The Board regrets to announce that Margie Bezona resigned from the Koniag Board of Directors. Margie was elected at the October 2012 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The Board, management, staff and Shareholders will miss working with Margie.

This past weekend, during the regular Koniag Board meeting, the Board evaluated the candidates who applied for this year’s Board-recommended slate. Each of those candidates had been recently interviewed by the Nominations Committee, which is made up of two Board members and three other Shareholders representing Kodiak, Seattle and Anchorage. The Nominations Committee considered Daniel C. Nielsen as one of the strongest candidates this year. Koniag’s bylaws provide for the Board to take action to fill a vacancy, and the Board appointed Nielsen to complete Margie’s remaining term.

A former Federal Service employee, Nielsen has been an independent consultant for the past two and half years since his retirement, providing research, analysis and proposal support in government acquisition and procurement to various companies and government agencies. For the four years prior to his retirement, Nielsen was the Senior Procurement Executive for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

“My primary interest is to get us back to where we’re meeting more of the Shareholders’ expectations as far as profitability and service to Shareholders,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen believes his intimate knowledge of federal contracting will continue to allow Koniag to grow.

“The corporation has always been strong in government contracting,” Nielsen said. “I’m hoping that I may be able to contribute in that regard to help us figure out how to maximize that. I’d like to see us partnering more with state agencies and possibly federal agencies to leverage the resources we have to stretch our dollars and get more resources out of it for everyone.”

Nielsen has appreciated Koniag’s improvements to corporate transparency and wants to help promote communications so that Shareholders receive information early and as often as possible.
“I’m not coming in with too many preconceived ideas. I don’t have an agenda. I’m going to take some time to learn everything before I start making suggestions and doing things, specifically because I think it’s important to listen first and speak later,” Nielsen said of his plan to approach the position.

Nielsen’s first Board of Directors meeting will be July 26-27 in Kodiak.