JUNEAU — Southeast Alaska’s regional Native corporation Sealaska is losing one of its longest-serving leaders.
Rosita Worl will step down in June after 30 years on the Juneau-based corporation’s board of directors, KTOO-FM reported Wednesday.
Worl said she had thought about leaving her post for some time.
“I probably would have resigned three years ago, but at that point in time, I was chair of the Lands Legislation (Committee) and I felt like I wanted to see that completed before I left the board,” she said.
The committee helped bring forward a bill that transferred about 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest to Sealaska. The legislation gave the corporation access to more valuable timber stands, economic development locations and heritage sites. It passed Congress after several attempts in 2014.
Worl, an anthropologist who previously taught at the University of Alaska Southeast, said she is now looking to focus her attention on various academic projects.
“I’ve had to spend most of my energies on Sealaska and Sealaska Heritage Institute. And I’d like to finish a couple of manuscripts that I have: Tlingit property law and an ANCSA study, for example,” she said.
Worl will continue to serve as president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute.
Her previous leadership roles have also taken her outside southeast Alaska, where she has served on the boards of the Alaska Federation of Natives, the Indigenous Languages Institute and the National Museum of the American Indian.
Worl’s Tlingit names are Yeidiklatsakw and Kaa hani and she is Eagle of the Shungukeidi (Thunderbird) Clan from the Kaawdliyaayi Hit (House Lowered from the Sun) of Klukwan and a Lukaax.adi yadi (Child of the Sockeye Clan).
