Assistant Commissioner Roberta Graham

 
Roberta Graham is Assistant Commissioner with the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. In her role, she oversees the Divisions of Economic Development, Community and Regional Affairs and Serve Alaska and serves as the department’s representative to the boards of the Statewide Broadband Task Force, the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and the Alaska Housing and Finance Corporation.

She previously served as the special assistant to the DCCED Commissioner, and prior to her state service she worked for the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects [OFC] in Washington, D.C. From August 1989 until April 2009, Graham was the CEO of the public relations and public policy firm of Bernholz & Graham, Inc. with offices in Anchorage and New York. As CEO, she managed programs and marketing efforts and was the lead strategist in designing and implementing campaigns for the agency’s many clients.

Graham serves on the Board of Trustees at Alaska Pacific University. She is on the Board of Advisors of the Public Diplomacy Collaborative at Harvard University and is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of the North specializing in Arctic public diplomacy and strategic communications. She also assists in the coordination and development of strategic initiatives at the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy/Tufts University. In that capacity, she has been involved in the Center’s arctic media studies and has contributed to symposiums, seminars and programs focused on public diplomacy.

Graham holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and an interdisciplinary minor in U.S. – Canadian Relations from Michigan State University, East Lansing, as well as a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. She begins her PhD work in 2012 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and will explore arctic international governance, communications and the diplomatic role of the Arctic Council.