13th Regional Corp.: this corporation had a rocky start, but thanks to an experienced president that refuses to take a salary, it has a future that looks bright indeed.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: Alaska Native Business News

Norman Ream is the kind of president corporate America dreams about. Less than seven years ago, Ream took over the helm of a corporation that had a 20-year record of losses, including bankruptcy, and turned it around. Under his management, The 13th Regional Corp. has posted steadily rising profits since 1995.

How much money is he making for his efforts?

Not a penny.

"I just read their financial statement every year and it looked like they needed some help, so I volunteered," says Ream, 79, who retired with comfortable savings from his construction company. His business philosophy is to keep costs to a minimum, and he also says that working without a salary helps shareholders realize that the corporation is working for their benefit. In 2000, The 13th Regional distributed its first dividend since 1979,50 cents per share.

"He so believes in The 13th Regional," says Alaska Federation of Natives Executive Vice President Nelson Angapak. "He's a man with absolute integrity."

From the beginning, the cards were against The 13th Regional Corp. It was formed under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which divided 44 million acres of land and $962.5 million to settle Native land claims that were blocking construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Twelve of the corporations are based in Alaska; the 13th was created to benefit Alaska Natives living outside the state. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs opposed The 13th, saying there weren't enough Alaska Natives living Outside to create a viable enterprise. It wasn't until a judge overturned the lawsuit in 1975 that The 13th Regional was incorporated.

Even then, it was given only one shot at survival. ANCSA provided the corporation, then based in Portland, Ore., with $54 million in startup cash, but decreed that half of it was to be immediately dispersed among its 5,500 shareholders.

While the 12 Alaska-based regional corporations were granted 44 million acres of land, The 13th received none. Neither was it eligible to receive a portion of the millions of dollars in 7(i) revenue-sharing funds generated through sales of minerals, timber and other natural resources, which are divided among the other corporations.

Those omissions have made The l3th's path "10 times harder," Ream says. "We're not up to where we'd like to be yet. The corporation almost went out of existence and now it's climbing back slowly, but it's hard when you don't have a land base or 7(i)."

The corporation's early years are...