Larry Cotter, CEO for the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA) and APICDA Joint Ventures, has said he will retire at the end of 2018.
APICDA is one of six Western Alaska Community Development Quota corporations established in 1992. The nonprofit organization controls a portion of Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands quotas for groundfish, halibut, and crab and exists to support the rural Alaska villages of Akutan, Atka, False Pass, Nelson Lagoon, Nikolski and St. George.
The APICDA board has formed a transition team and will launch a search for a new CEO in February, according to a press release.
“Larry is a true visionary and will be greatly missed by the residents of our communities, the fishing industry and the board and staff at APICDA,” APICDA Board Chair Mark Snigaroff said. “He was instrumental in the original formation of the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program. In the past 25 years, the CDQ organizations have generated over USD 1 billion [EUR 851 million] in assets, built needed infrastructure in the 65 participating villages to stimulate commerce and provided thousands of scholarships and workforce development opportunities. It has been a program that has truly worked to sustain our western Alaska villages and Larry has been its greatest champion.”
In addition to his role at APICDA, Cotter served on the Advisory Panel to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for six years and as a voting member of the council for an additional six years. On the council, he was chair of several committees, including the Bycatch Committee and Crab Management Committee. Cotter also served as chair of the council’s Steller Sea Lion Mitigation Committee and Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute’s Responsible Fisheries Management Committee.
“Larry’s unwavering commitment to our communities is reflected in every decision he has made over the course of his 25 years of service to the residents of the APICDA CDQ villages,” Justine Gundersen, APICDA Joint Ventures board chair, said. “The impact of his work will be felt for years to come in the region, state and industry.”
Cotter began living in Alaska in 1974, working in a seafood processing plant in Juneau for four years, then spending eight years as a labor organizer and representative for seafood processing workers and longshoremen. In his many leadership roles in the seafood industry in Alaska, he helped the industry through “the years when foreign fishing was being phased out and domestic allocation issues were first coming to the forefront,” according to APICDA’s press release.
“It’s been my pleasure and distinct honor to be involved with APICDA since its inception,” Cotter said. “Serving our communities, working alongside the entities devoted to sustainable communities throughout the Aleutian‐Pribilof region and being immersed in the fishing industry at all levels has provided a wonderful career for which I am deeply grateful. It's not an easy thing to retire from a company that you love, with a purpose that you love, filled with people that you respect and love. But everything has its time.”
