Donna Malchoff successfully completed her CAC apprenticeship program on November 6, 2009. Chugach Alaska Services, Inc. (CASI) hired her as a full-time employee on November 9, 2009. Donna learned a great deal during her apprenticeship in our dynamic environment of “operations.” She did not shy away from new or daunting tasks. She jumped right in, learning along the way, asking questions, and then producing an excellent product. Donna takes her work seriously and is genuinely interested in the success of our company and our projects. She demonstrated initiative and can predict or hedge on what needs to be done next, that is a star perform.
We challenged her with other duties outside of the Admin function; and of course she shined. One area was contracts management. Donna quickly learned and sought expert advice on how to establish and organize our contracts, subcontracts, and purchase order folders. Additionally, she was instrumental in actually producing subcontracts and purchase orders for the Alyeska Baseline project and the value of these agreements in total are in the millions of dollars. Donna has also negotiated subcontract and purchase order rates and communicated with vendors in executing the documents in a timely manner.
Another area Donna excelled at was proposal development. This area is very intense, requires great focus, excellent scheduling skills, and command of the details. I asked her to support the development of an Alyeska MSA bid for the Baseline project. She took lead on the development of the submission document which was a 3-ring binder containing several independent deliverables. Donna was a master at collecting, editing, organizing and publishing those deliverables. This is not an easy task and Donna handled it with great poise. Pressed with a deadline to meet, she remained calm and completed the task with time to spare.
Donna has high standards, sound ethics, and a pleasing personality. It has been a delight having her as part of our team as an apprentice and we are now looking forward to a long-term relationship with her as a permanent member of CASI.
- Peter Andersen, Jr., CASI President
The Chugach Alaska Internship/Apprenticeship Program provides work experience for Chugach Alaska shareholders and their descendents. Work experience adds meaning to classroom instructions and allows internship participants to explore career options. Apprentices receive valuable on-the-job training in one of many specialized fields.