Leadership
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Harold Squartsoff
Director
Harold worked for the Indian Health Service for 34 years, and although he spent most of that time in Alaska working to build the Alaska Area Native Health Service Area, he spent 6 years at IHS headquarters in Albuquerque fundamentally shaping his understanding that increasing efficiency and efficacy can make appreciable impacts on the quality of lives for American Indians and Alaska Natives throughout the United States.
In Harold’s volunteer life, he served as the secretary for the Koniag subsidiary Kashim, and later served on the Koniag Shareholder Advisory Committee twice since 2000. After retirement, Harold also assisted ONC in the marketing of Katmai Wilderness Lodge (KWL) at national and international Sportsmen Shows. Business at KWL increased by 45% the first year, and 55% respectively from prior years’ business.
Harold met the love of his life, Barbara, when stationed in Meridian Mississippi. They have been married for 42 years, and live in Kenai. They have two adult children- Misty and Michael, and 6 grandchildren. Harold is hoping that now that he has retired from the professional world, he can devote more time to give back to the community that shaped him.
Harold is the retired Director of Logistics & Supply Management from the Alaska Native Health Service, and an original shareholder of the Ouzinkie Native Corporation. He was born the 6th of 13 children born to Peter and Mary Squartsoff. His time growing up in Ouzinkie shaped the man Harold would become, and he credits his father with setting the example of generosity through service to the community that would become the hallmark of Harold’s career working for the health of the Alaska Native people. It was also in Ouzinkie that Harold also learned the important relationship between subsistence foods and traditional activities in maintaining healthy outcomes, a theme that would impact Harold’s personal and professional paths.
He graduated from Kodiak High School in 1965, and attended Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka before being drafted into the Navy in 1968 where he was trained in materials management. After his term in the military, Harold joined the Indian Health Service in the hopes of using the professional skills he’d learned over time to serve the community closer to home. There, Harold became proficient in the effective management of all types of resources: people, supplies, funding, and networks. In his role as Director of the Division of Supply Management and Logistics for the Indian Health Service, Harold was responsible for the implementation of national programs and management of government contracts with many different entities, including Alaska Native Corporations. He became known for his energy, and his ability to keep things moving and get things accomplished through federal and state bureaucracies that might resist it.
Although one of Harold’s greatest achievements was being asked by the United States State Department to travel to Saipan to provide assistance to the territorial government with implementing a database system that Harold had helped create, it was his work creating efficiencies saving IHS millions of dollars that earned him an award from then-Vice President Al Gore for his Administrative Services.
