Spring 2026 Honorary Degree Award: Ron Duncan

Ron Duncan's visionary leadership has helped define Alaska's telecommunications landscape.

As co-founder and CEO of GCI, Duncan transformed the way Alaskans live, learn, work and connect, turning a modest entrepreneurial idea into a decades-long campaign to close the digital divide in one of the world's most rugged and remote environments.

Duncan's Alaska story began in the 1970s, when he visited from Harvard Business School and saw an unmet need: Fairbanks lacked a cable system. That early spark of innovation led to a partnership with local business leaders and, eventually, the 1979 launch of GCI from a small Anchorage apartment. His goal? To introduce competition into Alaska's long-distance telephone market - a move that would permanently change the state's communications industry.

Over the following four decades, Duncan built GCI into Alaska's largest telecommunications provider, with more than 1,800 employees and over $4 billion invested in infrastructure. Under his leadership, the company laid more than 10,000 miles of telecom lines, including 6,000 miles of subsea fiber, bringing broadband, mobile service and reliable connectivity to even the most isolated parts of the state.

But Duncan's work was never just about fiber optics and satellites. A commercial pilot for more than 40 years, he also brought an aviator's sense of problem-solving and persistence to his work - qualities that earned him a long-standing role as a director and former board chair of the National Business Aviation Association. Whether flying his own planes or navigating regulatory obstacles, he brought the same can-do ethos to both runways and boardrooms.

GCI's innovations under Duncan's leadership include satellite-based voice systems that made rural calling affordable, competition in local telephone markets, widespread wireless infrastructure and now 5G services and long-haul microwave networks. These milestones weren't inevitable; they were the result of strategic policy work, regulatory engagement and relentless coalition-building.

Beyond business, he has been a tireless advocate for fiscal policy, public-private collaboration and mentoring future leaders. His commitment to Alaska's long-term development, equity and innovation reflects the values he embodies: integrity, resilience and service. Those who know him personally describe Duncan as decent, loyal and quietly committed to doing the right thing.

Today, Duncan's impact can be seen in the fiber that runs beneath tundra, the wireless towers dotting remote villages and the educational and medical breakthroughs made possible by fast, stable internet.