Klukwan Inc.: taking aim in new directions.

• Author: Kleeschulte, Chuck
• Position: Alaska's 11th ranking 1990 revenue producer - The New 49ers

RANK: 11 1990 REVENUES: $96.7 MILLION EMPLOYEES: 450

Ralph Strong is a man with a seemingly perpetual smile. While the coming year may tax that grin slightly, very little happened this past year to furrow the brow of the chief executive of one of the state's largest Alaskan-owned businesses.

The former executive of the Alpha Beta food chain in San Jose, Calif., for the past five years has been president and chief executive officer of Klukwan Inc. He's been the driving force in turning a once sleepy Native village corporation of 270 shareholders, most living in the tiny village of Klukwan, north of Haines at the northern edge of Alaska's Panhandle, into one of the fastest growing corporations in the state.

"There's no question that I'm pleased with where we are and how far we have come. We are in a very good position to record solid growth in the future after we pass through the period of consolidation now under way," says the 53-year-old Alaska Native. Strong was born in Juneau and raised in Klukwan, the tiny village best known as the gathering spot for thousands of bald eagles each fall.

As did most Alaska villages, the village corporation Klukwan received land as the outgrowth of passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971. Klukwan, in fact, took title to its 21,349 acres -- most all of it prime timberland -- nine years later. Unlike many village corporations, however, Klukwan has been able to log its timber stands at a profit and parlay that profit into a multi-faceted corporation with a chance for survival now that its trees are nearly gone.

The company at the height of the recent upswing in the timber industry saw its revenues in 1989 hit a record $107.1 million. While the downturn in timber prices and in wood stocks caused the company's revenues for 1990 to drop 10 percent to $96.7 million, the corporation still ranks 11th in Alaska Business Monthly's listing of the state's 49 top Alaska companies. It was ranked seventh in 1990 and ninth in 1989.

With its equity now far above $120 million, Klukwan has traveled a long way from the $7 million in gross sales the company recorded in 1982 and has nearly doubled the $50 million in revenues the company recorded just five years ago. Clearly most of the revenues have come from a single source -- timber -- and from Klukwan Forest Products Inc., the current wood products arm of the corporation.

The forest products division started out in 1981 as Long Island Development, a logging company formed to harvest Klukwan's timber on Long Island, located on the southern end of the Panhandle, across from Prince of Wales Island. The forest products subsidiary was formed in 1987 during a reorganization of the firm for tax purposes.

In 1987, the company hit its peak, harvesting 178 million board feet of timber from its own lands, while also performing contract logging for Angoon's village corporation, Kootznoowoo Inc., and...