Furniture Enterprises of Alaska expands operations: this business owner had a rough start, but tenacity got him through.

• Author: Martin, Gary L.
• Position: ABM's top 49ers: business blockbuster - Dave Cavitt, president and owner - Biography

2004 Top 49er Ranking: 46

Position Last Year: N/A

2003 Revenues: $31.7 million

Number of employees: 200

The word tenacious should have Dave Cavitt's picture next to it in the dictionary. Cavitt is the 47-year-old president and owner of Furniture Enterprises of Alaska. This company is a home furnishing group consisting of Sadler's, La-Z-Boy, Williams & Kay and the Ultimate Mattress Store.

Cavitt plans to open two more stores in Anchorage. One is still unnamed and the other is an Ethan Allen furniture outlet. Both will be located at the New Seward Highway and Benson Boulevard in Anchorage. They will open either late this year or early in 2005.

Cavitt's path to success in Alaska started in 1974 when he came to the state at the age of 17; since then, he has survived the state's financial storm of the mid-1980s and some very rough seas ... literally.

HIS ROOTS

The furniture entrepreneur's story actually begins much earlier. It has roots that go back to the small California farm community of Tracy, located about 50 miles east of San Francisco, in the San Joaquin Valley. Cavitt lived there in the 5th grade when he did a class report on Alaska. From that time on, the determined youngster knew that Alaska, someday, would be his home.

"After high school graduation, when the other kids were planning their college careers, I was planning my trip to Alaska," said Cavitt. "I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there, but I knew I had to get there."

Little did he know what lay ahead of him that summer morning in Tracy when he put on his backpack, put out his thumb and headed north, to Alaska.

GREEN WATER

His first job, after arriving, was aboard a 42-foot fishing boat out of Seward.

"It was late in September when we got caught in a bad storm. The seas were really rough," Cavitt recalls. "There were some huge waves; we'd go up one side of a wall of water; it was like being on top of a mountain, and then we'd go down the other side, where all you could see is green water all around you. Then we went over one wave and the boat literally fell into the next wave and then a third wave came down on top of us.

"The portholes began popping out and green water started gushing in. Then the engine died.

"After sending out a distress signal, a voice on the radio said, 'We are the Standard of Idaho; would you like us to call the Coast Guard?'

"'Yes!' we answered. The voice from the 550-foot tanker came back on the radio a minute later and said, 'Boys, I've...