Board of Directors

Serving as the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association Rob Stapleton supports archiving Alaska's moving image, and audio history through digitizing film, video, and tape.

While working as a photojournalist, writer, and editor Stapleton has published thousands of images depicting Alaska's historic events, cultural lifestyles, and activities for half a century.

As a result, Stapleton has served on the board of non-profit organizations that include the Alaska Aviation Museum, Alaska Airmen Association, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 42, and the Birchwood Airport Association.

"After experiencing the changes in how Alaska's history is archived, and used, it is imperative that we support the development of lasting interpretive and technical improvements to archiving."

Jonathan R. Butzke started in media production in 1984. He is founder and owner of Talking Circle Media, which opened in 1989, and it is the largest full-service video, television, film, a/v event support, software design, and live internet streaming production company in the state. Butzke has over 40 years working Internationally, Nationally and in Alaska, specializing in Alaska Rural issues.

Part Inupiaq Eskimo from Nome, Butzke is also proud to note that his grandfather was O.D. Cochran, who was the Territorial Senator who wrote and sponsored the anti-discrimination act in Alaska that abolished discrimination against Alaska Natives.

Butzke grew in Anchorage, and graduated from Dimond High School. Also attending Alaska Pacific University, where he founded the student newspaper and studied International Communications. Then he followed up with studies in journalism, public relations, and advertising at University of Alaska Anchorage.

Although he has over 30 years of experience in Alaskan real estate, including an investment in the FSBO System, LLC, Butzke is best known for his work in media. He has awards and credits of his productions, and a Youtube channel of his long format and broadcast projects which cover his travels to more than 150 villages in every region of Alaska.

Butzke was former chairperson of the Denali Jaycees. He has served on the board of the Alaska Moving Image Preservation since 2008. Butzke is a founding member on the board of directors, and currently President of the non-profit group of Alaska Native Media Group.

Evan Rose is the retired CEO of the Alaska Permanent Capital Management, a local money management firm. He also serves as a trustee of the Frances and David Rose Foundation.

He was born and raised in Anchorage. Rose is a former chair of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. In addition, former board member of the Perseverance Theatre, and as treasurer of Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association.

He has a BA in finance from the University of Oregon and an MBA from the University of Washington in business administration.

Steven Levi is a commercial and technical writer living in Anchorage. He has more than 130 books on the market, ranging from history to mystery, self-help to creative thinking, and poetry to biography. His most recent books can be found at stevelevibooks.com. Levi specializes in a unique brand of mysteries: the impossible crime. An impossible crime requires the detective to solve HOW a crime was committed before he can arrest the perpetrators. In The Matter of the Vanishing Greyhound, a bus with bank robbers being pursued by the police vanishes off the Golden Gate Bridge. Before the detective can capture the criminals, he has to figure out how they were able to "disappear."

When it comes to history, Levi specializes in the Alaska Gold Rush. So few Americans know about the Alaska Gold Rush that when you pull it up on the internet, the Klondike Strike comes up. That rush, made famous by Jack London and Robert Service, was centered in Dawson in the Yukon Territory of Canada and lasted about 15 months. The Alaska Gold Rush starts in Juneau in 1880 and its heyday ended with the First World War. The Klondike Strike was concentrated in an area about 30 miles by 30 miles; the Alaska Gold Rush covered an area equivalent to one-fifth of the Lower 48. Levi's scholarly history of the Alaska Gold Rush-Boom and Bust in the Alaska Gold Fields-is an in-depth examination of the era. His companion book, The Human Face of the Alaska Gold Rush, is a compendium of the interesting tidbits of that era.

Steve Levi is the historian on the board and has been a member since the formation of AMIPA.

Born in Évreux, France, and spending her formative childhood years in Tokyo, Japan, as the daughter of a U.S.A.F. military commander, Carole Anderson has endeavored throughout her life to maintain a global perspective and to be a true citizen of the world.

Anderson began her media career in Fairbanks, Alaska at KATN-TV and later worked at KUAC-TV. Freelance assignments included TeleJapan International in Tokyo, Japan, and also VOA/TV Martí in Washington D.C. For her endeavors at WUSA-TV (CBS/Gannett) she was honored to receive the Women in Engineering CBS Award. At the FCC Advanced Television Test Center (A.T.T.C.) laboratory, Carole served as a Data Analyst on the engineering team, testing prototypes to develop and standardize the U.S. Digital HDTV System. She received an Emmy Award for Television Technology and Engineering.

Upon return to Alaska, she pursued international interests in Arctic affairs, taking on public relations and research analysis roles at the Northern Forum and the Institute of the North, organizations both founded by Governor Walter J. Hickel. She subsequently served as his aide during his final years.

Anderson is deeply involved in the Anchorage community, coaching alpine skiing and power-lifting for Special Olympics and serving on the advisory council of CSS Clare House. As the President of the board of the Japan Relief Fund of Alaska, an organization which raised funds for the Japanese Red Cross after the 3/11/11 triple disaster, she was honored to accept the 2013 Governor's North Star Award for International Excellence for Humanitarian Endeavors. She currently serves on the boards of the Alaska World Affairs Council, the Japan Alaska Association (JAA), Perseverance Theatre, and the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA).

Rhonda McBride has a long history of working in both television and radio in Alaska, going back to 1988, when she was news director at KYUK, the public radio and TV station in Bethel, which broadcasts in both the English and Yup'ik languages.

From the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race to the revival of the Yup'ik language to the fight to protect the subsistence way of life, McBride was immersed in Alaska Native culture and history on a daily basis. It was one of the best jobs she ever had, she recalls, because she got to work alongside pioneering Yup'ik broadcasters, who incorporated modern technology with traditional story telling skills to preserve their language and culture.

After almost ten years in Bethel, McBride moved on to the Alaska Public Radio Network in Anchorage. She was also a public television producer at KAKM-Channel 7, where she hosted public affairs programs and moderated the election series, running. Later she worked at KTUU-Channel 2 and KTVA-Channel 11, where she covered politics, economics, rural and Alaska Native issues.

In her more than 30 years as a journalist in Alaska, she has strived to bridge the state's urban/rural divide by introducing Alaskans to each other. "The closest distance between two people is a story,"" she insists. And the story of how things got to be the way they are today is a recurring theme in her work, in which she's profiled many historical and political figures -- and tackled big issues like Alaska's epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault, alcohol and drug addiction, the rural dental health crisis and historical trauma.

The boards newest recruit, these projects introduced McBride to AMIPA's archives which she tapped on a regular basis when she began to host and produce KTVA's Frontiers program, an award-winning weekly magazine show, which showcased Alaska's history, politics, economy and Native cultures.

Hal Gage is a life long Alaskan. He studied Public Communications, Television Broadcasting at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He later went on to establish a commercial photography career. His fine art photography has been shown worldwide and garnered several national and international awards and recognitions.