Doyon Foundation and Doyon, Limited are pleased to announce Tiffany Simmons as the nonprofit organization’s new executive director. Simmons will assume the role, based at the Foundation’s office in Fairbanks, beginning Monday, May 17, 2021.
“Doyon Foundation is delighted to welcome Tiffany Simmons as our new executive director, to lead and grow the Foundation to the next level,” said Jennifer Fate, president of the Foundation’s board of directors and secretary of the Doyon, Limited board. “Tiffany brings a wealth of skills in program development, workforce services, culturally driven initiatives, strategic partnerships, and educational scholarships – all critical growth areas we care about at the Foundation. We are very excited to have Tiffany fill this key leadership position in the state.”
A Doyon, Limited shareholder, Simmons is Central Koyukon Athabascan and was raised in the Yukon River communities of Koyukuk and Galena. She is the daughter of Marie Simmons and the late James Walldow, and her grandparents are the late Sidney and Angela and Jennie Huntington. Simmons raised her two children, Traven and Tessa Sweetsir, in Fairbanks, where she currently resides with her husband, Harold Attla.
Simmons graduated from the Galena City High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She has extensive experience working with tribal members and tribal governments in various management and senior leadership positions. In her free time, Simmons enjoys beading, sewing, teaching others to bead and sew, and getting out on the rivers and land.
“Over 20 years ago, the Doyon Foundation provided invaluable support to me in various ways as I experienced obstacles in the beginning of my educational journey,” Simmons said. “I am excited to be in a role where I can now return that support to fellow shareholders as they pursue their academic dreams.”
Doyon Foundation was established as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in 1989 by Doyon, Limited, the Alaska Native regional corporation for Interior Alaska. As the private foundation for Doyon, Limited, it serves the educational and cultural needs of Doyon’s shareholders and their children. Since inception, the Foundation has awarded more than $11.6 million in scholarships to students pursuing higher education and vocational training. Through the Foundation’s language revitalization program, established in 2012, efforts are underway to revitalize the languages of the Doyon region, which represent half of the 20 Native languages in the state of Alaska.
Learn more about Doyon Foundation and its efforts at www.doyonfoundation.com.