Camille Ferguson, executive director of the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association, and Explore Fairbanks President and CEO Deb Hickok have been elected to three-year terms on the U.S. Travel Association board of directors.
They are the first Alaskans to serve on the board of U.S. Travel, the national, nonprofit organization working to increase travel to and within the United States.
Ferguson, a 31-year tourism veteran, is Tlingit from the Kiksadi Clan and a citizen of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska. She has served as the economic development director for Sitka Tribe of Alaska, a Sitka Convention & Visitors Bureau board member and a general manager for Shee Atika Corporation's Totem Square Hotel, an Alaska Native-owned inn. Ferguson also began the annual Alaska Heritage and Cultural Tourism Conference.
Hickok worked in Pennsylvania's tourism industry before moving into her Explore Fairbanks role in 1999. Under her leadership, the organization has received the Governor of Alaska's Exporter of the Year Award and the U.S. Travel Destinations Council Destiny Award. Hickok serves on the boards of the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce and the Alaska Travel Industry Association, which she chaired in 2011.