FAIRBANKS — Luke Hopkins said in an interview earlier this week that his work as a maintenance supervisor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks required skills much like those that a borough mayor would need. An examination of his employment evaluations shows he received favorable reviews from superiors.

Hopkins, one of two candidates in Tuesday’s runoff election for mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, described his work experience in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News-Miner on Monday. “Working with large budgets in the millions of dollars, a large work force, having to manage that work force both union and non-union. That to me sounds a lot like local government and what the mayor needs to be doing.”

The News-Miner subsequently asked Hopkins to release his personnel evaluations for review. The records, released on Wednesday, cover job performance for various years from 1987 to 1998, when Hopkins was a carpenter shop supervisor and maintenance superintendent.

UAF officials said Hopkins oversaw maintenance at five UAF campuses while working as a superintendent, overseeing a staff of about 100 employees.

The early reviews, when Hopkins was a shop supervisor, largely gave “outstanding” or “exceeds expectations” marks in a variety of duties, including making plans, ordering materials and supervising employees.

His later reviews as a maintenance superintendent were positive. The final review in 1998 credited “outstanding performance on Luke’s part.”

The areas highlighted for improvement in two reports include a request to delegate duties more often and to focus more on future planning.

The final evaluation said the need for more planning was probably explained by a lack of time, because of a vacancy in a support position at UAF.

UAF officials said the evaluations are a complete record of the reviews Hopkins received while he worked in management positions there. Hopkins retired from his full-time UAF job in 2004, but there apparently were some years when written reviews were not given by superiors.

Tammie Wilson, Hopkins’ opponent in Tuesday’s mayoral election, said her management experience is in the private sector and as a nonprofit administrator.

Wilson said she managed as many as 35 employees and vendors at an antiques collectibles mall in Illinois.

She also served as a volunteer manager and, briefly in a paid role, at Love In the Name of Christ, a local clearinghouse for church services for the needy.

Wilson, in her separate interview with the News-Miner last week, listed her work at Love INC as “one of the most significant” accomplishments of her time in Fairbanks. “(B)eing able to work with an all-volunteer group, going into a situation where we had no paid staff and learning how to depend upon volunteers and then being able to spend time working with agencies and starting to collaborate our energies together so we weren’t duplicating services, and we came a long way.”

A detailed account of Wilson’s work at Love INC appeared in Wednesday’s News-Miner.

Contact staff writer Jeff Richardson at 459-7518.