Borough Consultants

Dr. Rachel Donkersloot, Lakes Area Fishery Consultant

Rachel Donkersloot is a social scientist by training with broad experience working with communities, non-profits, Tribes, Universities and other fishing and community-based organizations across the state. With more than a decade of policy and research experience in rural fishing communities across the North Pacific and North Atlantic, her work concentrates on fishing community sustainability, equity, rural well-being, Alaska Native livelihoods, marine resource governance, and contemporary youth in the Global North.

Rachel currently serves as Affiliate Faculty at the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was recently appointed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to serve on the Local Knowledge, Traditional Knowledge and Subsistence Taskforce. Rachel was raised in Naknek and maintains strong connections to the region while making new connections in her current home of Aniak, Alaska.

Learn more about the Lakes Area Fishery here

Read Rachel's Fishery Reports here

Chuck McCallum, Chignik Fisheries Consultant

Chuck McCallum has been fishery advisor for the Lake and Peninsula Borough since 2002 and has over thirty years of commercial salmon fishing experience in the Chignik area salmon fishery. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Western Washington University and did graduate work at the University of Washington’s School of Marine Affairs.   

He served on the Advisory Panel of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council for ten years and has served in executive positions for Chignik Seiners Association, Gulf and Alaska Coastal Communities Coalition, and currently serves as executive director of the Chignik Regional Aquaculture Association.  

Learn more about the Chignik Area Fishery here

Read Chuck's Fishery Reports here

Lamar Cotten, Consultant

Lamar Cotten is a consultant providing strategic planning and management services . He has worked for a series of cities, boroughs, tribes and CDQ organizations throughout the state. Including borough manager for Lake and Peninsula Borough from 2008-13, borough administrator for Aleutians East Borough from 1987-91, and city administrator for the City of Sand Point from 1984-87, and as city manager for the City of King Cove from 1984-86. Mr. Cotten was rural development manager and deputy commissioner of the Dept. of Community and Regional Affairs from 1995-2002. He currently serves as the chairman of the state Local Boundary Commission. Mr. Cotten has a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Northern Arizona University. He is a military veteran and a former VISTA volunteer.

Mark Hickey, Borough Lobbyist

Mark Hickey moved to Juneau in 1976 after completing an undergraduate degree at Georgetown University. He worked 15 years in the field of transportation for the State of Alaska. Assignments included managing the purchase of the Alaska Railroad and serving as DOT/PF Commissioner for 4 years. Mark has run his own lobbying and consulting business since 1991.  

Read Mark's lobbyist reports here

Brian Hirsch, Deerstone Consulting

Brian Hirsch is the founding partner and chief executive officer of Deerstone Consulting. His work focuses on microgrid and renewable energy integration, multi-scalar energy storage, independent power producer formation, utility support, project finance, and community development in remote locations.

Brian has helped work on projects in Kokhanok, Igiugig, Port Heiden, Pilot Point, Chignik Lagoon, and Chignik Bay and along with other parts of Bristol Bay.

Read Deerstone Consulting's monthly reports to the Assembly here

Bob Loeffler, Jade North LLC

Bob has a long history working with land and resources issues in Alaska, most of it in government. This work includes issues involving land planning, mining, oil and gas, and forestry. While much has been at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Bob took breaks to go back to graduate school, and to work as the Planning Director of the Exxon Valdez Trustee Council, as an economist with the Alaska Power Authority, and as a private consultant. In 1996, Bob returned to DNR to coordinate Alaska’s large-mine permitting process, and then served for seven years Director of the Division of Mining, Land and Water. After leaving DNR in 2005, he joined Jade North, LLC. Jade North is a small consulting firm specializing in natural resource issues. A significant part of his work with the firm involves mining, permitting, and policy issues for industry, local government, and Native Corporations. Bob also serves as a Visiting Professor position at the University of Alaska, Institute of Social and Economic Research half-time. Bob has a passion for resource issues, and has taught UAA courses in public land management, the mining industry, and how to talk about contentious issues.