Live long, prosper well: Intuitive Leap key to companies' 50-plus year history in the Great Land.

• Author: Bohi, Heidi
• Position: 50th Statehood Anniversary Special Section - Company overview

As is typically the case with businesses that have been around since statehood, the reason the first shingle was hung in the window decades ago and the reason it still hangs today is never the result of a linear legacy, but more like an intuitive leap. The stories of these successful business developments often have common threads that bind them: the lure of Alaska, the dream of independence, doing whatever needed to be done, and being in the right time at the right place are often-heard anecdotal bits.

Businesses that weathered the state's first 50 years deserve every ounce of respect and every penny of success they have earned. Launching an enterprise in Alaska then meant taking risks-death often being at the top of that list and, at the very least, a dose of learning the hard way was part of the early days. Loans were written on the back of a matchbook, if they were in writing at all, and weather quirks alone often wiped out an entire annual budget. But for those who had enough tenacity and spirit to somehow figure it out, in the end, it meant they would become a part of Alaska's history.

Yukon Equipment

Legendary, historic and far-reaching are all words used to describe the mighty Yukon River, and all that aptly describes the 63-year-old heavy-equipment dealer Yukon Equipment.

But, as is the case with most Alaska businesses that got their start in the good old days, nothing is ever as it seems. The reason for originally starting Yukon and the reason it continues today as one of the best known in the state and in the contracting industry is totally different.

Founded in 1945, Yukon Equipment is the oldest Alaskan-owned heavy-equipment dealer in the state. Although there is nothing special about being old in and of itself, however, owner and president Morry Hollowell says with longevity certainly comes experience when it comes to providing statewide customers with the right tractor for their project. "There's something to be said for being older than dirt," he says laughing.

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FROM HERDING REINDEER TO HEAVY EQUIPMENT

The company dates back to 1900 when the Lomen family left Minnesota and headed north to Nome to seek their fortune, along with thousands of others, when news of the gold rush and stories of instant wealth reached them. Gudbrand Lomen, an attorney and the father of a large family, followed his son, Carl, north when the younger Lomen got the itch to set out on his own adventure. Worried that his son might never return, he put his legal practice on hold and left with a plan to return in six months-just enough time to make the journey, check things out for himself, then return home safely with his boy.

As the story goes, Hollowell says-and it is a common Alaska tale--when he finally returned to Minnesota two years later, it was just long enough to get the rest of his family and permanently relocate all of them to Nome. Entrepreneurial in nature, Gudbrand bought a photographic studio in 1908 and later a drugstore. His claim to fame came in 1914, though, when he formed the Lomen Company, a commercial reindeer herding business. By 1923, his son Carl had become known as the "Reindeer King of Alaska" and had holdings statewide.

By the time the company morphed into Lomen Commercial, the enterprise included three outfitters: Lomen Commercial Co., Northern Commercial Co. and Carrington Co. As the start of World War I approached in 1914, the family business saw another opportunity in the emerging construction industry and took on heavy-equipment franchises allowing them to sell all of the heavy equipment that was available through companies such as Caterpillar, International Harvester, Carrington Equipment, and Allis Chalmers.

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By the early 1940s, when Lomen's success in the reindeer business started...