A Career Helping People Flourish and Succeed

John covers a lot of ground in his work as a regional manager in Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s public housing department. His area of responsibility starts in Fairbanks, extends to Nome and Bethel, down to Kodiak, looping in the Peninsula communities of Homer and Soldotna and reaching over to Valdez and Cordova. “Basically, the AHFC offices outside of Anchorage, the Mat-Su and the Southeast,” he says.

John joined AHFC 11 years ago after spending 28 years working in housing and homeless services at Alaska Behavioral Health. He says what has kept him working in the housing space for decades has been the reward of helping to meet a need.

“When I was a student and starting as a case manager, the first thing I did was help people get into housing,” John says. “I saw firsthand the stability that safe housing offered to people who were struggling with mental illness. When they were safely housed and receiving the necessary support, I saw people flourish and succeed.”

In his work at AHFC John leads a team of dedicated employees across public housing offices in his region, helping them provide Alaskans access to safe, quality, affordable housing. When devastating storms struck Western Alaska in October 2025, John traveled to Bethel multiple times to be a boots-on-the-ground resource for his employees and the community, helping accept paperwork from families applying for AHFC housing and working with the local maintenance team to quickly perform unit inspections and get available units ready for move-in.

In this job change is a constant but John’s wish for himself and his team is that they always aim to get better: “Everybody has strengths and weaknesses, but we strive for continuous improvements. Doing our own personal inventory is imperative.” 

Connecting Communities

As a manager, John has worked hard to create an environment where public housing employees feel supported by their peers. Along with strong organization skills he says that the ability to work well alongside people is a key attribute he looks for when hiring.

“You need someone good at interacting with people, from their peers and supervisors to customers and members of the wider community,” John says. “Employees problem-solve and bounce questions off each other and I’ve seen great communication and teamwork between different communities. For example, employees in Seward were helping to train the office in Fairbanks on a program they weren’t familiar with.”

This connection across communities is something that John works to facilitate within his offices and throughout the corporation. As an active member of AHFC’s Employee Activities Committee, a volunteer-led AHFC employee morale committee, John can be found behind the grill at an employee barbecue or otherwise working behind the scenes to facilitate events for staff members and their families.

“You always want people to roll up to these events and feel as though they’ve been thought of,” he says.

After more than a decade leading and serving public housing employees, John says that seeing the team do good work is what is ultimately rewarding.

“My favorite part of his job is seeing my staff succeed and ultimately seeing people housed as a result of their work.”

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Want to join a mission-driven team helping Alaskans access safe, quality, affordable housing? View open job positions and learn more about a career at AHFC.