Join us for the annual Ladies Lunch, a conference tradition bringing together women from across Alaska’s construction industry for an afternoon of connection, conversation, and a little fun. Enjoy lunch while catching up with familiar faces, meeting new ones, and celebrating the women who help keep Alaska building. Whether you’re a longtime attendee or joining us for the first time, pull up a chair—we’d love to have you at the table.

Today’s workforce spans generations with very different ideas about communication, leadership, and even what it means to work. Keynote speaker Jeff Utecht brings decades of experience working with Millennials and Gen Z to help construction leaders better understand the perspectives shaping the next generation of workers. Attendees will explore the generational “rub” happening in today’s workplace and walk away with practical strategies for improving communication, retaining employees, and building stronger, more connected teams.

Get the latest on Port MacKenzie’s development priorities, infrastructure needs, and outlook for future growth. This session will explore what’s ahead for the port, how it connects to Alaska’s broader transportation network, and what contractors should know about potential opportunities for industry involvement.

Alaska's construction workforce is aging while skilled labor remains difficult to replace. Many of the health conditions that reduce productivity, increase injury risk, and lead to early retirement, including poor sleep, obesity, metabolic disease, low testosterone, cardiovascular risk factors, and inadequate recovery, are both common and treatable.

This interactive session will examine the science behind these issues, dispel common myths, and provide practical strategies for employees and employers to support healthier, safer, and more productive careers. Participants will leave with actionable tools they can apply personally and within their organizations, regardless of where they receive healthcare.

Technology is everywhere in construction—but which tools are actually worth the investment? This panel will cut through the hype and explore technologies that are delivering measurable results in the field, from improving productivity and safety to reducing costs and streamlining operations. Hear directly from industry professionals about what’s working, what isn’t, and where contractors are seeing real return on their technology investments.

Getting workers to Alaska and into construction is only half the challenge. Keeping good people requires more than just competitive pay and benefits. Retention is an outcome shaped by the conditions we create around people.

This interactive session explores the organizational conditions that influence whether people stay, perform, and thrive in Alaska’s construction industry. We’ll examine the unique realities of working in Alaska, and how these realities intersect with physical and psychological safety, mental health and substance use, workplace culture, leadership, connection, organizational policies, and the way work itself is designed.

Through practical examples, lived experience, and a human-systems design lens, participants will explore what it means to move upstream: intentionally designing workplace conditions that better prepare and support people before quiet quitting, disengagement, burnout, substance misuse, or mental health challenges become a crisis.

Rather than treating retention as a one-off HR or Safety initiative or an individual employee problem, this session challenges construction leaders to consider the role we all play in creating a more sustainable culture; one where people are prepared for the realities of the work, consistently treated with dignity and respect, supported in taking responsibility for their own wellbeing, and given the conditions they need to do their best work.

Alaska's workforce and infrastructure must meet a wide spectrum of needs, from our communities big and small to the titans of global commerce and resource development that operate in our state. Adoption of advanced technologies are speeding up in other markets. Are we cultivating innovation in our transportation and energy sectors to cut costs and prepare for the future market?

Every construction project has defining moments, the point where preparation meets reality and leadership is tested. In confined space rescue, this is known as “breaking the plane,” the moment someone crosses the threshold from the known into the unknown.

During this interactive session, attendees will explore how culture, communication, leadership, and preparation shape outcomes long before an emergency occurs. Using a true case study from Alaska’s North Slope, where an ordinary pipeline crew responded to a plane crash in Atigun Pass and rescued four survivors, participants will examine the decisions, behaviors, and team dynamics that influenced the outcome.

Through facilitated discussion, audience polling, scenario-based exercises, and practical reflection, participants will identify ways to strengthen trust, improve communication, prepare teams for uncertainty, and build resilient organizations capable of performing under pressure.

Rather than focusing on compliance alone, this session challenges attendees to think differently about leadership and safety culture, providing practical tools they can immediately apply to strengthen both people and performance across their organizations.

Construction leaders make difficult personnel decisions every day, often with incomplete information and competing priorities. Through live polling, audience discussion, and real-world construction scenarios, participants will work through five common workforce challenges involving safety, employee misconduct, leave requests, and harassment concerns. Attendees will leave with a practical decision-making framework they can immediately apply in the field.

What happens when a construction dispute makes its way into the courtroom—and what do judges wish contractors knew before it gets there? Hear from former Administrative Law and Superior Court judges as they share practical insights on common construction disputes, preparing and defending claims, documentation and risk management, and mistakes that can complicate a case. The panel will also explore misconceptions about litigation, emerging issues in construction law, and practical steps contractors can take to avoid disputes—or be better prepared when they happen.

High-performing construction teams depend on more than good people. They require clear structure, capable leadership, and the right level of shared accountability.

This workshop helps leaders diagnose what is actually limiting team performance and where to focus first.

A period, a delayed response, a thumbs up, or even a simple “K” can mean very different things depending on who’s reading it. This session explores how our digital communication styles can create misunderstandings across generations and what our emails, texts, and messages may be communicating beyond the words themselves. Learn practical strategies for recognizing different communication styles, reducing confusion, and communicating with greater clarity and confidence in today’s workplace.