Matthew Blattmachr has been with Peak Trust Company full-time since 2008, and currently serves as President & CEO. Prior to assuming this leadership role, Matthew served in various roles with the company across every department, including investments, operations and trust administration. Matthew is responsible for overseeing three office locations and a staff of over 40 team members in Alaska and Nevada. Matthew’s expertise includes administration of private foundations, trusts holding private placement life insurance, Grantor Trusts, Incomplete Non-Grantor Trusts, and Charitable Trusts. 

Since 2008, Matthew has taken an active role in the passage of trust and estate-related legislation. In early 2019, he organized a formal working group, Alaska Trust & Estate Professionals, to continue this progress to further advance Alaska’s trust and estate planning law for the benefit of the state, Alaskans, and Alaskan professionals.

In the Alaska estate planning community, Matthew is active in several professional associations, public policy groups, and nonprofits. Matthew has served in leadership positions as Chair of the Anchorage Senior Activity Center Endowment Fund Board of Trustees, President of the Anchorage Estate Planning Council, and currently serves as President of Alaska Trust & Estate Professionals and as a Board member of Commonwealth North, Alaska’s premier non-partisan public policy forum.

Matthew has written and co-authored numerous articles related to trusts and estate planning in Alaska for various publications including Family Office Magazine and Trusts & Estates Magazine.

Matthew holds a Master of Business Administration from Alaska Pacific University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Matthew has earned his Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation from the College of Financial Planning and Certified Fiduciary & Investment Risk Management Specialist (CFIRS) designation from the Cannon Financial Institute.

Donn has been with Peak Trust Company as Chief Compliance Officer since 2011 and the financial services industry since 1981. Donn brings broad experience with IT back-office systems integration, transaction monitoring, and business process engineering to the CCO role. His primary responsibility is focused on the continuous development and oversight of the Company’s regulatory and fiduciary best practices compliance program, reporting directly to the Board of Directors’ Audit Committee.

Before joining Peak Trust Company, Donn served as CIO for a Pacific Northwest brokerage firm. He was an entrepreneur founding his own systems integration firm providing document imaging, CRM, and business intelligence programs to financial services, medical, and government businesses. He is a key member of the Fiduciary Investment Management Association (FIRMA) where he leads a peer group roundtable and delivers training sessions at annual FIRMA conferences. Donn holds the Certified Fiduciary Risk Investment Specialist (CFIRS) designation from Cannon Financial School.

Lisa Russell has been with Peak Trust Company since 2003 and currently serves as Chief Investment Officer. Lisa specializes in designing unique investment programs for high-net-worth clients and trust accounts. She is highly attuned to the tax consequences of investment actions. Lisa has over 25 years of investment experience. Prior to joining Peak Trust Company, Lisa held investment positions at other firms, most recently at US Bank, where she worked with high-net-worth individuals as a Senior Portfolio Manager.

Lisa holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from Emory University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Lisa holds the designation of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Seattle.

Michelle Stahle has been with Peak Trust Company since 2018 and currently serves as Chief Operations Officer overseeing all back-office banking operations. In this leadership role, she manages fiduciary operations teams across multiple offices and is responsible for daily processing and procedures related to trust administration, account management, transaction processing, asset custody, compliance, and more.

Michelle brings over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry focusing specifically on fiduciary and trust operations for the past 13 years. Prior to joining Peak, she worked in increasingly senior roles at a federal credit union leading the trust operations department. There, Michelle directed her teams in account opening, money movement, brokerage interactions, annual reviews, tax form preparation, records management, and reconciliations.

As Chief Operations Officer at Peak Trust Company, Michelle leverages her expertise in fiduciary processing and client account management to lead company-wide initiatives impacting accuracy, efficiency, risk mitigation and client satisfaction. Michelle and her division are essential to ensuring seamless trust administration operations and providing excellent service levels to Peak Trust’s clients and partners.

James Meier serves as Chief Financial Officer for Peak Trust Company. In this role, James oversees all aspects of financial management for the firm. His core responsibilities include financial reporting and analysis, budgeting and forecasting, treasury functions, audit and control, shareholder communications, and strategic planning. He assesses business performance, directs capital allocation, manages risk and financing, and develops long range fiscal growth plans. As a key member of the executive team, James helps drive decision making that advances Peak Trust’s operational and commercial objectives in support of its vision and mission.

James joined Peak Trust Company as Chief Financial Officer in 2023, bringing over 20 years of financial leadership experience in the gaming, technology, and financial services industries. Most recently, James served as CFO for a major bitcoin mining and data center operator, overseeing financial operations for cryptocurrency mining facilities across 8 locations. Prior to that, he held the CFO role with a pre-IPO manufacturer of technology products and services and was a national commercial lender with a major bank. James also spent five years as CFO of a publicly traded developer, owner and operator of gaming properties across multiple states, guiding financial strategy for 9 casinos. During his tenure, he led acquisition analysis, due diligence, financing, integration and SEC reporting. James spent 10 years in strategic finance positions with a publicly traded casino development and management corporation. His oversight included internal controls, risk management, regulatory compliance, and coordinating construction financing projects exceeding $375 million.

In the Las Vegas professional community, James serves on the board of the Las Vegas chapter of Financial Executives International and is a member of the SEC Professionals Group. James holds a Master of Science degree in hotel administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Minnesota State University. James maintains active CPA and CMA certifications and gaming licenses across numerous jurisdictions.

Douglas Blattmachr founded Peak Trust Company, formerly Alaska Trust Company, in 1997. Douglas served as the President and CEO from 1997 until 2018. Douglas continues to serve in an advisory capacity for the company as well as board management. He brings with him over 40 years of trust and investment management experience. Prior to starting Peak Trust Company, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer for a $5 billion trust division at WestOne, President & CEO of Neuberger & Berman Trust Company, and headed up the D.A. Davidson Trust Company.

In 1996 Douglas along with his brother Jonathan Blattmachr took an active role in the passage of the Alaska Trust Act, which ultimately passed in 1997. This groundbreaking legislation set the model for modern trust legislation across all top trust jurisdictions in the nation today. From 1997 until 2018, Douglas maintained a major role in the passage of trust and estate-related legislation in Alaska, and was instrumental in the passage of numerous bills over that time period.

Douglas has taught investment management at the university level and has been a speaker at many seminars on investments, retirement plans, and estate planning. He has also written or co-authored numerous articles on estate planning and investment topics.

Douglas holds a Master of Business Administration in Banking and Finance from Adelphi University, a Bachelor of Science degree from Clemson University, and is a graduate of Pacific Coast Banking School.

Stephen Miller has been with Peak Trust Company since 2009 and currently serves as General Counsel. 

After trusts associated with the Horejsi family acquired Peak in 2009, Mr. Miller served as the primary liaison between Peak’s management and Peak’s sole shareholder. Mr. Miller previously served in management roles serving on Peak’s Board of Directors and Audit Committee. Mr. Miller became in-house counsel to the family and business affiliates of the Horejsi family in 1998 and has served in a number of executive management capacities for Horejsi affiliates since. He previously served as vice president and general counsel of Rocky Mountain Advisers, LLC, and Boulder Investment Advisers, LLC, each an SEC registered investment adviser with over $1.1 billion of assets under management. Mr. Miller also served as a director of Boulder Growth & Income Fund, Inc., Boulder Total Return Fund, Inc., First Opportunity Fund, Inc. and The Denali Fund, Inc., all publicly traded closed-end investment companies previously listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Prior to joining the Horejsi family enterprise as in-house counsel, Mr. Miller practiced law in the Denver office of Kirkland & Ellis from 1987 to 1992 and started a private practice in Boulder, Colorado in 1992.   Mr. Miller maintains his law firm, Stephen C. Miller, P.C., and “of counsel” status with the law firm of Krassa & Miller, LLC.  Mr. Miller holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Georgia and a Juris Doctor degree with honors from the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law.