In the year since, Jerry Covey has served as a mentor to Eck, helping in strategic planning, achieving goals and working to solve major issues that come up.

"Without him, I wouldn't do as well," Eck said. "He helps me see the whole picture, to understand the aspects of complex problems and to find solutions that work. He's been a true help in terms of leadership."

Covey knows all about the challenges Eck faces every day. The district is the size of Indiana. It educates 2,000 students in 11 villages, none of which are connected by roads.

Covey came to Alaska in 1976, taking a job as principal of Kiana's K-12 school. Eventually he became superintendent of the Northwest district. Then Gov. Wally Hickel in 1991 appointed him commissioner of education for the state, where Covey led efforts to develop education standards.

After 20 years in the public education system, Covey officially retired. Now 59 years old, he has put his years of experience and knowledge into the consulting arena.

"I can't play all the time, there's too much to do," he said. "This is where the action is."

In 1999, Covey founded JSC Consulting LLC, providing strategic planning, facilitation and group mediation for CEOs, governing boards and administrators.

At first, Covey's business focused on education, working for the various school districts around the state.

Lately Covey has expanded to hospitals and other nonprofit organizations, including Central Peninsula General Hospital and the Southeast Alaska Regional Resource Center. He's also tapped into some other government work, such as strategic plans for the Anchorage Fire Department and board facilitation for the National Park Service.

Covey grew up in the small town of Oscoda, Mich., near Lake Heron. He attended Central Michigan University, receiving a bachelors degree in social studies and a master's in guidance and counseling.

From 1970 to 1975, he taught and worked as a counselor in a small Danish community in Michigan.

In 1975, Covey was offered a job at the Bering Straits School District. At the time, Covey and his wife, Sandy, thought their son was a bit too young to move, so they turned the job down.

But it must have got them thinking about life in Alaska. They were used to small, rural communities and were acclimated to winter climates. Sandy Covey was an Air Force brat, so she was used to moving around, Jerry said.

"My wife was game to go anywhere," he said. "Me, it was for the sense of adventure. I grew up hunting and fishing. I wanted to go take on the world. The place attracted me."

Another offer came in 1976, this time from the Northwest Arctic district. They said yes, and moved to Kiana, where Sandy taught and Jerry worked as principal.

At that time, education in Alaska was making drastic changes.

Prior to the 1970s, Native and non-Natives often attended different schools. Natives attended local schools in their villages, generally through eighth grade. If they wanted a high school diploma, teens left their homes to attend boarding schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs located hundreds of miles away.

Most kids went to Mount Edgecumbe in Sitka. Others attended BIA schools Outside, generally in Oregon or Oklahoma.

The state ran high schools in larger communities, where the populations tended to be predominately white.

In the late 1960s, the state started a boarding home program, where it paid families to take in teenagers from small villages who came to larger communities to attend high school.

In 1975, in a class-action lawsuit referred to as the Molly Hootch case, the Alaska Supreme Court said that the state's failure to provide high schools in villages amounted to racial discrimination, in violation of U.S. and state constitutions.

So when the Coveys moved to Kiana, it was a newly formed Regional Education Attendance Area, operating as a regional high school for about 40 high-school students from Kiana and the villages of Ambler, Kivalina and Noatak.

"When I first got there, the idea was so new that no one knew about it," Covey said. "I chartered the local air taxi and went to the villages and knocked on doors. 'You have a high-school student? Yes? Pack your bags, you've got a couple of hours before we leave.'

"Before that, they were sent to a state boarding school or to a BIA school or a private religious school," he added. "This was much closer to home."

In 1978, he took over as principal of Kotzebue High School. After a year there, Sandy had a chance at a dream job, in Kobuk. Jerry took the opportunity to take a year off and play.

"She always wanted to teach in a one-room school, and I always wanted a dog team," he said. "I was like 32 at the time. I bought 2,000 gallons of gas for my plane and had it barged up. I had a dog team, a boat."

Attendance increased, and the one-room school got crowded. Jerry stepped up to teach, and eventually became principal.

In 1984, Covey became the Northwest district"s associate superintendent, and in 1987, the superintendent. At the time, the district had an annual budget of about $20 million. It served 1,700 students from 11 villages.

In 1990, then-Gov. Wally Hickel appointed him commissioner of education.

At the time, parents across the state had begun to demand a higher quality in education. Some 100,000 students were in schools, but there were no set standards for what being a graduate meant.

"We had no idea what having a diploma meant, there were no standards," Covey said. "My starting point was that we have to define what public education is, what a student should know."

He faced opposition in the education system. "Basically it was, 'So, what's the problem?' was the way they looked at it. So I took my case to the public."

Covey invited hundreds of Alaskans to work at setting up standards for the state&39;s system. "We really built something people owned," he said. "That was the credibility. Everybody got on board."

His office developed content standards for the school system, issues upon which later commissioners built.

Hickel left office. In 1995 Covey dabbled in postsecondary teaching and did some consulting work.

In 1999, however, he and Sandy moved to Anchorage, founded JSC Consulting and got serious. Throughout the years, heÕs worked with boards of education to develop strategic plans, which led to similar work for nonprofit organizations. He branched out to consulting work for hospital boards, leading retreats, conflict resolution and staffing issues. "This has been very fulfilling for me," he said. "The goal is to work myself out of a job."