Small businesses - New 49ers of the future.

• Author: Veltkamp, Ron
• Position: Top 49 Alaskan-owned and Alaska-based businesses

This issue of Alaska Business Monthly features the New 49ers, recognizing the 49 largest Alaska-based companies for their success and their contribution to Alaska's economy and way of life. These firms are deserving of our congratulations and appreciation for the jobs they have created, the economic stability they have brought to our state, and the products and services they have provided for us.

Most of these firms started out as small businesses, some many years ago. They have grown into large businesses through good management, hard work and some luck (though I find that the harder I work, the better my luck is). Even those businesses that just happened to be in the right place at the right time had to be well-managed to make full use of human, financial and natural resources.

One of those resources was the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency that has provided needed financial aid for many Alaskan fledgling firms since the early days of statehood.

The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in Alaska, despite the difficulties of operating a small business these days. According to a publication entitled "The State of Small Business: A Report of the President, 1993," Alaska had 12,843 enterprises in 1990, 95 percent of which had fewer than 100 employees, providing 41.5 percent of the annual payroll.

The number of new businesses and changes in business ownership (successor firms) is growing in our state, with 2,708 new and successor firms in 1992, according to the report. The risks of small business are demonstrated by the 2,110 business terminations in 1992, but there is still a net growth of businesses of nearly 600 firms.

Alaskan small businesses operate in a totally different environment today than they did in the past. The go-go days of the 1970s and early 1980s are gone, replaced by a tougher, more competitive environment in which small business owners have to be smarter, or they will be gone.

Small firms nowadays must face competition from retail giants, the decline of activity in the oil patch, stricter government regulations, and the cost of conversion to new technology to position themselves for success. These factors dictate that small-business owners take full advantage of all resources available to them.

Fortunately, small businesses in Alaska have a full array of state and federal resources to assist in getting started and achieving success. The SBA has been active in financing small business through its...