As a third-generation Alaskan banker, Betsy Cuddy may have followed in her father’s footsteps in her chosen occupation but her strong role model for women is in her DNA from her mother Betti Cuddy and her grandmother Lucy Hon Cuddy both Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame alumna. She learned at an early age that women can and should be business and community leaders in Alaska. Her actions have always shown she is committed to helping women enter these roles. 

Graduating from Duke University, BA in economics in 1971, she learned the banking business in the trenches working her first job as a secretary for her father, who was then Board Chair and President of First National Bank of Anchorage, changed in 2001 to First National Bank Alaska, both positions she now holds.  

Lawer may claim that business is her passion, but civic involvement must be included in that statement. She has been a trustee of the University of Alaska Foundation, served on the Smithsonian National Board, has contributed both time and counsel to hospital networks and high school athletics associations, served as a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Seattle branch, 1997-2003, and the President’s Community Panel of the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, since 2001. For those efforts and lots more she has received the Anchorage ATHENA Society’s Leadership Award, 2001; was named to the Junior Achievement Alaska Business Hall of Fame, 2007, the Top 25 Most Powerful People in Alaska, 1999-2003, and US Banker 25 Women to Watch, 2003. 

Lawer also enjoys spending time at the family’s beach house in Homer, Alaska and working in her California winery. “Some people play golf, I stomp grapes,” she is quoted as saying many times. 

Betsy and David A. Lawer were married in 1972 and have one child, Sarah.