Epic Earnings: Decades of Top 49er history.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: TOP 49ER5 SPECIAL SECTION

General Manager Jason Martin crashed his way into my office about a fortnight ago, frothing at the mouth and waving a sheaf of printed spreadsheets. "Anderson!" he spluttered, slamming his hammy fists on my desk, knocking pens and crusty coffee cups onto the floor. "What in tarnation is going on here?"

Wiping some spittle off my face, I took a quick peek at the papers still crushed in his grasp, praying to catch a glance of a word or a number I could extrapolate into an answer that might send him packing. "Top 49ers" and "1998" flashed in my view, and I quickly stifled a sigh of relief. "Of course, Mr. Martin," i said, sweet as grandma's cookies. "That's historic Top 49ers data."

"Obviously!" he bellowed, turning red in the face and testing the tensile strength of his necktie. "Why's it in the vault?"

Well, because you put it in the vault, I thought. "I have no idea, sir," I said.

"Use it!" he choked out, throwing the pages in my face and lumbering away from my desk.

So, here's some historic Top 49ers data.

Alaska Business launched the Top 49ers special section in 1985, the same year we published our first issue. Then-Publisher Robert Dixon described the first cohort of Top 49ers as "the private players who have put everything on the line, defied the economic odds-makers with all-star performance on a field where opportunity is said to be fading. They're the forty-nine largest Alaskan-owned and Alaska-based companies, and they've achieved their victories largely without the backing of multinational corporations or big government... It's a long way from Northern Lights Boulevard to Wall Street, but The New 49ers have proven themselves all-star material in anyone's league by winning consistently on the toughest playing field of all."

From 1985 to 1990. the theme actually stayed the same year over year: The New 49ers. In 1991, we developed "Prospecting for the Top 49; Finding Alaska Gold" as the first theme that would change annually thereafter. Then-Editor Judith Fuerst Griffin wrote in her introduction to the special section: "Thanks to all who've helped us identify and recognize the successful miners of the 49th State's commerce and natural resources. The new 49er companies--their owners, managers, and employees--are precious as gold to the state's economy."

Today gathering information from the Top 49ers is a huge undertaking on the part of our Customer Service Representative (and survey extraordinaire) Emily Olsen, who manages our primarily online data collection; but in 1991...