UAA College of Business and Public Policy

2021 Business Plan Competition Judges

• Mr. James Kostka

  Owner and COO, Alaskan Data Solutions

  Mr. Kostka has over 25 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry primarily focusing in operations and sales engineering. Over his career in Alaska, he has worked for Alascom, AT&T, MTA Solutions, GCI and Tatitlek Native Corporation. He has also started two businesses, Troika Technologies, which was acquired by MTA, now MTA Solutions, and Alaskan Data Solutions, where he currently works as the chief operating officer.

  Jim has called Alaska home for 28 years. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he has served in both the United States Navy as an Aircraft Mechanic and in the Army as an Airborne Infantry Officer. He received a B.S. in Economics and Business Management from Framingham State College and received his ROTC Commission from Worcester Polytechnic Institute Jim has served on many organizations and boards since making Alaska his home ranging from the Alaska Junior Theater to the Anchorage Museum. He currently serves on the board of directors and the development committee for both the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce and the University of Alaska Foundation.

• Mr. Bill Popp

  President and CEO, Anchorage Economic Development Corp.

  Bill has spent more than 40 years in both the Alaska private and public sectors. He sets the strategic direction in marketing Anchorage and Alaska to companies and global industries considering Anchorage as a place in which to do business and assists local businesses looking to expand both within Anchorage and Alaska as well as Lower 48 and international markets.

  Mr. Popp is a past elected and appointed municipal government official for the Kenai Peninsula Borough and is currently a board member of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Visit Anchorage, Anchorage Downtown Partnership and Anchorage Concert Association. Popp is also a member of the Alaska Command (ALCOM) Civilian Advisory Board and Chairman of the Governor’s Broadband Task Force. He is the Co-Chair of the 49th State Angel Fund Advisory Committee and is Chair of the Mayor’s Base Economic Analysis Research (BEAR) working group.

• Mr. Steve Socolof

  Managing Partner, Tech Council Ventures

  Steve Socolof has been a technology investor for over twenty years. Steve’s interests are in enterprise software (particularly applications of AI/ML), infrastructure required to collect, store, and process data, internet of things, wireless, and environmental and materials technologies. He is currently on the board of StratIS IoT, SunRay Scientific, and Vydia as well as the public company Everspin Technologies, an investment of his prior fund. He was recently a director of Airclic (sold to Descartes Systems), Alverix (sold to BD), Neohapsis (sold to Cisco), Silicon Hive (sold to Intel), Sychip (sold to Murata), and an observer of Flarion Technologies (sold to Qualcomm).

  Steve has also been a leader in the corporate venture community and was Chair of the Corporate Venture Group within the National Venture Capital Association and on the Advisory Board of Global Corporate Venturing. Prior to TCV, he created a venture incubator for Lucent’s Bell Laboratories for 5 years and then formed and ran New Venture Partners for 15 years investing in commercialization of technologies spun out of corporate labs. Steve received an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where he is currently on the board of the Center for the Study of VC & PE. He received degrees in economics and mathematical sciences from Stanford University.

• Dr. Preston Simmons

  Chief Executive, Providence Alaska Region

  Preston has been a leader within Providence since 2007 in a variety of roles, including chief executive officer of Providence’s Northwest Washington Region and chief operating and administrative officer of the Western Washington Region.

  Preston has served as a senior associate administrator for the University of Washington Medical Center. Prior to that, he was chief executive officer of a rural hospital in the Samaritan Health System in Page, Arizona. He also served in senior leadership roles at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds and Ballard Community Hospital in Seattle. He holds a doctor of science in health services from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and a master’s in health administration from the University of Washington. He is a clinical professor for the university’s Department of Health Services and is board certified as an American College of Healthcare Executives Fellow.

• Mr. William St. Pierre

  Owner, Pita Pit

  William is a UAA alumnus. He received his MBA from UAA after getting a B.S. in Sports Management down in Mobile, Alabama, where he played soccer. After briefly working for a sports agency and the DoD for a few years, he decided to bring Pita Pit up to Alaska in 2012. He recently acquired a hotel in Talkeetna, earlier this year, and after some renovations, rebranded it as the Talkeetna Inn. He is considering opening up a small consultancy business specializing in business plan development, analytics, and review, specifically for smaller, new, Alaskan businesses as well as life- style/time management coaching for newer entrepreneurs. His primary hobby is travel, having been to every continent and 101 countries to date.

• Dr. Helena S. Wisniewski

  Professor of Entrepreneurship and Chair, Management & Marketing Department, CBPP, UAA; Fellow, National Academy of Inventors

  Dr. Wisniewski is a Fellow, of the National Academy of Inventors in recognition of creating and facilitating inventions that have a tangible impact on society, improving the quality of life and contributing to economic development. She has extensive executive and leadership experience in industry, government, and academia, and service on public and private boards of directors. She is a technological entrepreneur who formed multiple startups in diverse areas, built the business, and sold companies. She has created entrepreneurial ecosystems and built cultures to embrace innovation and commercialization. She is Professor of Entrepreneurship & Chair, Management & Marketing Dept, CBPP, UAA, and was previously the Vice Provost for Research and Dean, Graduate School.

  As Vice Provost for Research, she established its first technology commercialization infrastructure, dramatically increased the number of patents, and together with faculty she formed the first four UAA startups. She established the UAA Patent Wall of Fame, and the Innovate Awards that brought a six to one return on research investment. She created the Arctic Domain Awareness Center to develop and transition technologies to improve crisis response capabilities in the Arctic, and led the effort that won it a multi-million dollar award from DHS.

  Prior to UAA, she was the Vice President for Research and Enterprise Development at Stevens Institute of Technology, where she tripled research revenues formed nine startups and sold two. She served as a Corporate Director at the Lockheed Corporation, and a Vice President at the Titan Corporation, and at ANSER. She founded Aurora Biometrics, Inc. to provide biometric systems and as CEO built an international business, and sold the company. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), she identified and directed many breakthrough advances in science and engineering including AI, biometrics, groundbreaking methods for aircraft design, a breakthrough in image compression using fractals that attained unprecedented compression ratios, as the Manager of the Applied and Computational Mathematics Program that she created.

  Prior to DARPA, she served at the CIA. She earned her PhD in mathematics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, an MS in Math from Stevens Institute of Technology, and BA in Math from William Paterson University where she is a Distinguished Alumni. Among her awards is the 2001 Women in Technology Award for Entrepreneurship. In the community, the Governor appointed her to serve on the New Industry Development Team, and she is a Member of the Anchorage International Rotary Club, and a Paul Harris Fellow, Member, Commonwealth North and an Alumni Member of the FBI Citizens Academy. Her winter sport is dog mushing.

• Mr. Greg Wolf

  Executive Director, Anchorage World Trade Center

  Greg Wolf is one of Alaska’s most experienced economic development professionals. Wolf is the Executive Director of World Trade Center Alaska, a private, non-profit organization whose mission is to assist Alaskans in competing successfully for trade and investment in the global market place. He has held this position since December 2002. World Trade Center Alaska is a membership organization whose membership consists of more than 100 companies and individuals involved directly or indirectly with international trade and business. Through his work at the Center, Wolf has focused attention on export opportunities from Alaska to China. He has led three trade missions to China and for the past nine years has conducted the annual Alaska-China Business Conference.

  Wolf is now helping to focus attention on business opportunities emerging in the Arctic. Three years ago, he conceived Arctic Ambitions, an annual conference that focuses specifically on trade, commerce and investment activities that will flow from developments in the region. Arctic Ambitions is an international conference that brings together private sector executives and government officials from Arctic nations and other countries.

  Prior to joining WTCAK, Wolf served as Director of the State of Alaska’s Division of International Trade and Market Development, the agency responsible for promoting Alaska’s exports and attracting new business to the state. He was responsible for the formulation and conduct of the State’s export promotion efforts and oversaw the State’s trade offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and Sakhalin, Russia. Executive Director, Anchorage Word Trade Center, and a member of the World Affairs Council. He is Vice Chair of the Advisory Board to CBPP. He is an Adjunct Professor at UAA, and has extensive experience in economic development and is recognized internationally for his accomplishments.

• Mr. Joe Zimmerman

  Owner and Director, Cook Inlet Marketing Group, Inc.; Chair, Advisory Board CBPP

  Mr. Zimmerman is an owner and director of Cook Inlet Marketing Group, Inc. (Chevron/Denali Express), which owns 12 Chevron Service Stations and Convenience Stores in Anchorage, Eagle River and Palmer. He is Chair of the Advisory Board to CBPP. He is a University of Alaska graduate, 1979, with a Bachelor of Technology, Engineering/Management. He also has an MBA from Pepperdine University, 1983.

  Over a period of 15 years he served as an Adjunct Instructor for the UAA CBPP teaching courses in Organizational Theory & Behavior, Management, Supervision & Marketing. His working career included serving as a Marketing Manager for Unocal Corporation, and as the Chief Operating Officer for Tryck Nyman Hayes, Inc., a local 70-person Civil Engineering firm. He is married to Linda and they have two adult sons; Eric (a UAA graduate), an Air Traffic Controller at Portland Tower and a Navy Reserve Senior Chief Petty Officer, and Colin, at Navy Pilot currently stationed at NAS Patuxent River, MD.