By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
As the pandemic burst onto the scene last year and shut down industries worldwide, a Los Angeles entertainment industry producer founded Kameo, a company that now provides coronavirus testing and other virus-related services to a host of entertainment productions. But unlike most Hollywood companies, Kameo founder Alex Ostebo was born in Sitka.
Over the past year, the company has expanded, and now provides COVID testing for a host of large film studios.
Though she is thousands of miles south of Sitka in Los Angeles, Ostebo recalled her childhood in Sitka fondly.
“It was early ’90s Sitka, which was really intimate and really community based. I think it was kind of your typical, I think, this super tightknit community. I remember so much outdoors… I’ve gone back to Alaska and spent some time in my adulthood in Juneau as well,” Ostebo said over the phone. “My dad was still in the Coast Guard for four years during college, so I would come back during summers and for Christmas.”
Her father’s career required the family to move frequently, but Ostebo said she enjoyed her early childhood in Sitka. Her father, Thomas Ostebo, commanded the Coast Guard’s 17th District, which includes all of Alaska, from 2011 to 2014.
Now located in a megacity, Ostebo misses the walkability of a small town.
“I love being able to kind of walk and go places and be really close, and here it’s not like that at all, not a lot of nature. But I still love it,” she said.
Alex Ostebo (Photo provided)
Ostebo’s time in Hollywood didn’t begin with Kameo, however. She founded the production company Creative Picnic in 2016, but the pandemic forced a re-evaluation.
“I started a production company and when COVID hit, the way Kameo actually started, I had to think through what productions would actually look like, going back to work, and how my production company would be able to continue working,” she recalled. “And I realized really quickly that there was not an all-encompassing production related setup, so I created that myself, created the kind of safety and testing partner that I knew I would need.”
The company now offers a wide range of virus testing on sets to allow filmmakers to proceed with production in a timely manner.
“Our biggest service is really setting up testing on sets, so we’re really mobile, really agile and a really flexible partner,” Ostebo said.
The company’s Instagram page, Kameohealth, shows that Kameo provides services for industry titans such as Netflix, A24, and Amazon. Kameo’s site, kameo.co, also highlights work done alongside the “Friends: Reunion Episode,” “New Girl,” “War of the Worlds,” and “No Man of God.”
Looking back, Ostebo said, she sees that her childhood and subsequent military time helped her prepare for current events.
“My time growing up as a military brat, being an Army officer as well, really taught me a lot of resilience and problem solving well… It was a big part of why I was able to pivot,” she said.
Ostebo followed her father’s footsteps into uniform, serving as a logistician in the U.S. Army. She noted that as a woman in uniform it was difficult to find female role models in a hyper-masculine space.
“Honestly, growing up it was hard, the military. When I originally started ROTC in the early parts of training and the military, it was definitely hard,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of other women, especially in a senior officer role, that you could really lean on and look up to… It felt a little bit trailblazing, even during that time.”
Now out of uniform and living in LA, Ostebo said, she’s found the film industry to be supportive.
“The industry that I’m in now is super supportive and it’s been really great to see that support from others in the industry as the owner of a female-founded company,” she said.
As the pandemic drags on into its 16th month, Ostebo noted that Kameo is evolving to include an online platform with a vaccine passport feature.
“We’re looking at evolving our tech platform; that’s kind of the impetus behind the vaccine passport. We’re evolving our tech platform to continually be useful to productions… We do want to remain relevant and remain useful,” she said.
Looking back on her time in Alaska and the traveling since, Ostebo said she doesn’t think she’s spent more time in any one place than in Sitka, her home for her first years.
“Sitka is the longest place I’ve ever lived by far. Other than Sitka, I think the longest I’ve lived in one place is about three years,” she said. “I think I was in Sitka for about five and then of course moved back to Alaska during my college time.”
After moving to Indiana as a child, Ostebo remembered confusing seagulls with eagles.
Looking forward, she’s interested in leaving California and heading north again at some point.
“It’s definitely on the table. I don’t think I’ll be in California forever, at all,” she said. “And I’d love to spend at least some additional time in Sitka, especially now that I’m getting married. I’d love to show Matt – who actually works with Kameo as well – I’d love to show him where I was born and spend some time with him up there as well.”
