AP&T celebrates fifty years

of service in Alaska

Mike Tozzo

June 28, 2007.

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Alaska Power and Telephone bringing service to Alaskans. According to Secretary of AP&T Stan Selmer, AP&T has technically called the official anniversary March 1. “There’s a period of dates stretching back to late 1956 to different dates and times in 1957 but we chose March 1, 1957 as the date where shareholders could buy stock,” Selmer explained.

AP&T was started in Skagway and to this day still remains in Skagway. When AP&T first started, it served just the community of Skagway and now serves 36 communities across Alaska and Southeast.

According to Selmer, one of the early signs of success was that AP&T was able to bring some stability to Skagway where there had been some financial difficulties. “This was due to the outside plant not being maintained due to a shortage of funds,” he said. “There was also the work that needed to be done in restoring the Dewey Lake Hydro System.”

Generally, the approach from AP&T was to keep the customer base they had but make the quality of the services they offered at the high level the customers expected. “I think we’ve done a reasonably good job at that,” Selmer said.

According to Selmer, when AP&T started out he didn’t think they intended to be employee owned but certainly intended to be community minded. “I don’t believe that they thought this was going to be a huge business but our type and style of power and telephone efforts in Skagway led to us being able to branch out to other communities,” he said.

In the telephone side of things AP&T made their single biggest increase when the General Telephone Company of Alaska was going to cease doing business as GTE in Alaska. “Through the consortium that was put together, we were able to get Wrangell, Haines, Petersburg, Metlakatla and Hyder,” Selmer explained.

Selmer has been with AP&T since 1993 and until recently was the chairman of the board for the company. The company saw its beginning when Arthur Garrett, Marguerite Garrett and Hector Munn purchased John M. Pichotta’s interest in Skagway’s Electric Power System.

There is currently a branch of AP&T in Port Townsend, Wash. and according to Selmer it was probably started there in the 20s or 30s. “They were living in the peninsula area of Washington at the time and the true history of the company outside of Alaska is quite a bit older than AP&T,” said Selmer.

The telephone switch and physical office building have been added to the premises since 1957. “The building here in Skagway, housing the power, and generators from the Dewey Hydro System is still here,” he said.

When asked if AP&T is expecting 50 more years of service, Selmer responded, “No, we’re probably expecting 150.”

Rhoda Gilbert, who has worked at the Petersburg store since AP&T’s takeover in 2000, said the transition went really smoothly. “All of GTE’s customers basically transferred over to AP&T,” Gilbert said. Gilbert has worked for AP&T since 2000 but has been at her position in Petersburg since 1985.

Wrangell’s situation with AP&T took place at the same time as Petersburg. The transition took place in late August of 2000. Exchange Supervisor Doug McMurren, who has been at the office since 1987, said the move was really exciting. “With AP&T being a small company and Wrangell and Petersburg being a bigger area they have recently been putting a lot of money into the exchange whereas the bigger company was putting it elsewhere, McMurren said.