oots—whether in the form of families or enterprises—are a firm foundation. When the owners of Alaska businesses embark on their endeavors, they can scarcely predict where those roots will branch out. When a business passes into the hands of the next generation, the new owners note that their ability to own a business would have been limited without the equipment, knowledge, and customers that their parents established. Generationally held businesses build a strong reputation in, and give back to, their communities.

No matter which market they serve, generational businesses create legacies for their families, their communities, and the economy.

very business needs a business plan,” says Jon Bittner, executive director of the Alaska Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at UAA. “Do you need a sixty-page, high-gloss plan? Probably not; not at first, anyway. But it’s a really crucial first step for any business.”

That first step is more than a blueprint for the final form of a business, according to Ashley Snookes, program director at Spruce Root. “Business plans can be seen as a final destination, [but] when we look at a plan that way, it breaks. It doesn’t last for the many things that happen to a business,” she says.

Spruce Root is a nonprofit community development financial institution (CDFI) serving Southeast. In addition to its lending, networking, and philanthropic functions, Spruce Root’s Path to Prosperity program includes one-on-one business coaching, online training, and multi-day workshops.

he Top 49ers are Alaska’s largest local companies, as ranked by gross revenue. To qualify for the ranks, a company must have been founded in Alaska and remain headquartered here, and it cannot have a parent company that does not meet those requirements. Annually, Alaska Business surveys these companies, and with the information they submit, we create the Top 49ers list. The Top 49ers are economic drivers and community builders, which is possible through their success in their various sectors and industries.

What is success, though? Certainly, generating revenue is one measurement of success, but it’s not the only one. In the 2023 data gathering process, we asked the Top 49ers in what ways—other than making money—they measure success. Below are their answers, lightly proofed for house style and length.

very fall, Alaska Business releases its list of Top 49ers, and every year readers are left wondering—which companies just missed making it onto the list, and by how much?

One up-and-comer is ARG Industrial, still waiting to crack the ranks for the first time in its 43-year history. In any other recent year, ARG Industrial’s reported gross revenues of $54 million would have been enough to catapult it onto the list; last year, that revenue would have been enough for number 47. But this year, with the bottom revenue set at $62.3 million, ARG missed the ranks. Barely.

President and CEO Mike Mortensen believes the day is coming.

usiness revenue comes from customers, clients, and consumers, so without serving those customers, revenue can dry up. Great customer service, in addition to driving a company’s bottom line, has a number of other benefits, such as when satisfied clients share their experiences with others, boosting the potential for repeat business.

Alaska’s Top 49ers clearly know how to make sure clients, customers, and consumers want to come back again and again. Though operating in different areas, experts have much the same advice on how to make for a great customer service experience.

afety stands as a moral imperative and duty to the workforce, as well as economic necessity, shaping reputations and impacting project and service results. Successful businesses keep safety at the core of all they do, committing to a suite of values and behaviors that enhance and reinforce safety at every turn—from the safety of their people to protecting valuable assets and the invaluable Alaska environment.

“Safety is our top priority,” says Robyn DiLorenzo, corporate safety director at Watterson Construction, one of the largest Alaskan owned and operated construction contractors in the state. “We don’t balance safety against any other consideration. If we can’t do something safely, we don’t do it. Budgets and schedules are built around safety. Our experience is that planning and completing a project safely produces better job cost.”

Watterson and other Top 49ers have learned how investing in safety ultimately improves the bottom line on all fronts.

op-tier companies like the Top 49ers didn’t get there by chance. It takes effort, vision, planning, and persistence to unlock top-shelf status. Most importantly, it takes an excellent team of employees.

Hiring talented workers is just one step; after successfully enticing a promising team, employers must think about how they’re going to foster creativity, empower them to do their best work, and encourage them to grow.

PeopleAK founder Paula Bradison and Christine Brown, lead recruiter and human resources services partner with Wilson Albers, are two prominent Alaska recruiters and business consulting companies. Here are their tips for how they attract and retain high-quality employees, as well as advice that they provide to their clients looking to attract talent.

laskans cannot always drive to “the next town over” to pick up the tools they need. Location, production, service, and shipping factors complicate access to equipment and business technology. Therefore, planning for contingencies, keeping equipment on hand, and assessing what strategy works best—buying or renting—are keys to running smoothly.

Two companies, differently sized and positioned in separate markets, have shared insights about how customers can evaluate their best paths forward. Craig Taylor Equipment is a Top 49er that specializes in providing the heavy gear that clients need. Up-and-comer beadedstream deals in more high-tech gadgets yet serves the same role in supplying the means for customers to maximize their productivity. Both companies’ leaders guide their teams on how to help their customers decide what works best for them.

ome of the best counsel Michele Schuh, executive vice president and CFO of First National Bank Alaska (FNBA), ever received is to build a good business plan that includes a cash flow model. That step helps ensure that financial decisions and desired outcomes are tied to the business mission and stakeholder goals. “From a financial view, planning where sources of cash are generated, along with how money is utilized, is critical to success,” she says. “Every business will have competing demands for resources to meet objectives for growth, diversification, efficiency, or productivity. Funding decisions on when to raise capital, when to borrow, and how to use existing cash generated from operations can be effectively modeled in a good business plan and executed with confidence.”

ulk salt sells for pennies per ounce. Alaska Pure Sea Salt Company, though, sells 4-ounce pouches for $14 apiece.

“A lot of people in town thought we had lost our marbles,” says Jim Michener, who co-owns the Sitka-based company with his wife. As they were starting more than a decade ago, he recalls neighbors scoffing, “Why would I pay this price that seems outrageous for a product I can buy at the grocery store for a percentage of that?”

Over time, the community began to understand the product, and Michener says Sitkans are now the company’s biggest advocates. When cruise ship visitors inundate the town, locals tell tourists they absolutely must visit the salt store.

usiness is booming on the Kenai Peninsula, in large part due to the Kenai Peninsula Economic Development District (KPEDD), one of only four federally recognized business districts in Alaska. By leveraging the involvement of the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, these economic development districts—including Southeast Conference in Juneau, Prince William Sound Economic Development District in Cordova, and Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference serving Kodiak, Bristol Bay, and the Aleutians and Pribilof Islands—are able to establish a strategic blueprint for economic development regionwide.

orkplace incidents requiring follow-up investigation fall into several categories, ranging from accidents that result in serious injuries, death, and/or major property damage to lesser events involving minor injuries and/or negligible property damage and even extending to “near-miss” incidents which—while not resulting in direct injury or damage—expose the strong potential for such outcomes in the future. Progressive employers are likely to have what they believe to be a strong and comprehensive investigation procedure in place, espousing the need to determine the root cause(s) of accidents and near-miss incidents and to follow up with appropriate corrective actions to ensure that such incidents will not reoccur.

hen Mass Excavation, Inc. (Mass X) general manager Justin Shields was in college studying construction management, he learned the mantra for his career. “For me, the foundation of project management can be summed up in three words: scope, schedule, budget,” says Shields. “We live and die by those three words in this industry.”

Laying out a clear plan of action, communicating that plan, and sticking to it ensures that construction projects meet the owner’s expectations. Harmonizing all the players is the job of the project manager. The list of essential duties and responsibilities for those who assume this important role in the construction industry is a lengthy one.

he design of a building can affect the quality of people’s lives and their productivity at work,” says Dana Nunn, director of interior design at Bettisworth North in Anchorage. Nunn is well aware of the intersection of mind and surroundings: she studied chemical engineering and worked in hospitality, and now she is an accredited professional in both the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and WELL building standards.

“WELL” is not an acronym for anything. It was devised by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) in 2013 to incorporate human comfort and mental health with environmental and engineering factors. The US Green Building Council (USGBC), which awards LEED credentials, can certify WELL as a third party, and it developed its own resilient design rating system: RELi.

t’s time to talk work structures instead of just work wellness.

According to the Global Wellness Institute, work wellness was a $52 billion dollar industry in 2019, with the overall wellness economy estimated at $4.4 trillion in 2020. With all that budget going towards wellness, it sure seems work stress issues should be solved by now—that is, if wellness alone could solve them.

Historically, work wellness has primarily focused on support at the individual level. What started off as gym memberships and fancy cafeterias has more recently shifted toward trainings and support for more self-care, self-agency, and healthier personal work habits. Yet lately this is getting some scrutiny. Work wellness is a bit more nuanced than just what a single individual can do personally; we need to take into account other factors such as corporate culture, power dynamics, workflow structures, healthy workloads, and multiple other variables if we want real change.

n May 1, 2023, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a new National Emphasis Program (NEP) with a focus on reducing fall-related injuries and fatalities. This announcement purposefully coincided with the start of the National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction, which concluded on May 5, 2023.

The goal of this NEP is to “significantly reduce or eliminate unprotected worker exposures to fall-related hazards in all industries that can result in serious injuries and deaths.” OSHA intends to utilize a combination of enforcement methods for the construction industry, including hazard-based inspection targeting as well as optional locally generated programmed targeting. Along with federal OSHA Region 10, which has jurisdiction at many jobsites in Alaska, this program has been adopted and implemented in Alaska under Program Directive 23-05 by Alaska Occupational Safety and Health (AKOSH). These inspections are slated to last three years.