Face to Face
Nathan Brock
Business Planning Manager
Published December 2004

Nathan Brock is a long time Alaskan who drove up the Alcan Highway to Fairbanks with his parents in 1967. He attended kindergarten through college in Fairbanks, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting in 1987. He began his career at Ernst and Whinney in 1988 and joined Alyeska in 1991.

Nathan has worked in a variety of Alyeska finance and accounting positions in Anchorage and Fairbanks. He currently works in Anchorage as the Business Planning Manager. Outside of work Nathan likes to spend time with his family, take advantage of the playground Alaska offers and has recently “punished” his family by taking up cooking.

Q: What are your main responsibilities?

A: Primarily, I am responsible for the development of our ten-year long-range plan and our annual operating plan. I work with a dedicated team of nine people and Alyeska management to accomplish this using the AMS-005 (Alyeska Management System) to create the long range plan and to analyze financial performance and develop financial forecasts. We also provide overall financial analysis and support for the operation managers for the Valdez Marine Terminal, Ship Escort Response Vessel System, Pipeline Operations and Maintenance, Projects and Engineering and other support groups.

Q: What are your goals in these areas?

A: Our continuing goal is to improve our performance metrics. Performance metrics are the measures we use to monitor the company’s performance in safety, operations and maintenance, budget and many other areas. It is crucial that these metrics provide accurate, reliable assessments of our performance and support Alyeska’s vision and strategy so we can properly plan for the future.

Q: What is your role in strategic reconfiguration?

A: Our team was directly involved in the initial assessment of what Alyeska would look like once implementation of strategic reconfiguration, with fewer people and lower costs, was complete. We examined the operation and maintenance portion of the plan and determined how the implementation would reduce annual operation costs. We also mapped specific events within reconfiguration into our financial and staffing projections of the ten year long range plan. We then submitted this information to Alyeska’s owner companies to provide an economic outlook to help them decide if strategic reconfiguration would be worth the capital commitment. In the future, our department will have fewer people like so many other departments so we will have to adjust to ensure excellence in our continued level of support to the TAPS organization.