Agnew::Beck was founded in 2002 by Thea Agnew Bemben and Chris Beck. Their aim was to establish a unique business that removed traditional barriers around fields such as “grant writing,” “planning,” and “economic development,” and to weave these skills sets together in order to more fully and sensibly help their clients. Initially working with Alaska’s rural communities, Chris and Thea sought to create a professional services firm offering a new and more comprehensive way to solve problems and accomplish projects.
Early successes included working in Bristol Bay, the Mat-Su and other rural regions of the state where Agnew::Beck helped move communities from problem identification to envisioning solutions to project planning to successful implementation. A hallmark of this process has always been strong communication, and meaningfully engaging with stakeholders to understand their needs, and have them actively shape solutions. Over time, as Agnew::Beck’s team and experience has expanded, our firm has been called on to work with a wider variety of clients, in new service fields and outside of Alaska. Our approach of taking apart a problem and working with clients to develop solutions has lead us to work more deeply in policy analysis and development. For us, this means our model for moving projects from conception to completion works.
As Agnew::Beck has evolved and grown to more than 20 people with offices in Alaska and Idaho, the objective has remained the same: to help clients efficiently and effectively direct change, solve problems and make their visions a reality.