Local man wins development prize

With a little help from two development groups and a Wrangell-Hoonah partnership, a local entrepreneur will see his dreams accelerate.

Steve Helgeson of Wrangell and Kevin Skeek of Hoonah, were named the winners in the Path to Prosperity competition Friday, which was co-sponsored by the Haa Aani Community Development Fund, Inc., and The Nature Conservancy. The competition provides $40,000 in seed money to business plans emphasizing sustainable use of environmental resources.

Helgeson had made it to the semifinalist round on the strength of his idea for Tongass Guitars, or guitars made from sustainably harvested local Sitka Spruce trees. However, he discovered that his wasn't even the only guitar company to make it to semifinalist round. Skeek's almost identical idea for Raven Guitars also made the cut.

"My first reaction was kind of to be surprised and perhaps a little bit annoyed," he joked. "When I got up to Juneau for the boot camp weekend, I knew that I would have to either compete with him or collaborate with him, and I really preferred collaboration. Frankly, I think that at the local and regional level for this project, collaboration is a good thing, and competitiveness should be saved for the national or perhaps international market."

However, collaboration comes with its own set of risks, Helgeson said.

"I had some apprehension, and knew from my experience that collaboration, while it's desirable, is not always easy," he said. "You have to be willing to give up a certain measure of control over your ideas and over the decision-making process, as well as sharing the risks and the potential reward."

Over the course of the boot camp, however, Helgeson realized that he and Skeek were in synch, in part because the environmental dynamics fueling either vision were nearly identical.

"After getting to know Kevin over that weekend, I discovered that not only did we share a common vision for guitar building, but we also had a similar view of both natural resource sustainability and social sustainability, and those were also elements in this contest," he said. "In the end it was pretty easy to start to collaborate."

The two of them decided to collaborate on a second round of business plan submissions, which ultimately won. While Raven Guitars will appear on the logo and trademark, construction and manufacturing – and the jobs that come along with them – will come to Wrangell, though Helgeson hesitated to put an actual timeline or specific numbers on the plan.

"As the project moves forward, it will be based in Wrangell," he said.

The pair will spend the next year acquiring new skills and beginning work toward bringing the business plan off the page, Helgeson said.

"Over the next year, we'll be engaged in some advanced luthiery training, as a result of the reward," he said.

A luthier is a maker of stringed instruments, including guitars.

"We'll be able to work with a world-renowned luthier who currently resides in Portland," he said. "We will also be doing some research and having some training in high-tech woodworking equipment."

The pair also plans to work on marketing literacy including branding and development, Helgeson said.

"We're going to be working on some prototypes," he said.

The first planned models will be full sized concert and cutaway models, as well as smaller chamber-sized models, Helgeson said.