Starting a new year - and finishing a first decade.

• Author: Gerhart, Clifford
• Position: Alaska Business Monthly

Alaska is a great place to be a business journalist. The Great Land's vast resources, its bustling cities and empty landscapes, its booms and busts, and its colorful characters supply endless story ideas.

Alaska Business Monthly has covered all these angles since its inception, and it has been a rich and rewarding experience. We salute the industries, the businesses and individuals who make Alaska such a dynamic state, and we thank you, our readers, for your continued support and enthusiasm for our magazine.

We presented the premier issue of Alaska Business Monthly in January, 1985. According to Paul Laird, our first editor, it seemed like a good idea at the time, despite the recent demise of its predecessor, Alaska Business & Industry. As it turned out, 1985 was hardly a propitious moment to be launching a new business of any kind in Alaska, but the new publication has weathered more than a few economic storms.

Carol Smith, our current company president, was there at the founding and says, "We just felt that there was a need out there for in-depth reporting on business subjects that wasn't being met."

Looking back over Alaska Business Monthly's first decade, it's instructive to note the things that have changed -- and the things that haven't.

Take that premier issue, for example. One story, "Life Without Wien in the Bush," focused on change -- the results of the passing of what had been Alaska's strongest bush airline and a pillar of the business community.

But our cover featured Dan Cuddy, then chairman of First National Bank of Anchorage. Though Mr. Cuddy has turned over day-to-day operations of the bank to son David Cuddy and daughter Betsy Lawer, he remains a powerful presence at First National.

In that first year, ABM covered explosive growth in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Anchorage's newspaper war and the founding of the Alaska Railroad -- all important changes for the state. But other issues remain the same today: The timber industry was in trouble and Alaska was trying to build a high-tech computer industry. And the retail business was heating up in Anchorage with the opening of Costco, with people asking, "What do the retailers know that we don't?"

Back then in 1985, we published our first New 49ers list, a compilation that our readers have consistently looked forward to as one of our most interesting and informative pieces. That year, Carr-Gottstein topped the list, a feat the grocery chain would frequently accomplish until...