Carlile Enterprise Inc.

• Author: D'Oro, Rachel
• Position: Ranked 21 in the 1999 Top 49ers

1999 Top 49ers Ranking: 21 Position Last Year: 25 1998 Revenue: $44 million Numbers of Employees: 300

In its 20th year, Anchorage-based Carlile Enterprises Inc. has more than proven itself as a transportation and logistics hub. But don't look to company president Harry McDonald for any stunning business advice.

"I don't have any secrets," he says. "It's just persistence and hard work and constantly improving, with perfection never attained. You always try to improve but you never get there."

Well, chock one up for endurance then. It has paid off for McDonald and his brother,John McDonald, and the three other owners of Carlile Enterprises.

The company, with more than $44 million in revenues last year, moves bulk freight-general goods, construction materials, steel, petroleum products-into Alaska and throughout the state. It arranges transport by land, air and sea through its plant at 1800 E. First Ave.; a terminal in Federal Way, Wash.; a trucking affiliate in Edmonton, Alberta; and several cargo ports in Alaska, including Kenai, Fairbanks and Deadhorse.

Mention how amazing it is that most of Alaska's urban goods originate somewhere else, and McDonald shrugs. He's not impressed.

"It's that way everywhere," he says. "You've got Florida orange juice going to California, and California orange juice going to Florida."

He doesn't buy the perception that Alaska prices are greater than others in the Lower 48, either. For example, he'll tell you, on a recent trip to Seattle, he ordered a $2.25 ice cream cone, and the city's sales tax hiked the price to $2.47.

"If you look at the living cost of places like Seattle and Los Angeles, it can be cheaper in Anchorage."

The McDonald brothers, longtime Alaska residents, didn't set out to launch the 300-employee conglomerate it is today. Harry was driving trucks, and john dabbled in construction and excavation work, as well as an occasional truck delivery. In 1980, John chanced on a contract opportunity: delivering 2,500 tons of fertilizer to Delta Junction.

That's when the brothers decided to add to...