Dr. Matt Heilala is a born-and-raised Alaskan. Matt met his wife, Stacey, in junior high, and they started dating at Soldotna High School. He began commercial fishing at the age of nine in Cook Inlet and by fourteen, he was in Bristol Bay. By eighteen, he had become a skipper. He earned his medical degree in Podiatric medicine and surgery and started his practice, as well as other ventures, employing hundreds of Alaskans in Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley.