Arctic Slope Regional Corp.

• Author: Griffin, Judith Fuerst
• Position: The New Forty-Niners - Company profile

Arctic Slope Regional Corp.

After first taking root through enterprises that seized development opportunities in its own backyard, the northernmost Alaska Native regional corporation began to branch out into more diversified activities. Arctic Slope Regional Corp. of Barrow now operates numerous and varied subsidiaries doing business throughout the state and increasingly in the Lower 48. Future corporate expansion likely will include trade with Pacific Rim and European nations.

Since Alaska Business Monthly first began its survey of Alaskan-owned, Alaska-based businesses in 1985, ASRC has doubled its revenues and employees. Last year the firm's gross revenues rose 20 percent, reaching $112.8 million in 1989.

Preliminary figures for ASRC's fiscal year 1990, ending June 30, indicate revenues of $215 million. Employment for 1990 rose 50 percent from the prior year to 1,500 persons.

Owner of approximately 5 million acres of North Slope lands, Arctic Slope has more than 3,700 Inupiat Eskimo shareholders. The corporation anticipates adding another 2,500 shareholders next year when it issues new stock to children born to shareholders since December 1971.

Created by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, ASRC began about the same time the North Slope Borough was being established. The corporation found niches in providing services for borough infrastructure construction and for North Slope oil exploration.

In the intervening years, the firm has expanded into tourism, engineering, architectural design, lodging, transportation, communications, environmental services and petroleum refining. ASRC's corporate organization now branches out into 14 wholly-owned subsidiaries and 20 operating divisions.

"We've been pretty dedicated and aggressive in going after opportunities to diversify," says Jacob Adams, president and chief executive officer of ASRC.

Conrad Bagne, chief administrative officer of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., notes that the Native corporation pursues dual goals: profitability and shareholder hire. Although the desire to create employment does not justify money-losing operations, it has kept ASRC in lines of business with thinner and sometimes erratic profit margins.

The most obvious example is construction. ASRC has explored several construction specialties, unsuccessfully; electrical contracting, for example.

"Construction is an area in which we can put shareholders to work fairly quickly without a lot of training," Bagne says. He adds that the drawback is the fickle nature of the construction business: "It has its ups and downs, and it's a high-risk industry."

The ASRC subsidiary...