The 55-year-old manager of business planning and development for CSX Lines said he'd like the chamber to do a better job on fewer issues during his yearlong tenure.

"The chamber seems to be at a point where it has tried to be all things to all people,'' Britten said. "I'd like us to refocus more narrowly, but more in-depth.''

Britten said among the priorities for the chamber in the coming year are to work more closely with small businesses; continue work on an economic development plan for the city; send a chamber delegation to Juneau during the legislative session; study the possibility of an Alaska-Washington trade show; and help start a young business leaders association that would be separate, but complement the Anchorage chamber.

"They don't necessarily feel so comfortable with us old gray guys,'' Britten said of young business owners and professionals.

Britten jokes that he has been involved in the transportation industry most of his career. As a teenager, he packed mules for hunting and fishing trips into the backcountry of Wyoming, where he grew up.

Britten came to Alaska in 1980, working in the oil industry on the North Slope and in Cook Inlet. He then worked with Crowley Marine, providing logistical support in Western Alaska and in the Aleutian Islands.

Britten was hired as an account executive in 1991 by CSX Lines' predecessor, Sea-Land Services Inc.

Britten also is a board member of the Resource Development Council and the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce. For the past eight years, he has served on Anchorage's Budget Advisory Commission.

Britten holds a bachelor's degree in urban economics from the University of Connecticut. He is a U.S. Navy veteran, where he served as a helicopter gunner in Vietnam.