aking the Top 49ers list is a sure sign of success: members are part of an elite class of Alaska businesses, all of which were founded within the state and continue to operate their headquarters here. This year’s list includes three new companies—Contango Silver & Gold, Denali Universal Services, and Shee Atiká, Inc.—that arrive on the list by different routes: not just by earning enough revenue but by becoming more Alaskan.

Contango Silver & Gold Inc. has been exploring for minerals in Alaska since 2009, when it was founded as Contango Silver and Gold. The spinoff of Texas-based Contango Oil & Gas Company began exploring on Tetlin tribal land at the tribe’s invitation. Though the land didn’t hold high potential for oil and gas as originally intended, it did contain a high-grade gold deposit. Long story short: by 2024, Contango, in partnership with Kinross, began producing gold at the Peak Gold Joint Venture, now known as the Manh Choh mine, and the 30 percent stake is now its main source of revenue.

By focusing on high-grade deposits, Contango maximizes the return on every tonne of rock moved. Today, the company is exploring for gold, silver, copper, and zinc at project sites throughout the state. These include Johnson Tract on the west side of Lower Cook Inlet, Lucky Shot in Hatcher Pass, Triple Z on federal land near Tetlin, and the Kitsault Valley Project just across the border in British Columbia.

All that Alaska activity was not enough to qualify the company for the Top 49ers before. What changed this year was a merger with Kitsault Valley developer Dolly Varden Silver Corporation. While becoming half-Canadian, the reorganized corporation also redomiciled its headquarters to Fairbanks. As an officially Alaska-based company, Contango Silver & Gold is putting down deeper roots.

“We are currently building tunnels underground for exploration at the Lucky Shot project, located in the Willow Mining District,” explains Contango CEO Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse. “We are currently working on a feasibility study outlining expected gold production of 40,000 to 50,000 ounces of gold a year. With permits in hand, we hope to begin production in 2028.”

The Johnson Tract project is located on Cook Inlet Region, Inc. private land. Contango is focusing on road construction to allow underground tunneling for additional exploration and feasibility study work along with federal permitting under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. Just across the border from the Panhandle town of Hyder, Contango is working on a project at the southern tip of the Golden Triangle of British Columbia, just south of the high-grade Brucejack and Eskay Creek gold mines.

“The Kitsault project contains a similar kind of polymetallic ore containing gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc,” says Van Nieuwenhuyse, noting that Kitsault will blend well with Contango’s Johnson Tract project, which is near enough to tidewater to ship high-grade ore by barge to a mill.

Direct shipping of ore is at the heart of Contango’s strategy, enabling the company to scale production faster and more profitably than its peers.

“One of the challenges in mining is the length of time it takes for permitting and then building mills and tailings facilities and power plants to run them,” says Van Nieuwenhuyse. “We focus on high-grade ore that can be transported to an existing facility, like Fort Knox, which has excess capacity and is already permitted. We take advantage of existing infrastructure.”

Van Nieuwenhuyse notes that this also removes the controversy of building facilities in remote sites. “As long as the ore is high enough grade to pay for its transport, we don’t need to permit or build all that infrastructure, resulting in a much smaller environmental footprint,” he says.

In the future, Contango plans to either build or acquire its own processing facility, combining its direct-ship-ore model with a hub-and-spoke model. “Our goal is to provide critical metals for our society—nothing works without metals,” Van Nieuwenhuyse explains.

He frames his business in national security terms. “China produces more than two times the materials we do in the United States, but as they’ve demonstrated multiple times, they can’t be counted on to provide them for us,” he says, listing minerals from copper, lithium, germanium, and indium to rare earths. “They all have special applications, and as society continues to advance, it will need all of these materials.”

Denali Universal Services started thirty-five years ago as Doyon Universal Services, an oil and gas support contractor for Doyon, Limited and its joint venture partner, French conglomerate Sodexo. In 2024, Sodexo sold its stake to a team of investors led by Denali Universal Services President and CEO Maria Bourne. Now a woman-owned, Alaskan-owned business, the Anchorage-based company qualifies for the Top 49ers list in its own right. The new owners have also expanded its reach to six other states as well, providing facilities management, security services, and training and consulting services.

“Our integrated facilities management division includes janitorial, housekeeping, and maintenance, as well as a very expansive culinary hospitality group,” says Bourne. The division serves mainly oil and gas companies and industrial operators working on the North Slope.

Denali Universal’s Security Services Division specializes in critical infrastructure security for oil and gas facilities, as well as ports, airports, and hospitals. The company also provides security training and consulting services and offers industrial fire and medical emergency programs as well.

“When a customer is developing a new site, we can perform a needs assessment, determining what their security profile needs to be, from physical to technological security,” says Bourne. “We can also provide training which varies depending on what their workforce needs, including active shooter drills and incident management activities.”

Bourne credits the company’s success to the fact that it is “people focused,” not only serving its customers but taking care of its employees.

“We have some of the hardest-working employees out there, working twelve-hour days, doing really physical jobs,” she adds. “People don’t think about what goes into having a clean room and nice meal in such remote areas; there are a lot of hands behind the scenes making it happen. Our people are trained to handle difficult situations from medical emergencies to safety issues, even in a remote environment with limited resources and no law enforcement.”

Bourne, originally from the Russian Far East and an accountant by training, considers field trips to remote sites to be a highlight of her job. “Every time I go to a job site, I get rejuvenated by seeing the job they do and the commitment I see. Our employees show an incredible caliber of talent and dedication,” she says.

Bourne notes that all company leaders are hand-selected, and approximately 90 percent come from a law enforcement or leadership background. “As first-line supervisors and leaders, everything depends on these key individuals,” she says. “We invest a lot of time and money developing our leaders in order to create a smooth operation.”

While Alaska is its home base, Denali Universal Services has been growing in the Lower 48 over the past five years. “We’re also looking forward to expanding in Alaska, especially with upcoming developments in oil and gas and natural resources,” says Bourne. “I don’t see us slowing down.”

Shee Atiká’s story is one of perseverance, according to President and CEO Tim Castro, in part because Alaska Native urban corporations are ineligible to participate in revenue sharing under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act sections 7(i) and 7(j) that regional and village corporations receive.

The corporation for 3,400 shareholders who trace their ancestry to Sitka has learned to be self-sufficient. “At the start, we did a lot of forestry and logging, but we didn’t have much else,” says Castro, who joined the company in 2019. “In the mid-1970s, our shareholders self-funded the corporation to keep the lights on. Since then, we have had to build everything else from the ground up.”

Several subsidiary companies later, Shee Atiká stands on firm ground, as shown by its inclusion in the Top 49ers list. “We always find a way to get to the next level,” says Castro. “It’s in our DNA to do things ourselves, and sometimes that means doing things differently and thinking outside the box.”

Since 2019, shareholder benefits have increased year after year, and distributions have increased fivefold. All of its shareholders are also entitled to funeral benefits, and the corporation offers scholarships for school, cultural, and trade classes.

Shee Atiká’s IT subsidiaries have also taken off, including Alaska Northstar Resources, which delivers enterprise cloud services, application services, cybersecurity, and network services; Alaska Northstar Federal, which performs AI and machine learning development and governance, DevSecOps development, cloud operations, and more; and Shee Atiká Federal, an IT firm specializing in mission-focused cybersecurity services tailored for federal government customers.

Five years ago, the corporation acquired logistics and supply chain management company Lakota Solutions, which provides infrastructure support, IT support, lifecycle management, integrated logistics support, and program management. Lakota Federal provides comprehensive environmental and construction support services, such as environmental compliance and remediation, stakeholder engagement, and demolition and construction support.

Shee Atiká also acquired Eikon Research in Huntsville, Alabama, a technology company that provides the US Department of Defense with innovative radar systems, advanced modeling and simulation tools, and customized user interfaces. Another subsidiary started by the corporation itself, Shee Atiká Systems, provides technical and engineering services, helping federal clients overcome complex challenges through systems integration and expert staffing solutions.

Shee Atiká has also expanded into tourism with Sheet’ká Rainforest Park, a nature-based destination in Sitka. The site hosts an aerial adventure park named Sheet’ká Treetop Adventures and an immersive lunch experience, Sheet’ká Salmon Tales, centered on indigenous culture and local wild foods.

“We invested a lot in the area; it’s a really beautiful place,” says Castro. “Everyone we’ve hired to work in the park is a shareholder or lives locally, so all of the money and goodwill stays in the community. We also hold multiple free events out there for the community.”

Shee Atiká now employs nearly 400 people across thirty-two states, but the company primarily works in Alaska and the southeastern United States including Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.

“Even though we work in different states, one of our goals is to always increase shareholder hire,” says Castro. “While distributions are great, jobs are better. A good job is a life-changing thing, so we’re always trying to hire more shareholders.”

According to Castro, Shee Atiká’s success can be attributed to its corporate team and its board of directors. “Our team is a group of rock stars—they really are,” he says. “We also have a very good partnership with our board of directors; everyone across the organization believes in our mission and momentum is picking up.”

Can Shee Atiká maintain its membership in the billion-dollar club on next year’s Top 49ers list and beyond? “As I tell our shareholders, I want to get Shee Atiká to a point where, instead of saying we persevere, we say that we thrive,” Castro says. “We’re still on an uphill climb, but the best is yet to come.”