CALISTA CORPORATION

SHAREHOLDER SPOTLIGHT

Rosalie (Rose) Kairaiuak

Rosalie (Rose) Kairaiuak is a Calista Shareholder who was born and raised in Chefornak. She is the seventh of 10 children born to Hilary and Maria Kairaiuak. Several years after graduating from Chefornak High School, Rose attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration in business management.

Beginning her career with Calista in 1998, Rose's first position within the company was Assistant Shareholder Records Manager. She is now the Shareholder Records Manager, assisting village corporations with various areas of Shareholder records, researching and gathering data for stock transfer cases, and working with the other Shareholder Records staff. Rose says that a highlight of working within her own Corporation is the chance she has to work directly with people from the Region, even though she no longer lives in rural Alaska.

Rita Pitka Blumenstein

Photo of Rita Pitka Blumenstein at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention Rita Pitka Blumentstein is a Calista Corporation Sharholderfrom Tununak, on NelsonIsland. She attended Montessori school in Seattle, Washington, and prides herself on being a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, wife, aunt, sister, and a friend.

She has traveled the state as a health aide, birthing babies in Bethel and Nome. She met her husband, Bernie, while they were both working in Bethel.

Today, Rita is a certified Tribal Doctor, at the Southcentral Foundation, Alaska Native Medical Center, in Anchorage. In 1999, Rita was the first to be certified by the State of Alaska’s inaugural certified traditional healing program. Through that certification, Rita is able to receive and treat patients referred by physicians at ANMC. Rita uses her ‘gift’ of healing to treat Alaska Natives and American Indians, using traditional healing methods including touch and talking circle therapy in effort to better the physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being of her patients.

Rita is an accomplished, published, and honored source of traditional healing programs, which she presents throughout the U.S., and around the world. Rita presented at the 2002 Association of American Indian Physicians Traditional Medicine workshops.

Rita is a dedicated advocate of health, social development, education, native arts and heritage, women’s progress, and goodwill for everyone she meets.

Rita would like to share a simple philosophy: Do your best to learn who you are. It will help your life, and hopefully others.