The Alaska Mental Health Trust, one of the biggest landowners in Alaska, is beginning to search for a new CEO.

Mike Abbott, the current CEO, said Wednesday morning that he will retire, likely in January.

“I decided that this was a good time both for my family and myself,” he said, and that he doesn’t have a recommended replacement.

The Alaska Legislature’s budget and audit committee is scheduled to release a special audit into trust activities later this month. Abbott said his decision is unrelated to that audit and doesn’t believe it contains negative information.

The trust’s managing board is planning to hire a headhunting firm to help in its search for Abbott’s successor, according to a public notice published Tuesday.

A public corporation, the trust controls about 1 million acres and more than half a billion dollars in investments intended to benefit Alaskans with mental illness or disability. Proceeds from the trust fund the state’s mental health budget.

Abbott is a former Anchorage municipal manager and was hired in 2017 by the trust.

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