Editor's note: The below excerpt from this interview is not the full transcript and has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full interview with Adam Crum by clicking on the audio link.
Adam Crum: "Born and raised in Alaska. I was born in Homer and I grew up in Anchor Point, so a little coastal community. We joke that Anchor Point is a village on the road system. But I’m running for governor and threw my name in the ring after a very diverse career.
Davis Hovey, KMXT: How would you address or intend to address some of the issues that are plaguing the commercial fishing sector as a whole. I mean poor ex-vessel prices, processors consolidating and shutting down, Russian seafood impacting the markets, etc.?
Crum: I had a friend and advisor early on in this process that said, ‘Adam, don't be an expert on fish. You can't.' This is a subject that there's so many people that their entire livelihoods and generations of time arguing and fighting about this stuff. And so, I've tried to just educate myself as much as possible, and to learn from all sectors. There's not a lot of levers that the governor actually has, especially because most of our issues are dealing with international waters and treaties in other countries, and the goal is to try to actually learn as much as possible. My, being a science background, I do appreciate the value of science and having a direct, science based initiative that is objective as possible. We need to try to actually come back to neutral and recognize that who we're fighting against is not necessarily out of state corporations, as they say, but it's really your friends and neighbors; these are fellow Alaskans. And I don't have any good answers on that, other than the fact of trying to keep the rhetoric down and to make sure that we are looking at this from an objective viewpoint, to try to find answers and make sure that we are actually showing action.
KMXT: And talking more about rural Alaska, obviously the cost of living is high in Alaska period, but especially for rural communities. You know, we've seen struggles with the housing market and the cost of fuel is going up, the cost of groceries, etc, but how would you sort of prioritize cost of living as governor?
Crum: You have to prioritize where the population is. And the reason is, the question was, how do you actually drive down shipping costs from bringing things either on containers or barges down here to Kodiak? And the reality is, the more strength and diversified the economy is on the rail belt, where 70% of the population is, that means goods are cheaper into Anchorage, and therefore it's cheaper down here to Kodiak and then shipped out. The coastal communities do not have the population size to really drive that market share. But if we actually can get it down as cheap as possible getting to Anchorage, that's really what we want. And so, a lot of what my focus has been on has been on economic development, diversification, a lot of it around infrastructure building.
KMXT: What do you see as some of the burgeoning industries? I mean, are you focused more on resource development, the LNG pipeline, some other project that maybe we haven't tapped into yet as a state?
Crum: My thing that I'm really pursuing - AI data centers. I've talked to the Amazon Web Services’ head of energy strategy, and I've talked to folks like that, as well as hyper scalers, these groups that build these massive projects. And in Texas, where they're putting these things up, 40% of their operating costs is cooling. 25% is the cost of water. Well, what do we got in Alaska in abundance? We got cold and we got water. We have like 40% of the U.S.’s surface fresh water. And so, we can create this industry that can come in and really fill the gap in all areas of the state, large size, small size; and my goal is to make Alaska the silicone tundra.
KMXT: As far as education funding goes, where do you stand on the amount that you think is the best, I guess, for the base student allocation? What amount would you support, and what do you think the funding should be for BSA?
Crum: My idea is not to increase the BSA funding. Part of the BSA funding, the most expensive part of that, is the CTE - career and technical education training. So, I would actually break out the CTE funding from the BSA and increase that and do it as a direct line item tied to key performance indicators to school districts, with the goal being that every small town has a fab shop, has a welding shop, has a machine shop.
KMXT: And my final question is just sort of your one-minute elevator pitch to voters, to listeners, why should they elect you as the next governor of Alaska?
Crum: My two reasons for running are named Ellie and Lucy. I've got little kids; they came late. I still got one in diapers… And I want to build a state that my daughters can grow old in, and hopefully my grandkids. And I think that I've met more and more Alaskans that are just tired of this managed decline. We have been stagnant since 2014. We need to actually make sure that we are taking control of our destiny, breaking out of this boom, bust cycle. And the difference between myself and the other candidates, you hear a lot of very similar topics and a lot of the same things; no one has my background and experience. The private sector, both as a company owner, who's a company founder, exiting companies, running the largest Department of State Health, three and a half billion-dollar budget, 3,500 employees, moving into the finance side and understanding exactly where the money in for the state comes from.”
The primary election is Aug. 18 and the top four candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will advance from there to the general election on Nov. 3. A full list of all gubernatorial candidates running in this year's election can be found on the Alaska Beacon's website.
