Q&A with Andrew Guy, Calista President/CEO
Storyknife, July/August 2025 edition
Adapted from the 2024 Annual Report
When Calista President and CEO Andrew Guy joined Calista as an intern in the 1980s, our company was still new and finding its financial footing.
In the ensuing years, Guy became a leader with Calista—serving on our Board, later as general counsel and currently as president and CEO—as Calista has grown into one of Alaska’s largest companies.
We asked President Guy to share his first-hand observations about Calista’s growth from the beginning of his time with our company to the present day.
Q: How do you compare the financial health of Calista from when you started and where we are today?
A: I became an intern a little over 10 years into the existence of Calista, when we were still learning how to conduct business. The capital we received and invested in those early years resulted in rapid growth and because we weren’t wise yet in terms of operating and overseeing businesses, we nearly went into bankruptcy.
Now we are healthy. We know how to approach business and apply the values that made our people so successful over the centuries in the environment we live in. Those same values apply toward a healthy and growing business, too.
We know how to approach business and apply the values that made our people so successful over the centuries in the environment we live in. Those same values apply toward a healthy and growing business, too.
Andrew Guy, Calista President/CEO
Q: What do our values and experience teach us about growth?
A: There’s a lot of ways to look at growth, and I think the most important way is wisdom. A company and each individual worker within a company accumulates information and experience over time. And with that accumulation, you gain wisdom, which helps you become more efficient and effective so you can benefit the Shareholders a lot more.
Our experience has taught us to keep a very close eye on the effects of rapid growth. The best way for us to arrive at the goals we have for our company and our Shareholders is steady growth. There are times we need to deliberately slow down the growth we are experiencing to make sure our workforce and finances remain healthy.
We place a heavy emphasis on planning, on preparing, on always being ready. We do that for subsistence purposes. I apply that to the company, too, and all of the businesses that we do.
Q: What is some advice you received early on that influenced your leadership growth?
A: I became a Board member when I was still in law school. With all of the courses I had taken for a bachelor’s degree in business, and the legal coursework in corporate, commercial and natural resources areas, I had all this information. The advice I received from one of my grandmothers was to try not to speak or give an opinion on matters before the Board for a whole year. Listen—listen and learn.
I followed her advice, and I’m glad I did. She knew I did not yet have the wisdom in order to correctly apply the knowledge that I had. You cannot expect to be wise in terms of your duties right off the bat.
Q: How would you describe the growth Calista has experienced in the last five years?
A: We’ve grown fast but we’ve been able to handle that growth because we have retained key employees who have the experience—and more importantly the wisdom—to manage this growth. The leadership teams in our operating companies have the experience and wisdom to know the potential we have to grow and if that growth is sustainable or not.
To me, the steady growth of Calista (Calistem Angliurallra) has a couple of meanings. First, it refers to Calista itself—the corporation we work for and the steady growth of the company. The second meaning is the essential workers who are employed by Calista. Each of them is “a Calista,” and we want to make sure they grow, so our company keeps growing and increasing the benefits we provide to our growing number of Shareholders.