TOTE Maritime Alaska GM Corey Nichols brings a customer’s eye to Anchorage

Nichols grew up in Modesto, California which is known for being an agricultural hub. He played football through college at Sacramento State, paying tuition with a job at a sporting goods store two doors down from a big-box warehouse club. The club turned him down for the membership desk but called back weeks later with an offer: cart pusher.

He took the job in 2009. Within seven years, he was running his first store as one of the company’s youngest general managers. He moved with the company from California to Washington to Alaska, then on to Colorado when it closed its Alaska locations.

After a decade in retail, he left for a brief tour at a national e-commerce operation. “You don’t believe it until you’re in it,” he said. “It’s chaos.”

When his former retail employer posted an Alaska supply chain role in 2021, Nichols called the friend who had held it.

“I told them, ‘I don’t have the supply chain experience, but I know the people. I know the business side of it,'” he said.

He got the job as Senior Manager of Offshore Supply Chain and Transportation, overseeing the retailer’s Alaska business. In his final year, he took on Hawai’i operations as well. Along the way he continued his education. He earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and an MBA from American Public University, plus supply chain certificates from MIT and the Haslam College of Business.

Within his first 30 days of running the retailer’s Alaska supply chain, Canada enforced full-vaccination requirements at the border. Much of the retailer’s fresh product moved through Canada by truck. Nichols hired Carlile Transportation, part of the Saltchuk family of companies, to bridge the gap. He then convinced his employer to invest in its own trucking fleet.

“After a year, I had it under control,” he said.

Nichols speaks with unusual authority about the state’s supply chain, having lived it from both ends.

“The average resident in Alaska does not understand how vulnerable the supply chain is,” he said. “They go to the store, and there’s always food on the shelf. They see the ships come in every Sunday and Tuesday. They don’t realize how much work goes into keeping the ship on track.”

TOTE runs two vessels to Alaska. If either falls half a day behind schedule, Nichols said, it can take up to three weeks to recover. The state holds five to seven days of food on shelves, he estimates, two or three with panic buying.

“There’s no margin for error,” he said. “It’s kind of like national security.”

Before joining, Nichols had worked closely with TOTE for years. He was invited to speak to its leadership team at the company’s 49th anniversary event on the economics of moving freight from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska. When the GM role opened, he hesitated.

“I’m looking at the history of who’s held this role, all these mariners, Kings Point graduates,” he said. “My background does not match who TOTE has traditionally hired.”

He applied anyway. The partnership he had experienced as a customer tipped the scales.

“It wasn’t just transactional,” he said. “Anytime I had an issue, I had the whole leadership team’s number. I knew where my freight was at all times. That’s not normal in the market.”

Vice President and Alaska General Manager, TOTE Maritime Alaska Corey Nichols announces the start of the UAA Spirit Run: Run Against Hunger presented by TOTE Maritime and Yeti Dogs.

At TOTE Alaska, Nichols leads about 35 people. In his last store, he had 300.

“Here, I could truly influence,” he said. “I can know everyone on a personal level.”

He describes his approach as servant leadership and compares it to teaching. “If I teach one way, I lose half the class,” he said. “Some people want straightforward feedback. Some need affirmation. My job is to find how each person on my team learns.”

In his first 30 days, he sat down with each of the office’s 20 clerical union members, for an hour each. Then he followed up with a second round within his first 6 months. He kept frontline supervisors on the floor. He set new goals for his leaders: cut turnover in half and raise engagement scores by 10 percent.

The team responded. Turnover has slowed to one departure in nine months. The Anchorage office engagement score increased 36%. In the first quarter of 2026, Alaska submitted 35 of the company’s 40 North Star Service Award nominations. The team won two of the four awards and repeated the sweep in Q2.

Nichols plays pickleball with his team every Thursday, sends a Monday newsletter, and wrote a handwritten letter to every employee during Employee Appreciation Week.

“I’m no different than them,” he said. “I just happen to have a title.”

Tote Maritime Alaska is presenting a ceremonial check to the Alaska Center for the Blind.

Beyond his office, Nichols has committed himself to Alaska. He sits on the boards of the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, the State of Alaska Chamber, and the University of Alaska Anchorage College of Business and Public Policy Advisory Council. He also serves on the Port of Alaska’s Advisory Board and User Group. He spent four years on the board of Alaskans for Litter Prevention and Recycling, where TOTE contributes more than $1 million in backhaul services each year.

He teaches career days at Anchorage schools, often alongside colleagues from Northern Air Cargo and Carlile, and has visited Covenant House three times in nine months.

One visit stuck with him: an afternoon with a group of visually impaired Alaskans.

“I asked how they get around outside in the winter,” he said. “They laughed and said, ‘We go on walks, and a lot of times we run into each other and argue about who’s on the wrong street, because the snow changes the terrain.'”

In June, Nichols and his wife took their first vacation without their three boys, a week in New York during the World Cup. It was the first trip he didn’t bring his work computer.

“Life isn’t just about working,” he said. “I need to put that same energy I put into my career into my personal life.”

His goal at TOTE Maritime Alaska, he said, is to help every person on his team feel what he feels about the company.

“My worst day here is better than my best day at my last job,” he concluded. “If everyone on my team could feel the joy I have for this organization, I feel like I’ve accomplished everything.”