From the Editor

Teamwork—It’s a Thing
I

‘ve been an editor for more than twenty years. I’ve edited just about everything one can imagine (seriously) and never have I been as excited about a magazine issue as I am about this issue of Alaska Business. It’s not just because it contains our annual Top 49ers special section or because, as a group, the Top 49ers reported more than $17 billion in 2018 revenue (which is the highest group total in Top 49ers history), or even that I’m in love with this year’s theme: Meanwhile in Corporateville…

It’s the amount of teamwork that went into this issue that has me saying, “Zoinks!”

Every person at Alaska Business contributed to this issue in one way or another. Each year the entire team comes up with some good, some terrible, some hilarious ideas for our Top 49ers theme; after we rip them apart and poke fun at each other, we eventually get serious and vote on our favorite. This year we chose to lighten the economic mood by celebrating the companies on the list with a pop-art, comic-book-style theme. In an impressive (some may say heroic) showing, our brand new Art Director Majestic Monica took the idea, worked fearlessly into the night, and brought the team’s idea to life.

Kathryn Mackenzie

Kathryn Mackenzie
Managing Editor, Alaska Business

The Top 49ers are successful for a host of reasons: smart business decisions, excellent products, responsible resource development… but none of that would be possible without teamwork.
Meanwhile, in the rest of Alaska Business-ville, Ever-Excellent Emily spent months surveying and collecting data for this year’s rankings, which in and of itself is a task that makes my editor-senses tingle, but that isn’t all. She also examined every single October issue of Alaska Business to create a trove of historical data that includes all the tidbits of Top 49ers information since the first list was published in 1985. This is an invaluable archive of information that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, and one the Talented Mistress Tasha has already used to write a stunning historic review of the Alaska Business Top 49ers. This undertaking was difficult to say the least (that’s a lot of data to distill), and I’m pretty sure I heard her mumbling, “Tasha SMASH!” a few times, but she still managed to turn some thirty-four-years-worth of data into a concise, informative, entertaining article that every 49er, past and present, will enjoy.

The Top 49ers are successful for a host of reasons: smart business decisions, excellent products, responsible resource development… but none of that would be possible without teamwork. Employees are the heart of every business and at Alaska Business, that heart is full.

We are all so proud of the 35th edition of the Top 49ers rankings. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to this issue including the companies that filled out the survey and the entire team here at Alaska Business, each of whom can proudly echo Wolverine by saying, “I’m the best there is at what I do.”