The Calista Corporation wasn’t able to silence former chairman Wayne Don with a lawsuit, so it’s launched a public relations campaign instead.
On Monday, board member Margaret Pohjola published an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News in support of CEO Andrew Guy. “Calista does not condone any type of harassment,” she wrote. Under Guy’s leadership, Pohjola added, Calista has more than doubled in size from a $200 million company into a $500 million dollar company.
On Tuesday, Calista published a timeline of its internal dispute with Wayne Don on a newly created website, calistafacts.com. The website’s stated goal is transparency. According to its homepage, “it is time for the facts to come to the forefront and time for the Calista family to come together and move forward.” Calistafacts.com's timeline does not mention Guy’s past friendship with former Calista executive George Owletuck, or the fact that Calista’s motion for a court injunction to keep Wayne Don from talking was dismissed in court last week.
Calista’s upcoming annual meeting could be a pivotal moment in the conflict between Guy and Don. The corporation’s Board of Directors is sharply divided, with six board members supporting Calista’s CEO and five reliably supporting its former chairman. Four of Calista’s board members are up for re-election, and the results of that vote could swing the board in either Don or Guy’s favor.
The board members up for re-election are Myron Naneng, JoAnn Werning, Robert Hoffman, and Robert Beans. Naneng, Werning, and Hoffman reliably support Wayne Don, and Beans is in Andrew Guy’s camp. All four board members are facing competition for their seats.
Calista would not comment on how much its current public relations effort is costing the corporation.