Michael Christian

Michael Christian has served as the Executive Director of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Alaska (SILC) since 2019 and as a disability advocate of more than 32 years. Throughout his tenure as Executive Director and his career as a disability advocate, Michael has served on a broad range of councils, boards, committees, and workgroups dedicated to advancing Independent Living for people with disabilities in such areas as ADA accessibility, universal design for education, housing, transportation, employment, food security, emergency management, assistive technology, traumatic brain injury, and the intersection of mental health and IDD. Michael brings a wealth of lived experience as someone who was born legally blind and lost all visual acuity by the age of 45. He also experiences a traumatic brain injury and is the father of a son with a co-occurring mental health and intellectual disability. Michael worked as an Assistive Technology Specialist for the Independent Living Center in Soldotna from 2007 to 2009 and went on to volunteer with the Zambia Agency for Persons with Disabilities in 2010, where he promoted the Independent Living Philosophy and participated in the drafting of the Zambia 6th National Development Plan: Disability Chapter. Michael is especially passionate about equal access to Independent Living services for Alaska’s rural, remote, and frontier communities, with numerous projects carried out under the SILC to further that aim. Among his favorite projects was the Rural Ramp Project carried out from 2020 to 2021 with funding from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. That project has served as a catalyst for much of the SILC’s advocacy around home modifications since then. Michael’s career reflects a consistent throughline: turning lived experience into systems-level change so that independence is not a privilege of some, but a reality for every Alaskan with a disability.