“It's a value to note how long you have been around,” said Bob Curtis-Johnson, principal consultant for SummitDay Media in Anchorage. “It shows stability.

“A history project also makes employees feel part of something bigger,” and helps employees know what their company is trying to do to change the world, Curtis-Johnson said.

To that end, SummitDay Media offers corporations a plan to ensure corporate heritage artifacts are retained and effectively managed so that they provide many lifetimes of service. The package includes paper and data records, audiovisual media, artwork, awards and other objects that tell the story of the company.

Curtis-Johnson, former executive director of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association, maintains that the majority of corporate records collections are stored in a risky and damaging environment, the workday office. While fluctuating heat and humidity, dust and other contaminants damage assets, an even greater danger is the simple physical insecurity.

With no lock on the door and no one watching over the collection, too many important records and artifacts may wind up in the trash, he said.

“There is a need to formalize what you've got, or you risk losing it,” he said. The new person coming into the company may not recognize the importance of some materials and throw them out, he said.

Given the prosper tools, advice and planning, existing media can be put back to work to express a bold vision, a proud heritage, he said.

With an extensive background in corporate communications multimedia and a decade in media preservation, SummitDay Media has a unique way of approaching the needs of corporate archives programs, Curtis-Johnson said.

His staff has already consulted on archival matters with institutions like the University of Washington Libraries, the Alaska State Archives, Ilisagvik College, Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association. Other clients include the Kotzebue Electric Association, Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, the Whale Conservation Institute, Black Entertainment Television, The Discovery Channel, the White Pass and Yukon Route Railway, and the Anchorage Symphony.

Curtis-Johnson is also currently working with the family of the late Rep. Nick Begich to archive the distinguished public service record of the popular freshman congressman. Begich died in a plane crash in the early 1970s. The goal is a multimedia project for the new Begich Middle School, named in the congressman's honor, to give the students a good understanding of what Begich did for the state of Alaska.

“As a state, we do so little with our heritage,” Curtis-Johnson said. “It's almost like we're too young to imagine ourselves as having a history. There is a lot of formalized collecting we could be doing.”

Along with corporate heritage programs, SummitDay Media provides other professional media preservation services for archives, museums, libraries, corporations and the general public. These include storage environment assessment, media condition assessment, disaster planning and analog and digital migration when a firm decides to go digital.

The Begich project, with a significant amount of material now safely archived, is just the jumping off point to other corporate projects, Curtis-Johnson said.

And he's excited about the prospects.

“Archiving is a mindset,” he said. “It's a vision of how you see your company interacting with the world.”

On the Web: SummitDay Media — www.summitdaymedia.com