ACGA Board of Directors
The Alaska Charitable Gaming Alliance (ACGA) was formed in November 2019 by members of the industry.
ACGA represents a voice for the charitable gaming industry in Alaska. We represent non-profit charity members, their boards and benefactors, as well as the businesses and staff operating in the trade, and members of Alaskan communities within which charitable gaming occurs.
ACGA’s website and social media content include information, data, and statistics from government, industry, media sources on charitable gaming in Alaska.
Michelle Overstreet
Board Member
Founder and Executive Director of MY House (Mat Su Youth Housing)
Michelle grew up in the Mat Su Valley, earned a Bachelors of Science from the University of Idaho and completed her coursework and practicum for a Masters in Health Psychology at Northern Arizona University in 1990. She has published research in the field of Addiction and has presented research at National Conferences for the American, Eastern and Western Psychological Associations.
Michelle has worked for Hospitals, non-profits and owned her own Life Coaching business. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the National Dorothy Richardson Award for Leadership and Community Impact, Rotary Gift to the World Award, State of Alaska’s First Lady Volunteer of the Year Award, as well as Outstanding Valley Women in Business Awards for 2013 and in 2018. One of her favorite jobs was a position as the addiction expert for Joe Garajiola’s Spit Tobacco Prevention Program with the Diamondbacks Baseball team in Phoenix, Arizona.
Michelle provided life coaching at an award-winning alternative high school and was inspired to start MY House when she sent a youth out with a sleeping bag and a backpack to spend the night in his car. The MY House drop-in center is located at the heart of the Valley in Downtown Wasilla and has been offering services to homeless youth at that location since June of 2013.
Rich Carr
Board Member
Treasurer and Board Member, Alaska Police and Fire Chaplains Ministries
Rich Carr is a 45+ year Alaskan resident and a proud husband and father of six kids and 15 grandkids. He’s a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served a combat tour of duty in the Vietnam War. Since forming his first construction business in 1974 in Kodiak, Rich has been in the building trades for decades and earned a four-year Master certification in Carpentry from AGC in the state of Louisiana as well as a Bachelor of Science in Bible & Theology Studies from Toccoa Falls College in Georgia.
From 1985 to 1988 he was a construction superintendent on multiple projects on the North Slope. He’s the past president of the Mat-Su and Alaska Home Builders Associations and received the “2019 Alaska Builder of the Year” from the Alaska Home Builders Association through his company Bema Construction. Rich also owns six Service Master Restoration Solutions franchises on the Kenai Peninsula, and in Anchorage, Eagle River and Mat-Su. Rich currently serves as the Treasurer on the Board of the Alaska Police & Fire Chaplains Ministries which affords over 100 ministers statewide for counsel in law enforcement and fire departments, schools, hospitals and tourism centers where visitors require assistance.
Denece Vesco
Board Member
Manager / Tudor Bingo
Kevin McKinley
Board Member
Sandy Powers
President
Big Valley Bingo Center
The majority of Sandy Powers’ professional life has been dedicated to health care and patient services. She graduated with an R.N. degree in New Mexico in 1994, working as a nurse in Colorado’s Mercy Medical Center and then Providence Medical Center for nearly 10 years. For nearly a decade Sandy worked in the Adult Critical Care Unit at Providence, dedicated to compassionate patient support and care. After retiring from nursing Sandy joined her best friend and husband John, with whom she has two adult boys (attending UAA), and entered the charitable gaming industry as the owner and operator of Big Valley Bingo in Wasilla. Under Sandy’s direction, and working with Criterion General construction company, the vacated tri-plex movie theater in Wasilla was renovated to the new bingo center and opened in 2017. Sandy enjoys the same outdoor activities as John, including gardening and landscaping. John and Sandy are the founders of ACGA and have a heartfelt belief that charitable gaming and benefactors must be protected.
Doug Norris
Treasurer
Treasurer, Fraternal Order of Alaska State Troopers (FOAST)
Bruce D. (Doug) Norris, Major, Alaska State Troopers, Retired
Joined the Alaska State Troopers in January of 1982 and served through August 2013: 21 years 7 months with the Alaska State Troopers as Trooper, Sergeant, First Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, and Major as Admin. Services Commander and as Deputy Director.
Alaska State Office of Victim’s Rights as a Special Investigator 4 years 8 months until April of 2009.
Private Investigator at Oz Investigations from June 2011 to present. Worked almost solely with (daughter) Natasha Norris Law Office
Lifetime Member of the Fraternal Order of the Alaska State Troopers (FOAST). Member of the Board of Directors from 2004 to present. Member of the Executive Board from 2005 to present, serving at President, Secretary, and Treasure throughout that time.
Denise Christopher
Board Member
Mat-Su Miners Baseball
Denise was born in Boston, MA and at a young age moved Anacortes, Washington where she and her three sisters were raised by a hardworking mother. With a lifelong appreciation for volunteering and giving back, that was instilled by her mother… Denise has continued to do the same. By volunteering for different organizations and giving back to improve our communities is a goal that she doesn’t consider work. It’s a passion. A volunteer from a young age; Pioneer Award and Legislative Citation recipient she knows what giving back can accomplish. She enjoys gardening, cooking, time with family/friends and their dog, Slider.
Denise and her husband, Pete, been married for 32 years. She has lived in Alaska for over 24 years and raised two boys. Both graduated from Palmer High and have completed their college degrees in Chemical Engineering. She has worked at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center for 17 years and appreciates the impact she can make on a day to day basis with patients.
John Powers
Vice-President
Power Brothers Investments
John Powers’ professional roots started in Boston, Massachusetts for over a decade as an insurance agent and financial consultant with John Hancock Insurance. Thereafter he moved to Alaska, over 25 years ago, and continued to work in financial services as well as partnering with his older brother Jack Powers, Alaska’s iconic charitable gaming pioneer. John’s happily married to his best friend Sandy and they have two sons, both attending the University of Alaska, Anchorage. John has owned and operated the Tudor Bingo Center since 2008 and is an avid outdoorsman enjoying fishing, hiking, snowshoeing and recreational activities with the family dog Zig, a Karelian Bear Dog. John and Sandy are the founders of ACGA and have a heartfelt belief that charitable gaming and benefactors must be protected.
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