Pending confirmation by the Legislature, Randall Hoffbeck will be the Department of Revenue commissioner and Mark Myers will be the commissioner for the Department of Natural Resources. I don’t know much about Hoffbeck, but I do know that Myers is very intelligent and capable.
Here’s the press release:
Governor-elect Bill Walker is pleased to announce that he has chosen Randall Hoffbeck as the Department of Revenue Commissioner. Hoffbeck served as the North Slope Borough’s chief financial officer from 2006 – 2011, and as Mayor Charlotte Brower’s chief of staff in 2012.
Hoffbeck brings 30 years of tax administration experience to the position, including his time as the petroleum property assessor for the state from 2001 – 2006.
Hoffbeck is currently serving in Kenya with his wife on a short-term medical mission. He received his master of divinity degree in October.
Walker is pleased to also announce the appointment of Mark D. Myers as Department of Natural Resources Commissioner. For the past four years, he has served as the vice chancellor of research at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he oversees administration for UAF’s research enterprise and supervises the university’s many research institutes including the Geophysical Institute, the International Arctic Research Center and the Institute of Arctic Biology.
Myers also has extensive leadership experience on both the federal and state levels. In 2006, he was appointed by President George W. Bush as the national director of the U.S. Geologic Survey, where he served until 2009.
From 2009 – 2010, he served as Alaska’s first Natural Gas Inducement Act (AGIA) Coordinator. He also led the Alaska division of oil and gas from 2001-2005 and was the state geologist and director of the division of geological and geophysical surveys in 2005.
Shattered, having spent a lot time trying to get companies and investors to this state, I do have a sense of what they are looking for. The simple fact is that for years few companies were willing to invest in Alaska because it was considered to be a very difficult place to do business and had a punitive tax regime that few outsiders understood.
This all changed under Parnell. We have seen a flood of money coming into Cook Inlet and the North Slope. This didn’t happen by accident or coincidence. The Parnell Administration took a number of steps to bring new players and investors to this state. It is working – the amount of activity in both basins is remarkable; we just had one of the best lease sales in decades; and the legacy producers are following though on their promises to spend billions more in this state. The perception of Alaska has changed, which means more competition, more drilling, more jobs, more revenue, more energy.
Your statement that investment doesn’t help the state is risible. Without investment you don’t get wells drilled or reserves into production. We had little investment in Cook Inlet for years. This meant that we were running out of gas. Enstar and the utilities were preparing its customers for rolling brown outs. This didn’t happen because we saw new companies and a ton of new investment – in large because of efforts made by the Parnell administration.
Bottom line: yes companies will stay away if they view a jurisdiction as being hostile to investment. Just look at recent history.
My hope is that Walker improves on what Parnell accomplished – and there are lots of areas for improvement – and work to create an environment that attracts new companies and investors.
So Jon, do you think that the oil companies will drag up and leave the North Slope oil fields if the wrong people are appointed in State government?
Let’s get something straight here. We have the oil. They want the oil. They are courting us. I know they have somehow convinced many of you that we can’t live without them, but there are many other oil companies that would kill to have those leases at half the profit margin that the Big Three are currently enjoying.
Investment by the oil industry helps the oil industry improve profitability. It doesn’t help the State. Jobs and tax revenue are a byproduct of the industry investment and much of that tax revenue is put back into infrastructure that helps the oil industry.
We need government officials that understand that we have what they want and we determine the terms and conditions of the deal.
Can’t be much more incompetent and smelly than the people who currently occupy those positions. Any change will be an improvement.
Back to the future?
I didn’t like that show.
My hope is that this Administration understands that to attract investment and companies to this state you don’t go to war with the industry that you are courting.
My fear is this new Administration is thinking about how to fight the last war.
I’m hoping this is like the fake comment of Palin’s that “we need to send the Mexicans in a boat back across the ocean where they came from.” Are you kidding me? This has to be some bad payoff for Hoffbaeck. Walker used him as an expert witness against the industry. He’s one of those North Slope Borough guys that survive up there and can’t fit in elsewhere. In fact, I heard he got canned there even. The comments regarding Meyers are accurate in that he is smart; unfortunately, he’s an idealogue that is emotionally committed to the failed pass of AGIA. No wonder Walker picked him. I hope that legislators remember him as the in-state AGIA coordinator under Palin. You know what you get from a Unity ticket? A bunch of Palinistas and liberals running government. You lknow what that makes? A smelly and incompetent Walker administration.
The same Mark Myers that shilled for the Yes on 1 campaign with his personal attacks on Dr. Scott Goldsmith? Goldsmith’s report put the ‘Giveaway’ fairy tale in its grave. Rather than attack the substance of what Goldsmith had to say, the Yes campaign trotted Myers out to attack him personally with the ludicrous complaint that his work wasn’t “peer reviewed” when there was no such standard for that type of work. Buckle up.
Mark is certainly smart, but he doesn’t know how to make a deal.
Like you Amanda, I don’t know the newly named Revenue Commissioner.
Mark Meyer is a smart, capable and knowledgeable person. He also lnows the department and the workings of government. He’ll hit the ground running. Good choice.
Once again you show uncanny perspective and accuracy: Mark Meyer is a smart and capable guy. Randy Hoffbeck is a good person. Enough said.