Rasmuson encourages his daughter and nephew, as well as other
family members and foundation staff, to travel around the state to look for new
ideas. They have visited Alaskan fisheries, one of the state’s most important
industries, and created a new bachelor’s degree program in fishery and
biological sciences with a $5 million grant matched by the University of Alaska.
"It gives an opportunity for our kids in Alaska to matriculate from four years
into marine biology or marine management, and then they have a ready job
available to them upon graduation. It also helps build up the prestige of our
university," Rasmuson says. The new direction creates a greater need for involvement from
extended family. "I wanted to see a large foundation from the get-go," Rasmuson
says. "I’ve gotten the family involved with it and we have family reunions every
year in Alaska. The next generation is going to be further split, but I try to
keep my children and my sisters’ children together, and they take vacations
together back East or in Alaska. You have to work at it. If you don’t, you’re
kind of ripped away." Both Natasha, 37, and Adam, 38, feel connected to Alaska. Like
her father, Natasha attended Harvard, but loves Alaska and its fresh air and
wilderness. "I am West Coast at heart," she says. Adam was torn between the East Coast, where he grew up, and
Alaska, where he hoped he would spend part of his adult life. He now splits his
time between New York and Alaska. "As I spend more time around the foundation
and the family, I get sucked in more and more," he says. Rasmuson considered the next generation as far back as 1995,
when his father offered to transfer his remaining stake in the family business
to Rasmuson so that he could assume formal control. Rasmuson became concerned
about estate taxes, and with no eager successor to him in sight, the bank—which
by then had swallowed up dozens of small banks throughout the state under the
holding company National Bancorp of Alaska—could slip from family hands after
his tenure. He proposed that his father use his bank shares to boost the coffers
of the family foundation. "It got to the point where I finally said, ‘I am
already wealthy,’" Rasmuson recalls. "You really want that?" his father asked. The next week, the
elder Rasmuson changed the will. But the sale of such a large bulk of National Bancorp of
Alaska’s small-cap stock would dent its value. Rasmuson, still CEO, decided that
selling the company altogether might make it possible to boost the foundation’s
assets and answer the successor question. So he approached a colleague he knew
from Bankers Roundtable, Dick Kovacevich, CEO of Wells Fargo, which bought out
the Rasmuson family’s interest in National Bancorp in 2000. After opting to sell, the family had to decide whether or not
to keep the foundation operating in perpetuity—and they chose to take this
difficult step. "By not sunsetting," Rasmuson says, "it puts more pressure on my
immediate family and me to make sure that future generations of Rasmusons are
involved—or you become a foundation that’s not family-run, but run by
management. I can’t say what my sister and my daughter and my nephew will do in
the future, but if I live for another 30 years, maybe I can influence my
grandchildren."
Elizabeth Harris is a staff writer for Worth.
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