Looking Beyond the Next Election: A Vision for Alaska’s Future with Brett Huber

I had the opportunity to have the length of vision, the horizon that I do now. Usually it's one candidate, one election, one product, one measure. You stand together, a team, you spend a million dollars, you build a business. It's got that one time and expiration date is right then and it goes away. With this, we can take our transformational ideas, our right center approach, our nonpartisan, nonsecular approach. We can touch different groups, bring them together. I can think about what do I want to accomplish in 2026 and what's the field going to look like in 2028 and what are those problems and how do we get into Alaskans involved and educated enough to make good quality decisions as we're coming into those things. So, most exciting for me, Climb Line. This organization and this guy for right now, I'm having so much fun at it, are here to stay and we can look past the next election cycle and really on how to make a constructive transformational change for Alaska. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. Hey everyone, welcome to the American Potential Podcast. I'm your host, David Fromm. So, if you ever travel to Alaska, you know how beautiful and rugged it is. I've had the blessing to spend a number of days, weeks in Alaska. When fishing there this past summer. And I've gotten to know the people in Alaska who really are a pretty fabulous, unique group of people. But Matt, engineer Matt, have you ever been to Alaska? No, Alaska's been one of my bucket list states that I need to go to though. I've been talking with Monica, producer of the show about that as well. We need to find a way to get the podcast into Alaska. That's a bucket list item we got to do it. We can do it. I did record some episodes from our office up there. Oh yeah, you recorded the episodes, but where was I? And where was Monica? I'm just saying. Although, you know, I always have that, the weather, you know, you have the, on your weather app, on your phone. A lot of times you just, you have different places you go and you see what the weather is. And I look at Anchorage and I'm like, ooh, wow. Now there are times though, myself living in the Chicago area, where I notice that Anchorage actually is a little warmer. But it's not very often. And the thing I was surprised by is how much rain they get and how cloudy it is. It's, you know, I think of it as like, you know, you're in Colorado where it's mountains, snowy mountains and blue skies, you know. And that's not necessarily true for Alaska, but man, when the summer comes in Alaska, everybody's outside. You just, everybody just goes outside because it's magnificent. It is just a breathtaking place. Well, and you've got, you know, basically the entire day is daylight from what I understand. So why wouldn't you go outside and take advantage of it? Yeah, I was sitting in a restaurant bar and I was like, man, I can't believe it's still so early. And I looked at it and we were watching, it's like, nope, it's 11 o'clock at night. I should go to bed. I was like, this is dangerous. But it is a magical place. It really is. It's so unique to so many other places. And I'm really excited to talk to our guest, Brett, who's gonna, who's lived in Alaska in life and has a lot to share. Well, today's guest knows Alaska pretty well. He spent decades right in the middle of Alaska's policy and political fights, especially on issues like energy and natural resources. Over the years, he served as a senior advisor, chief of staff, campaign manager to state legislators and governors, and most recently as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. And while that resume sounds impressive, just remember it all started by taking one small step and getting involved. Hello, welcome Brett Huber, who's American for prosperity, state director for Alaska. Brett, welcome. Good morning, David. It's great to be with you today. Thank you so much for the kind words of introduction. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to this conversation because, you know, we work together. I know your story. You know, we've had the pleasure of knowing each other for, you know, part of this year and have really gotten to know each other a lot more. And I thought it would just be a lot of fun for you to talk about, you know, how you've become a leader in the public policy space in a place that people really find fascinating, you know, Alaska. So maybe you could start, though, going all the way back, because I know you're not originally from Alaska. So talk about, you know, growing up, where you grew up, and like, what you wanted to do over your dreams. I'm going to do my best to remember that far back, David. Kind of tough for me to remember what I had for lunch yesterday. But yeah, it started for me in the Midwest. I was raised, I was born in 62 or I'm 63 years old. I was raised in a time when life, especially in that part of the country, was pretty simple. There was a lot of agricultural influence, right? People still did chores. We sent kids out to ride around their bikes in the neighborhood. We didn't worry about them. Raising me was as simple as opening the door in the morning and then calling me back in at night, right? So a lot different place and a lot different time. So I moved to high school or moved to Colorado when I was starting junior high. And I went to high school in Colorado and started college there. And in 1984, we were having a conversation of where to go next. And my wife Renee said, what do you think about Alaska, Brett? Two weeks later, we sold everything that would not fit in your whole trailer. We hooked it to our Jeep. We put our six month daughter in the car seat and we hit the road. Wow. So you just jumped in the car a few weeks later with a baby and drove up to Alaska. That's something a lot of people wouldn't do. Like what gave you that desire to do that? So I'm not sure. If you ask my parents and say because I was the hopeless black sheep of the family and always needed to try something new. For me, David, I loved the outdoors. I'd hunted and fished across the United States and I needed new ground. So when Renee said, what about Alaska? I jumped on and I'll tell you, we crossed the border. I think we had $800 left to our name. We had our stuff in our U-Haul. We found a little place to rent, but Alaska immediately felt like home to me. Just the feeling of this place, the outdoor community, the beauty, the way people bond together. It just has a unique, it's not just a unique place. It has unique people and unique feel. And clearly it was just home to me when I got here. So you guys, you got a small baby. You're living in Alaska. Were you up in Fairbanks? Was that where you originally were? Yeah, we moved straight to Fairbanks. We got there in March and just a quick story. I remember the first night that we saw the Northern Lights. It was unbelievable, mesmerizing. It's something you can't explain until you've seen it. I was so excited about it. I took my kitchen chair planted in the front yard. It was about 30 below. And I sat there and watched it so long I nearly couldn't get back to the house. So yeah, we plunged right into Fairbanks, the land of 50 and 60 below and ice fog and 90 degree summers. But we didn't stay there long. I took a job there that then ended up moving me to Anchorage. Nice. So, you know, your original career up there wasn't working in public policy or politics. So what did you do? Because I know you've done some interesting stuff that are very Alaskan. And that eventually led towards getting involved in politics and public policy. Yeah, like I said, as soon as we crossed the border, this state just kind of reached out and accepted us. We found a little place to live, went to work right away. My first job was tending bar at 10 at night till five in the morning shift at a little after hours bar outside of Fairbanks. That's quite a way to be introduced to a new state coming right after pipeline times, right? Great eye opener. And I went from there to a job and business that moved me to Anchorage. But for me, it's always been David, I like new challenges. I like new things. I'm not scared of saying yes. So when I had opportunity, I did. I moved kind of through the business community, got a chance to jump out and do some fishing with a friend of mine. That was a publisher of a magazine. A few photos in that led to an opportunity for me to move out in Bristol Bay, start a fishing lodge, run a hunting and fishing concession on a National Wildlife Refuge. I became a photographer, a guide, an outfitter, kind of bounced the family around the state. Rural Alaska on the peninsula was amazing. I moved back to Tallkeetna, South Central Alaska, where I became, again, a fishing guide, opened up a small business, a canvas shop in Tallkeetna, raising a young family and just kind of bouncing along enjoying life. And then like a lot of people, I noticed an outside threat, something that was just closing the world down around me and something I cared deeply about. And that's kind of what drug me into backwards to the policy and political discussion here. So fishing played a role in a big role in your life and still does. And fishing is really probably more central to Alaska than probably any other state, I'd guess. Maybe talk a little bit about fishing in Alaska, the role played in your life. And then I know it did lead directly to how you ended up ultimately getting involved in politics. It did. It did. So fishing took me to Alaska, the outdoors. Fishing like right over my shoulder, you know, 15-pound rainbow trout on a fly and a river in the fall. That kind of thing kept me here. I knew that this is where I was going to be. It's hard really to find a single topic that Alaskans are more passionate about than our fisheries. Whether they're a commercial fisherman harvesting for a living, whether a subsistence fisherman that's been doing it for thousands of years and it's part of their culture and part of their livelihood and really kind of a main staple of their real existence to folks like me that just want to go chase fish to people that want to go dip netting and put fish in the freezer. We all care about fish and it's a central topic to Alaska since fish is so important to us all. We're also passionate about it. We like to argue about the harvestable surplus and which user group should get the fish. Talk about dip net. That's the next. Isn't there a dip net? That's such a uniquely Alaska thing. Isn't there a quota? It's fantastic. Yeah, and it exists in only two fisheries. You have to be an Alaska resident to participate. You see people participate from little kids to grandmothers from shore to river banks to out on boats. We'll have several hundred thousand people participate in the dip net fishery. There's three of them in the state by far the most popular down here in the Kenai Peninsula. We're allowed 25 per family and then 10 for each additional household member. We've had times when we've been dip netting and with a family of five putting 90 fish in the boat and doing it in 30 minutes to two hours. It is amazing. It's fun. There's nothing like that. And it's a bunch of food, David. I've been, I've rode up river in my boat before where I've had to put all of the people that were dip netting with me off on shore to catch a ride at the bridge because the boat was too heavy to go upstream. I mean, it's a serious salmon fishery. No, it sounds like you're in the Gospels like fishing with the Lord. It's threw your net out on the right side. Yeah, my guess is he wouldn't be nearly as clumsy about it as we Alaskans all are, but it's just a great way to fill our freezers. Yeah, I think this is so uniquely Alaskan. It's so cool. Like you have certain rights as Alaskans and I kind of appreciate that. It's like, hey, no, we get to do this. We get to go and get this a lot of fish because it's the relationship we have with our environment. And I know it's taken really seriously in Alaska. Well, and you know, we're common property resource, resource owners here, right? So instead of having individual rights like subsurface rights or mineral rights or oil and gas rights, our resources have been collectivized. So those fish and game, our waters, our resources are a holding common by the people and having that direct connection to it, the ability to participate in the harvest, the ability to feed your family super important to us in Alaska. So how did you take your first step to getting involved in what became your very successful career and in public policy? You know, I deal with, as you know, in the business we're in, we help people take their first step all the time. And often it's a specific issue that gets under their skin or rubs them the wrong way or they know they need or they see in their life or somebody else's life doesn't exist. And it finally just gets you over the edge. And they start out with making a phone call or coming into an AFP office or getting involved in a small campaign. I did mine a little bit different way. I had an accomplice, a really good fishing and hunting colleague of mine served in the Alaska legislature. And he came down with me to fish in that fateful summer of 1994, David. Oh, yeah. And yeah, I was complaining about the fishery management. I was complaining about the allocation. I was watching our fisheries and our opportunity, especially for our families and young kids changing. And I was frustrated about that. So my friend Al, we'll just call him Al said, well, you know, young man, we'd like to have some smart people get involved early in the process. And you're at least young. I don't know about smart, but $35 and sign up and you can run for office. So David, my one small step was registering to file for the state house here in Alaska. Got to one big step, actually. Yeah. And I had no idea, right? I'd not been to a political meeting before. I'd not been involved in the party. I was, of course, involved in the community member like a lot of parents and businessmen were, but not representing other people. So what an amazing opportunity I campaigned around the district. I got to know the district, not just the issue I cared about, but those same issues other people cared about. I got to see other people taking that small step. And quite frankly, I really enjoyed campaigning. I'd kind of jumped into politics headfirst. I lost in a Republican primary by a narrow margin after being the conservative from Talkeet in Alaska. And when you're here, Talkeet and Homer, not the conservative strongholds in the state, right? They're kind of our arts communities, our village communities, lots of diverse opinions. So I felt pretty good about that. I managed the campaign of the young lady that defeated me instead of going home and, you know, chucking my toys under the under the porch. I still wanted to be involved. The issue I cared about still motivated me and I just found a different path. But that's the issue. That's the step I took, whether it's knocking on a door or phone call or talking to a neighbor or falling for office. It all just begins the process. And I just found a home in that process for me. I care deeply about Alaska. I have a bit of a knack working with issues. I love working with people. So it's kept me in and out coming back to the public policy process side now for nearly 40 years. Well, you've had an interesting path too. I mean, you've done, you've held some really interesting, cool positions in government and then decided to go do other things too that you enjoyed. So maybe talk to walk us through a little bit of your path over the last few decades. Well, for me, I never wanted to, you know, go to work for government. I never wanted that. I didn't think that was my career path representing other people. I didn't think what was my career path. I wanted like a lot of people to do a decent job of managing the things within my world, the things I could reach out and touch, making sure kids are involved and, you know, going to bed and being fed and learning to read and being involved in school, being involved with my church and my community. Those kind of things. But then I realized that there's a bigger opportunity. I got involved. I became a staff member for the senator from this district, got to see how the political process works, but more importantly, how the legislative process works. And I went to work for the legislature back in the days when you could have people that wildly disagreed on a topic, but could have an adult conversation about it, could respect each other about it, could hear both sides. When we'd take bills to the floor that you didn't know if they were going to pass or fail. And the discussion on the floor is actually what made that determination. Back when, you know, when I saw the process, this amazing process our founders put in place, working pretty well. So I loved it. It pulled me in, but it became apparent to me, people that had been down there for a while when I got there, had been there long enough so really their lens seemed to be from the government perspective, from the government lens. What do we need to do to make sure our budget's sustainable? What do we need to do to make sure that we can fund these programs? Which new programs do we want to bring on? Oftentimes the discussion was really internal. Capital in Juneau, removed from Alaskans, not a lot of influence from other people. You go down there for 120 days and people just start looking through the government lens. I don't want to be that guy. So I'd come and go from politics and public policy. So I think I worked for six different senators, chief of staff in each office. I was policy advisor to the Senate Finance Committee. I got to work for one senator in the interim and one senator in the summer. But I took several years off too and started businesses and sold advertising and worked with community members. And I just wanted to make sure I was grounded in how I was raised, where I was from. You didn't want to go to work for the government. That's what you did if you couldn't get a job in the private sector. I have found, and don't get me wrong, those positions are important. I've held up many of them. I felt like I've earned my money, but still it's a different lens. It's a different perspective than writing a paycheck, signing the front end, balancing a small budget, doing all those things on a daily basis like most of the people out there are doing. And it's really only a section of us that get caught up in politics and public policy. And I wanted my perspective to be kind of broad. So I'd bounce in and work for a senator. I'd bounce out and be a fishing guide for a summer. I'd bounce in and work for the legislature for a year and a half. I'd leave and spend time with my family and run a statewide nonprofit. And see what that nonprofit perspective is. So for me, lots of opportunities in Alaska. I like new challenges. In a short story of my career, I think you could sum up by just calling me a gypsy, David. Well, that wandering though, you kind of took a sabbatical at one point, right? Went to a warmer climate and just did kind of lived everybody's dream. You went and did it, right? So in 2005, I'd been really involved in politics now for, you know, 11 years or so. I'd been working full time. I'd been running, I think I was serving on 10 or 12 boards. Nice thing about Alaska is we're a great big state, David, but we're a fairly small pond. So a kid like me from the Midwest, it just had a bit of a work ethic and kind of an active mind and wanted to get involved, has had that opportunity here. So I've been able to do more things here than I'm sure I would have any other place. One of the things that's beautiful about Alaska, one of the things that I like to remind people our motto is North to the Future. That's still available and it certainly was when I came here. So I had the opportunity to bounce in and about at start a couple of businesses, run some campaigns, work on some balloted issues, come into the governor's office as a policy advisor on state affairs, deal with the communications director position during COVID when it was really important to talk to people, but get back out of there, spend some time taking care of my elderly folks as they needed it because family and free enterprise and people and individuals is why I got this job in the first place and it remains my priorities. And with this organization, they're the same kind of priority issues that I'm able to work on every day. So that's what's got me back in the game and I'm super happy to be here. Well, we're really happy for you to be running our state chapter there. You're off to a wonderful start. I can tell that because I probably know better than anyone. I watch and pay attention. And we're really excited about the leadership that you're providing. But you've not always, I know when we talked about you joining the state director, you were kind of like, well, might retire, might not retire, semi-retired. What made you decide to want to keep coming back and being involved in the public policy process? Yeah, so that's a great question. And part of it I'd say is just, you know, what worked best for me individually? How did it fit in my life? What are my priorities? But the other part was that it's what I do. It's what my career has been built in. It's where my relationships are. It's my personal and professional passion. So I've tried twice to retire. The first time from the governor's office, I was his policy director and communications director when I left there to take care of my father who was suffering from Alzheimer's, helped my mother care for him. Great decision. We'd do it again 100% of the time. It was a priority for me. But I understood after that that that was important work, but I didn't have something to fulfill that passion, that drive, that thing that makes me want to get out of bed and do good things and be involved in the community. So pulled me back to Alaska and pulled me back to the position at the Alaska Well and Gas Conservation Commission. The governor asked me to serve there. I was happy to say yes. Spent about a year and a half, accomplished a couple of the big goals he wanted to accomplish. And then it was time to go spend some time with my mom, David, and also again have some time with kids and to reflect on where I'm at and take another crack at retirement. That one lasted about a year and a half again, David, and I learned a couple things. Time with your parents is irreplaceable. Anybody that has that opportunity should take it. And I'm horrible at retiring. So it was hard to come back. I didn't know if I wanted to come back in politics. We shared this conversation, right? You were part of that process. Because I missed those times when we could have diverse conversations, opposing viewpoints, good discussions. I missed the times when it wasn't the gotcha moment of the day, the immediacy of looking for power, the putting things aside and not coming up with those kind of solutions. And it was a struggle for me until it dawned on me after one of my many discussions with you and a couple of the people I really respect up here, that if I want to have those type of conversations in politics again, if I think it's important that we listen and not just look, if I think it's important that we care about grassroots and what the people want, that's what this job is. So it's been 100% a perfect fit. Super excited I decided to get back in the arena and can't think of a better organization or a better bunch of people or a better state at a more important time than this juncture right now. So I'm living my best life and I'm happy to be doing it. I love to hear that. So tell us what you've been doing in this, you know, you've been doing the job for a number of months now. Tell us what you've been doing and then what are you excited or fearful of in the future for Alaska? Great questions, right? So again, I've been in public policy for almost 40 years here. So we're dealing with a number of these issues that are Groundhogs Day issues that Alaska has been trying to solve for quite some time. Some kind of fiscal stability. How do we provide stability and predictability for resource development issues? In Alaska, prosperity kind of is resource development. So as you know, we're leaning in on these issues. That's where our jobs come from. That's where our economic base comes from. That's where those family wage jobs that allow partners to make decisions about how to work, how to move forward, what their American dream looks like and how to take care of their kids. So we have all of those things going on. But for me, it really is about what do Alaskans want and how do we involve Alaskans that align with us in our right center, common sense, priorities and objectives, right? Our principles based on really just common sense, how human progress works, how the system works, what transformational change looks like. So it couples the opportunity for a really important time in Alaska to lift Alaskans' voices in the process, right? I joke with people, I'm a community organizer. The other day I tried this one, I said, I am Alaska's Barack Obama. It did not go well in my crowd. I'm not going back to that one again. But truly, right? I thought of that too. So the first issue that we took up was a misguided sales tax proposal from our municipal mayor. She just passed the largest budget ever just under the tax cap. Anchorage by all measures is not succeeding. The failed kind of progressive, revised history, canceled culture, identity politics, backwards plans for homelessness, etc. have our city in a bit of a tailspin. At the same time, the only answer for the very progressive government in our town has been more money spent on things people don't care about. So that issue popped up. Anchorage residents across the board and across the political spectrum were immediately angry about it. But it's been a while here since local governments listened to the people. A lot of people were disaffected. A lot of people didn't know if it mattered. So I saw an opportunity for our organization to do what we do. We provided a little bit of organization. We spent a little bit of money on messaging. We listened to people and brought their message out through radio shows, through statewide op-eds, through call-ins, through town hall meetings. We just got people involved in the process. And then Anchorage residents went to the assembly, went to the phones, went to the letters to the editor, went to their neighborhoods, went to other community councils, and it resulted in the mayor pulling that sales tax proposal. It didn't even go to a vote. So what have we been doing? Trying to understand what Alaskans care about, trying to take a little bit of background that I have in this process, and trying to take an organization that's well resourced and well staffed and well respected and make a difference. And we've done that. I'm past the three-month mark, so thank you for not referring to me as the new guy in Alaska. I just don't want to be the new guy anymore. I want to be the guy that's helping get things done. And I think we're on a pretty good path. Still lots to learn. Still lots of people to get involved. Still lots of areas of the state to get involved. But I think we're on a path to do that and it excites me, David. That's great. Is there one thing that you're most excited about when you look ahead? For me personally, from this position, so I think 30-some campaigns, right? I've managed over my career, 35 years inside and outside of public policy. Never in that process have I had the opportunity to have the length of vision, the horizon that I do now. Usually it's one candidate, one election, one product, one measure. You stand together, a team, you spend a million dollars, you build a business. It's got that one time and the expiration date is right then and it goes away. With this, we can take our transformational ideas, our right-center approach, our nonpartisan, nonsecular approach. We can touch different groups, bring them together. I can think about what do I want to accomplish in 2026 and what's the field going to look like in 2028? What are those problems? How do we get Lelaskans involved and educated enough to make good quality decisions as we're coming into those things? Most exciting for me, Timeline. This organization and this guy for right now, I'm having so much fun and are here to stay. We can look past the next election cycle and really on how to make a constructive transformational change in Alaska. You're a man at the right time because I have a lot of confidence in your leadership for AFP Alaska. Alaska is at a crossroads. There are some big decisions that the leaders of the state will have to make and it will be very consequential for how do you fund government? What do you do with resource development? Can we just keep spending there? There's big things and then there's big races on the Senate and Congress and the governor's race and the legislature. It's a fascinating place politically right now and with a lot up for grabs and you're right in the middle of it. We're happy you're our man in Alaska. It's a fascinating place for a lot of reasons. We have no professional sports team in Alaska, none. Our state professional sport is politics, David. People in other states wouldn't understand that. You come here, we know and expect to see our congressmen, our U.S. senators, our governor at the airport at the grocery stores. We're a small state. We're only one congressional district. So that's one difference. Another difference is we're a long ways away from our neighbors. So we feel quite self-reliant and people bring that attitude to all things that they look at. Yeah, that might work there. Does it work here making those decisions? But you're exactly right. We like to say most important election ever. Yeah. Biggest decisions in history, right? We like to say that. We like to get people fired up. It is all important. Every time people vote and actually reach out and take their one chance to touch their government, it's important. But here in Alaska this time, we have a $1.6 billion structural deficit in the budget. We have a permanent fund that we're trying to decide what the future of looks like and what does that redistribution look like. We have a ton of good news on resource development side, but most of those gains happen six or seven years out. So this next five years is a tough time. Super important time. For example, if Alaska would determine that they don't want alignment between the president, our congressional delegation, the governor, and if Alaskans would decide they don't like finally making great gains in resource development like we've seen under this presidency, completely contrasted with the Biden administration, they care about all of those things. Now is the time to make that difference. I think it really is in a lot of people's mind the election where we decide who we want to be when we grow up in Alaska. Alaska was born three years ahead of me, right? I call it a young state. That means I'm a young man. Yep. Anytime I can relate to being a young man, I'll take it. It's just a great time. It really is. And people feel that there's risk, right? There is tremendous, tremendous potential for good or for real threat for Alaska's future in this election cycle. And in these next four years, we're really young. We haven't grown up. We haven't made the decisions of other states. Our economy is not diversified. Our energy costs are still through the roof and some of the highest in the nation. We don't own our individual property rights. So we distribute them through a thing called the Permanent Fund of it. Dividend. All those issues are on the table right now. And this next election is just going to make the decision whether people still believe in Alaska, whether it's north to the future, or we're managing a steady decline. We've become a national park and the last one here shuts off the lights. And that's really what we're looking at. People understand that. So it's a great time to be on my job. Folks are motivated now. We just have to do what we need to do and make sure their voices heard. Well, I've had a chance to watch the job you've done in the first number of months you've been doing this. And I'm super glad you're our guy for Americans prosperity in Alaska. So, right, I really appreciate you sharing your story. It's such an interesting story. I love your stories. I've had a chance to listen to them in long form. I'm glad you could share some of it with us here. Yeah, the chancellor, you've been forced to listen to a couple of them in long form. And I'm sorry. Alaskans are really excited about who we are and where we live and what's different here and what's same here and what's unique here. So I feel that way. I've also a believer in people. And if we just concentrate on family free enterprise, simple solutions, some back to basics in a fast changing world, I think we've got a great future up here and I couldn't be happier than to be able to represent this organization in my state. Great. You feel the same. Thanks, Brad. Thanks, David. AmericanPotential.com