Alaska attorney joins UIC

After years of working for the North Slope government and practicing law across the country and state, an Alaska attorney will join the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation executive team this month.

Richard Camilleri will start the chief administrative officer and deputy general counsel position on Oct. 10, UIC announced. In that position, he will serve as a member of the UIC executive team for management and legal affairs. He will also lead the company’s relations with local, regional, state and federal entities on such issues as contaminated lands and new infrastructure.

“We all know that roads are needed, houses are needed. We’ve got the huge seawall project coming up. ... We have a lot of cleanup efforts. We have so many things happening at home,” said UIC President Pearl Brower. “It’s something that I just know Richard already knows a lot about and will just really be able to hit the ground running.”

Camilleri grew up in Utqiaġvik since he was 4. After finishing high school, he studied in New York and came back to his hometown to work for the North Slope Borough for more than eight years. He was a chief advisor to the mayor, responsible for public administration, policy and government and external affairs.

After that, Camilleri attended law school and worked under the Obama administration in Washington, DC, for the city of New York and in a law firm in Italy.

But “the plan was always to come home,” Camilleri said.

Two years ago, Camilleri came back to Alaska to join the team of lawyers at Landye Bennett Blumstein where he supported all regions of the state, including his home North Slope region. His work focused largely in governance, including for corporations, tribes and municipalities.

“It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience being able to work with municipalities and tribes and Native corporations and nonprofit organizations,” he said, “to try to help them to the best of my ability.”

In 2023, the Alaska Journal of Commerce included Camilleri in the Top Forty Under 40 list.

In his law practice as well as his former local government role, Camilleri said he has worked with UIC and has been impressed with the company’s positive impact across the state. He said he is excited to join the UIC executive team and bring his experience as an attorney and an administrator to the role.

“It’s bittersweet because I’m gonna have to say goodbye to a number of clients across the state, but I am incredibly excited to have the privilege to work for my home community,” he said. “The work that UIC does is going to allow me the opportunity to work with our borough, and with our cities, and with our tribes, and with our neighboring villages.”

Adding Camilleri to the UIC team, Brower said, is a response to the growth of the UIC corporation, which currently has 4,000 employees and over 2,900 Iñupiat shareholders.

“Each and every year, we’re surpassing the prior year. We are going to be a billion-dollar company within a year or two,” she said. “With that growth, we have a mantra that we’re putting our shareholders first and as a part of that, I believe that we then need to grow our internal team so that we can continue to provide for our shareholders.”

Brower added that she is happy to hire Camilleri who is from Utqiaġvik.

“I just really believe in local control,” she said, “I believe in growing our own.”