in Bilibino, using the only computer in town to write up the
the incident notification agreement between the plant and
environmental authorities in Alaska. The time that Russian
scientists left a baby polar bear in a box in the living room of
our cabin on Wrangel Island exemplified the Arctic for me: It
can be endearing and beautiful, but also deadly.
Innovation – in politics, in space sensor technology, in
telecommunications, in aviation, in shipping (a double ended
icebreaker, spoon shaped at one end for ice, v-shaped at the
other for heavy seas, is the new normal for icebreaker design,
thanks to some brilliant work in Finland) – is what’s driving
us to a safer, more accessible Arctic. Today, I’m working with
a string of businesses, many Alaska Native-owned, to make
sure the economic opportunities are shared by the people who
live here. I chair the Polar Advisory Board for the satellite firm
Iridium, and we’re launching 70 new birds this year to bring
better telecom capability to the North. At Pt Capital, we’re
investing in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, and Greenland, and
helping to stitch together the North economically.
All told, there’s lots to be done – lots of fun to be had –
and lots of innovation to bring to the process. I hope future
generations give us credit, because what many Arctic players
have in mind is maintaining the wonder and beauty and cul-
ture and biodiversity of the top of the world, while making it
far more useful to humankind.
Mead Treadwell is President of Pt Capital, an Arctic-focused private equity investor based
in Anchorage, Alaska. He served as Lt. Governor of Alaska from 2010 to 2014 and Chair and
Commissioner of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission under Presidents Bush and Obama
from 2001 to 2010. He chairs the North Pacific Alaska Chapter of the Explorers Club and
Iridium’s Polar Advisory Board, and co-chairs the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Polar Initiative.
Mead Treadwell
President
Pt Capital