Ethan Schutt takes over as chair of Permanent Fund Board

By
Suzanne Downing
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9

Ethan Schutt is the new chair of the Alaska Permanent Fund Board of Trustees. Schutt takes over for Craig Richards, who has chaired the board for the past two years. Richards, who has served since 2019 as chair, made the motion to elect Schutt as the new chair. Richards remains on the board of trustees.

Raised by public school teachers in the Eastern Interior highway town of Tok, Schutt spent two decades in roles of public service and executive management in Alaska.

After graduating from Washington State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and then from Stanford Law School with a Juris Doctorate, he worked for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Walter “Bud” Carpeneti in Juneau.

He worked for a law firm in Anchorage and as general counsel for Tanana Chiefs Conference in Fairbanks before returning to Anchorage in 2005 to work for Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI). Schutt spent 13 years as an executive with CIRI and a decade leading and overseeing its energy investment portfolio and the development of several projects including the Fire Island Wind Project.

He was also responsible for the land management of CIRI’s approximately 1.5 million acres of land in the Cook Inlet which included substantial oil and gas leasing. Schutt then worked in several leadership roles with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Schutt is currently Executive Vice President & General Counsel for Bristol Bay Native Corporation, where he leads legal, compliance, and records management.

Schutt was appointed in 2020 to a four-year public seat by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Schutt was voted in as chair at the 2022 Annual meeting that concluded Thursday.

Steve Reiger remains vice chair, as he has been since 2020. Rieger grew up in Palmer, Alaska, and received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard College, and his Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He later returned to Alaska, competed in the 1983 Iditarod Sled Dog Race, and was elected to the Alaska State House of Representatives in 1984, where he served six years. In 1992, Rieger was elected to the Alaska State Senate, where he served four years. He currently serves on the Alaska Community Foundation Investment Committee, and as chairman of the Municipality of Anchorage Salaries and Emoluments Commission.

Trustee Rieger was reappointed to the Board of Trustees by Governor Dunleavy in 2020 to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Trustee Brady. He previously served as a Trustee from 2009-2013. Trustee Rieger served as Vice-Chair from 2020-2021, and 2022 to present. 

9 COMMENTS

  2. Will he let Alice Rogoff’s daughter steer our investments to her dad’s Carlyle Group?
    Hope not ….. I don’t trust that family & their take over of Alaska.

  5. Mr. Schutt, your first act should be to ensure no Permanent Fund investments are handled by those ESG investment management firms which oppose oil development in Alaska. I’m sure there are plenty of successful management firms that have not been infected with the ESG and BDS nonsense that would gladly take their place.

  6. He jumped over Steve Rieger, as the primary Chair? You must be kidding? Rieger, a Harvard grad and Harvard MBA with a multitude of positions in Finance Committees in the House and Senate and in the private banking world has superior knowledge over this guy. But if a figurehead with credentials that might have been ascertainable through unquantifiable means, then at least Rieger will be there as a bright guiding light to the less qualified.

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