Byron Ivar Mallott (April 6, 1943 – May 8, 2020) was an American politician, elder, tribal activist and business executive from the
state
State may refer to:
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* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. Mallott was an
Alaska Native
Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
leader of
Tlingit
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ), heritage and the leader of the Kwaash Ké Kwaan clan. He was the 12th
lieutenant governor of Alaska
The lieutenant governor of Alaska is the deputy elected official to the governor of the U.S. state of Alaska. Unlike most lieutenant governors in the U.S., the office also maintains the duties of a secretary of state, and indeed was named suc ...
from December 2014 until his resignation on October 16, 2018. He also previously served as the mayor of
Yakutat, the
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
of
Juneau
The City and Borough of Juneau, more commonly known simply as Juneau ( ; tli, Dzánti K'ihéeni ), is the capital city of the state of Alaska. Located in the Gastineau Channel and the Alaskan panhandle, it is a unified municipality and the s ...
, the president of the
Alaska Federation of Natives and the executive director of the
Alaska Permanent Fund
The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) is a constitutionally established permanent fund managed by a state-owned corporation, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC). It was established in Alaska in 1976 by Article 9, Section 15 of the Alaska Stat ...
.
Mallott was the Democratic nominee for
Governor of Alaska
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...
in
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
,
until he agreed to merge his campaign with that of independent candidate
Bill Walker Bill Walker may refer to:
Australian rules football
* Bill A. Walker (1886–1934), Australian rules footballer for Essendon
* Bill Walker (Australian footballer, born 1883) (1883–1971), Australian rules footballer for Fitzroy
* Bill J. V. Wal ...
and become Walker's running mate. Walker and Mallott won the election and were sworn in on December 1, 2014. In 2018, Mallott abruptly resigned after it was discovered he made inappropriate overtures to a woman.
Early life
![Byron Mallott 1973](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Byron_Mallott_1973.jpg)
Byron Ivar Mallott was born on April 6, 1943, in
Yakutat,
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
, to Jay B. Mallott and Emma M. Brown. Mallott was an Alaskan Native of the Tlingit tribe. His Tlingit name was Dux̱ da neiḵ, K'oo del ta', which means "'a person who would lead us into the future'". Mallott's father established a general store in a spare room of the family home in 1946. Mallott spent most of his childhood living in Yakutat.
As an adult, Mallott recounted that he had attended Pius X Mission, a Catholic boarding school located in Skagway, starting at age 13.
He graduated from
Sheldon Jackson High School and studied for several years at
Western Washington State College
Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...
.
Career in politics and government
Mallott's political career began in 1965 when his father, who served as Yakutat's mayor for the vast majority of the position's existence, died. He left college and returned to Yakutat, running to replace him, and won the election.
He left office before the expiration of his term, taking a job in the office of
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Bill Egan
William Allen Egan (October 8, 1914 – May 6, 1984) was an American Democratic politician. He served as the first governor of the State of Alaska from January 3, 1959 to 1966 and 1970 to 1974, as well as a shadow U.S. Senator from Alaska Terri ...
towards the end of Egan's first governorship. His job in the governor's office was focused on local government affairs, one of the few constitutionally mandated executive functions in Alaska.
Mallott was the first Commissioner of the Department of Community and Regional Affairs.
After Egan was defeated for re-election by
Walter Hickel
Walter Joseph Hickel (August 18, 1919 – May 7, 2010) was an American businessman, real estate developer, and politician who served as the second governor of Alaska from 1966 to 1969 and 1990 to 1994 and as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from ...
in
1966, Mallott returned to Yakutat and served on the city council.
In 1968, Mallott received the Democratic nomination for the 5th district in the
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska State House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of approximately 17,756 people per ...
. In the general election he was narrowly defeated by Henry E. Reeves by twenty-three votes. Mallott posted the $250 for a recount, but the vote total remained the same. In 1969, Senator
Mike Gravel
Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel ( ; May 13, 1930 – June 26, 2021) was an American politician and writer who served as a United States Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981 as a member of the Democratic Party, and who later in life twice ran for ...
appointed him to serve as a special assistant.
Mallott became chairman of Alaska's Reapportionment Board. On September 5, 1980, he resigned from the board for personal reasons.
In 1982, Mallott was appointed to the board of trustees of the
Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation by Governor
Jay Hammond
Jay Sterner Hammond (July 21, 1922 – August 2, 2005) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who served as the fourth governor of Alaska from 1974 to 1982. Hammond was born in Troy, New York and served as a Marine Corps fighter pil ...
to replace Elmer Rasmuson. In 1985, he was selected to serve as the chairman of the permanent fund; he later served as its executive director from 1995 to 2000.
Mayor of Juneau
Incumbent mayor
Jamie Parsons declined to seek re-election in 1994 after one term in office.
On August 16, 1994, Mallott announced that he would run in Juneau's mayoral election. He was elected mayor of Juneau in that municipality's 1994 general election. He resigned from office after he was selected to serve as the executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.
Mallott faced harsh criticism when he initially announced that he could handle serving in both positions, leading to changing his mind and resigning the mayoral position. Mallott was succeeded as mayor by deputy mayor
Dennis Egan
Dennis William Egan (March 3, 1947 – June 28, 2022) was an American politician who was a member of the Alaska Senate representing Juneau from April 19, 2009, until January 15, 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as t ...
.
Lieutenant Governor of Alaska
2014 election
![Byron Mallott oath](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Byron_Mallott_oath.jpg)
Mallott announced on September 2, 2013 that he was running for the Democratic nomination for governor of Alaska in the 2014 election. He won the Democratic gubernatorial primary with 80% of the vote on August 19, 2014.
![Alaska National Guard receives new commanding general 150526-Z-QK839-105](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Alaska_National_Guard_receives_new_commanding_general_150526-Z-QK839-105.jpg)
Independent candidate
Bill Walker Bill Walker may refer to:
Australian rules football
* Bill A. Walker (1886–1934), Australian rules footballer for Essendon
* Bill Walker (Australian footballer, born 1883) (1883–1971), Australian rules footballer for Fitzroy
* Bill J. V. Wal ...
and Mallott merged their campaigns on September 2 to appear on the November ballot as one independent campaign, which the Alaska Democratic Party endorsed. On this ticket, Walker ran for governor with Mallott as his running mate. Both candidates' respective prior running mates withdrew. They won the election on November 4, 2014, as there was a recount due to a close election result.
2018 election
In 2017, Walker and Mallott registered to run for re-election on an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
ticket. Despite running for reelection as an independent, Mallott maintained his Democratic Party registration.
Walker and Mallott faced a Republican ticket headed by state senator
Mike Dunleavy and a Democratic ticket headed by former senator
Mark Begich
Mark Peter Begich ( ; born March 30, 1962) is an American politician who served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Alaska from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously ser ...
. Mallott resigned from office on October 16, and Walker—after briefly continuing his campaign with newly appointed Lieutenant Governor
Valerie Davidson as his running mate–suspended his campaign on October 19.
Tenure
Mallott signed state marijuana regulations into effect in January 2016. In 2016, Raven Radio reported that Mallott had logged 280,000 Alaska Air Miles in the first two years of his tenure as lieutenant governor.
Mallott resigned his post as lieutenant governor on October 16, 2018, citing "inappropriate comments" that he had made to a woman whom Governor Walker refused to name. He was succeeded as lieutenant governor by
Valerie Davidson, the former commissioner of the
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.
Business career
In 1972, Mallott became a member of the newly formed
Sealaska Corporation
Sealaska Corporation is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Sealaska was incorporated in Alaska on June 16, 1972.Corpo ...
and was elected director. He served as chairman of the board from 1976 to 1983. In 1982, he was selected to serve as the CEO and kept his position until retirement on July 1, 1992. He also established a permanent fund for Sealaska shareholders. The fund had grown to a net worth of $100 million by the late 1990s.
Mallott served on the board of Sealaska until 2014.
Mallott was also a founding director of the Alaska Commercial Fisheries and Agriculture Bank. He was also a director of the Seattle Branch Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and he served on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He served as a director of Alaska Air Group and served on the board of the National Alliance of Business.
Other community involvement
Mallott was a clan leader of the KwaashKiKwaan clan of the Raven tribe of Yakutat.
He served as President of the
Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN)
and received a "Citizen of the Year" award from AFN.
Mallott served as president and CEO of the First Alaskans Foundation.
Mallott was appointed by Governor
Tony Knowles as a co-chair of the Alaska Commission on Rural Governance and Empowerment.
He also chaired the Nature Conservancy of Alaska and served as a director of the
Alaska Public Radio Network
Alaska Public Media is a non-profit organization with member television and radio stations that are part of PBS, NPR and other public broadcasting networks. Formerly known as Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc., Alaska Public Media relies up ...
.
Personal life and death
Mallott was married to Antoinette (Toni) Mallott,
a retired schoolteacher who spent most of her career teaching elementary grades in the
Juneau School District. They had five children. The Mallotts lived in the
West Juneau neighborhood of Juneau, located on
Douglas Island
Douglas Island is a tidal island in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is part of the city and borough of Juneau, just west of downtown Juneau and east of Admiralty Island. It is separated from mainland Juneau by the Gastineau Channel, and contains t ...
near downtown Juneau.
Mallott suffered a heart attack at his home in Juneau on May 7, 2020, and was flown by a medical charter to Anchorage. He died the following day at the age of 77.
Electoral history
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mallott, Byron
1943 births
2020 deaths
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American politicians
20th-century Native Americans
21st-century Native Americans
Alaska city council members
Alaska Democrats
Alaska Independents
Alaska Native people
American chief executives
Businesspeople from Alaska
Lieutenant Governors of Alaska
Mayors of Juneau, Alaska
Native American city councillors
Native American mayors
State cabinet secretaries of Alaska
Tlingit people
University of Alaska regents
Western Washington University alumni
Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska