Breaking: Gillam decides not to run for governor

By
Suzanne Downing
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5

After considering a run for Alaska governor for the past year, businessman Bob Gillam has decided against it. Earlier in the month, he told Must Read Alaska it was a possibility.  Gillam informed close associates of his decision this morning.

Robert “Bob” Gillam is the founder of McKinley Capital Management, one of the most successful businesses in Alaska.

He has been an opponent of an income tax and also has fought the Pebble Mine project, spending tens of millions to prevent the mine from being built in the Bristol Bay watershed.

From Fairbanks, Gillam attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. He was a classmate of President Donald Trump at Wharton, and has visited with the president on a few occasions in the past year.

As of 2015, his company had $7 billion of assets under management, making him one of the wealthiest Alaskans — one who could have self-funded his own campaign.

The onerous financial disclosure requirements of Alaska’s election laws makes all his finances and his client base exposed, something he doesn’t want, and something that would hurt his business, he said in a conversation with Must Read Alaska today.

He also has big opportunities in his company he wants to act on.

Gillam is an economic conservative and a social moderate.

5 COMMENTS

    • Gillam has not been involved in candidate elections before, so it is doubtful this election will be any different, now that he himself is not running.

  2. Plus it might be really hard to reconcile a “pro-business” campaign platform while being so strongly against the rational development of mineral resources produced from State lands — the lands that were specifically selected at the time of Statehood so that Alaska could create a viable economy.

    I have no idea what Mr. Gillam could hope to accomplish to improve the lives of ordinary Alaskans. And I doubt he had any idea either.

    • Spot on. If he had a plan to develop responsibly for the economic future of AK, then maybe his “business” sense could have been a welcomed addition.

  3. Spot on. If he had a plan to develop responsibly for the economic future of AK, then maybe his “business” sense could have been a welcomed addition.

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