We’re not kidding when we say we have some o the most talented people within our organization striving to serve Alaska’s small business community. Andrew is no exception!
After receiving his Economics undergrad from UAA in 2013, Andrew found a role through the Alaska Permanent Fund as a senior fund analyst at Crestline Investors, a hedge fund in Fort Worth, Texas. From there, he was accepted into the MBA program at the University of Chicago, where he specialized in statistics, business analytics, marketing, and analytic finance. He also worked as a financial consultant and equity analyst at Gofen and Glossberg, an independent Registered Investment Advisor in Chicago. He says that of his favorite jobs ever was working at Classic Toys during the winter. Although it was always crazy around the holidays, he thought it was so much fun to help families pick out the perfect toys for their kids!
This year, Andrew has been putting his MBA to work as an independent financial consultant with local businesses in Anchorage, helping them understand and adapt to a wide variety of financial, pricing, and strategy challenges.
Though Andrew and his fiancée spent the last 7 years living in the Lower 48, they both grew up in Alaska and their reason for returning earlier this year was to help their families with their struggling small businesses during the pandemic. They have missed their home state, and Andrew says they are excited to be reinvesting in the communities that raised them.
Like many Alaskans, Andrew loves hiking and spending time outdoors in the summer. As a former member of the UAA Seawolf debate team, during the school year, he also volunteers to coach and judges high school debate. Recently he has picked up baking as a hobby, and his favorite recipe so far is an earl grey tea cake. He loves playing games with friends, whether it’s tabletop games, puzzles, cards, or his weekly online game night. He also says that one thing people might not know by looking at him is that he is a halfway decent Latin and liquid dancer.
So far in his work for the Alaska SBDC, he has spent a lot of time working for clients, with the agency’s abundant resources and access to expertise to support him. He says he’s excited to be in a role with tangible and immediate positive impacts on his community. He feels that small businesses are the lifeblood of the Alaskan economy, and looks forward to putting his MBA to work through the Alaska SBDC to address the overwhelming problems they currently face.
Andrew says his relationship with Alaska’s small business community is deeply personal. His family is small business owners in some of the industries hit hardest by COVID this year. He and his fiancee grew up hearing about the highs and lows of small business ownership firsthand, but now their conversations around the dinner table aren’t about problems with employees or inventory – they’re about how to survive with as few losses as possible. Whenever he speaks with small business owners, he is able to empathize with the years of time and effort they’ve invested, the connections to their savings and retirement, and the important place they hold in their communities because those conversations are happening in his family too.