Doyon Limited: President, CEO Aaron Schutt reflects on Doyon's long history and bright future.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: 2017 Top 49ers

The Alaska Business Top 49ers are ranked simply by gross revenue, just one of many indications of corporate success. According to Doyon Limited President and CEO Aaron Schutt, Doyon has annual goals that relate to two measures of success: income and shareholder employment. "We also have longer term goals that are usually project driven, or we want to do an acquisition in the next eighteen months, or something like that. But the two annualized goals that get passed down are our income and shareholder employment."

Schutt explains that while revenue is an important metric, Doyon is focused on their bottom line, and that focus has been successful for them. "We've made money for thirty-one straight years and paid a dividend in all of those years," Schutt says. Doyon's dividends are formulaic, similar in concept to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. Doyon pays 50 percent of a five-year average of net income. "This year we just announced our dividend will be $6.19 a share, and that's up $0.20 a share from last year," he says.

Continuing the trend of having income and increasing dividends are significant achievements, especially considering Doyon's substantial investment in oilfield operations and the state of the oil industry in Alaska. "We are pleased," Schutt says of Doyon's continued success. "It's been a kind of fight-scratch-claw your way through the industry right now with the limited opportunities. It's certainly been tough to have a lot of layoffs with our field crews."

Income Sectors

Doyon's wholly-owned subsidiary Doyon Drilling is well known in the industry for its oilfield services, operating eight drilling rigs on the North Slope. Doyon Drilling employs more than 250 people, which is a little less than one-third of Doyon's workforce. "Doyon Drilling did quite well on the downturn compared to a couple of our other companies that had almost no opportunities, [such as] pipeline construction and camps. There were whole seasons that there just wasn't a significant job bid at all. You can't even lose work [to a competitor]--they don't have any opportunity to do anything," Schutt says.

He continues, "Thankfully for us, we're a big enough company that we can weather those types of downturns, and we don't have to lay everyone off or close the business. And I emphasize in our state there are some businesses that have had to make much more difficult decisions than we have."

While the general consensus is that there will be a "lower for longer" price environment in the oil industry, Schutt is optimistic about the...