The State of Alaska is unique in its size, its beauty, and its engineering and construction challenges. The Alaska DOT&PF is unique in a number of ways as well. As its title suggests, it is the only state Department of Transportation that has included in its charge the design and construction of public facilities. The National Highway System in Alaska includes less that 1,000 miles of paved roads, with the remainder being gravel over permafrost. Interestingly, the vast majority of the state’s NHS consists of marine highways over which the DOT&PF operates an extensive ferry system. It owns and operates all the marine port facilities and airports throughout the state.

Trauner was selected to provide contract administration training to project engineers who manage projects procured via several methods and using a number of different procedures and guidelines. Our objective, in one day, was to train participants to “execute highway and facility construction administration in accordance with DOT&PF standards and to give them tools to solve common construction contract issues and problems using industry recognized approaches”. Just restating the objective should take the first hour. TRAUNER provided a pilot presentation the week of June 2, 2003, followed by six one day classes in ports of call such as Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau.