to win,” said Haines Chamber of Commerce president Kyle Gray. Gray said he wasn’t particularly surprised the two companies came out on top, as he’s familiar with them. “I think they’ve both got sharp people running them and they’re going to be successful.”
Port Chilkoot Distillery co-owner Heather Shade said she planned to use the money for upgrading the company’s website, for marketing and for technical help developing new products using local resources. Ian Seward of Fairweather Ski Works said he and partner Graham Kraft would likely use the money to expand marketing and pick up some bookkeeping skills, including projecting the company’s growth.
Seward’s small shop on Mud Bay Road has produced about 120 pairs of skis since opening in the fall of 2013. Ski-maker Kraft – whom Seward calls the “beating heart and driving force” behind the company – recently started producing light touring and Nordic styles.
Shawn Blumenshine, Path to Prosperity program administrator, said both companies won points for using local materials and for showing potential for adding jobs to the community. Judges liked the distillery’s marketing plan, its success lobbying for changes in state law to allow for a tasting room, as well as its focus on quality, he said.
Blumenshine cited the ski company’s rapid ability to partner with other companies, including a Juneau graphics firm that is already decorating Fairweather skis with Northwest Coast Native art. The company also has been working with the Haines Avalanche Information Center and the Haines Alpine Touring Society, a new project aimed at developing alpine huts.
Seward said the contest award will allow his company to “do the things that make a business a real business,” including advertising. “We’d certainly like to expand out to a broader range of (products).”
Shade said the award will allow the distillery to develop new products using local resources such as local woods for flavoring and to expand its market outside of Alaska. “It will allow us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do at this time.”
The distillery makes vodka, gin and moonshine and will release its first bourbon this year. Local gardeners grow herbs used by the company. Judges scored the company up for such craftsmanship.
“That’s our focus. We’re not trying to be Jack Daniels. We want to create something that’s appropriate for Haines, but that we can export, too,” Shade said. That two local companies won amounts to “a huge economic benefit to Haines,” Shade said.
Administrator Blumenshine said judges at the business competition didn’t realize they’d made awards to two businesses in the same community until after their decision. He said that in addition to the $40,000, the companies will get four consultations with a Path to Prosperity committee to help them guide their spending.
“The idea is to spend the money the best way they can to advance their plan and make it attractive to other funders in the future,” Blumenshine said.
Path to Prosperity is a partnership between the Nature Conservancy and Haa Aani, Sealaska’s economic development subsidiary. The program is funded for another year. For more information, go to http://www.p2p.web.org.