Non-timber products conference slated

TALKEETNA -- Non-timber forest retailers are becoming more and more numerous in the Mat-Su Valley every year.

Finally, purveyors of such products will have a chance to gather information on marketing strategies, permitting and more, while remaining relatively close to home.

The Non-Timber Forest Products in Alaska conference, which will span Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley, will be held Nov. 8-10.

It will be held at the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage during the first two days, and the conference will culminate in a Valley tour on the 10th.

Tour participants will stop in Wasilla and hear presentations from non-timber forest products business owners from Wasilla and Palmer, then depart for lunch in Houston.

After lunching in Houston, the tour will visit several non-timber forest products businesses in Talkeetna, then head to the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, where an evening session discussing business opportunities will be held.

Planning assistance and significant sponsorship contributions came from the Alaska Association of Conservation Districts; the Palmer, Upper Susitna and Wasilla Soil and Water Conservation Districts; and the Mat-Su Resource Conservation and Development Council, and other entities.

The conference, according to Mat-Su Resource Conservation and Development Council coordinator Rhoda Portis, is the first of its kind held in the area.

"The small business owners, if they wanted to attend something like this, they had to travel to Canada," Portis said.

There will be a broad range of speakers at the meeting, and many panel discussions are planned to help participants find answers to questions they may have about starting or boosting their small business.

"What I'm asking [the speakers] to do is focus on . . . how they got their business started and how they grew," Portis said. "We kind of wanted them to share the techniques that they used to make their business profitable."

Registration for the conference is $75, a price Portis said organizers worked to make low enough for small business owners to afford.

All evening sessions are open to the public, including the Talkeetna evening session.

The full schedule of the conference is available online at http://www.customcpu.com/akdistrict/ntfp.html.

Information is also available online for those who wish to participate in the conference's Valley tour product fair, which will be held in Talkeetna on the evening of Nov. 10.