Mead Treadwell

Home / About / Leadership / Mead Treadwell

Board Member

Mead Treadwell was elected Lieutenant Governor of Alaska in 2010. Since the early 1980’s, Treadwell has held leadership roles in both business and public service. He is recognized as one of the world’s Arctic policy experts and has testified to Congress regarding America’s preparedness for increasing development pressures in the Arctic.

Treadwell was appointed to the United States Arctic Research Commission by President George W. Bush in 2001 (tenure ending in 2010) and designated the Commission’s chair in 2006. Under his leadership, a new United States Arctic Policy was developed and is now being implemented by the current administration. He represented Alaska on U.S. delegations which established the eight-nation Arctic Council, and was involved in the establishment of the Northern Forum. In addition, Treadwell was a Senior Fellow of the Institute of the North, an endowed public policy research program founded by former Secretary of the Interior and two-time Alaska governor Walter H. Hickel, to focus on Alaska and Arctic natural resource issues, governance of public assets, geography, and national security. His efforts there helped establish missile defense in Alaska and strengthened the regional U.S. alliance with Japan.

After graduating from Yale University, Treadwell moved to Alaska to became the lead political reporter for the Anchorage Times. Then, in 1982, after completing his MBA at the Harvard Business School, Treadwell joined former Alaskan governors Wally Hickel and Bill Egan to found the Yukon Pacific Corporation, which instigated the Alaska gas pipeline project. He later served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (1991-1994). Later in his career, he helped launch a series of technology, manufacturing and service companies, two of which – Digimarc and Emberclear – trade on public stock exchanges, and was a chairman of Immersive Media Company (IMC),  notable for developing the camera used for Google’s Street View and Map Quest’s 360 View services. Until recently, he was also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Venture Ad Astra, an Anchorage company, which invests in and develops new geospatial and imaging technologies.

Treadwell was elected a Fellow National of the Explorers Club in 2002 and chairs the North Pacific Alaska Chapter of the Club. He is past president of the Alaska World Affairs Council, the Japan America Society of Alaska, and the Visual Arts Center of Alaska. As a founder of the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce Siberian Gateway Project, he worked to open the Alaska-Russia border in 1988. Further, he has served as a board member of Commonwealth North, the Great Alaska Council of the Boy Scouts, the Healthy Alaska Natives Foundation and the Alaska-Siberia Research Center.