The Alaska Business Corporate 100: Keeping Alaska healthy, happy, and employed.

• Author: Mackenzie, Kathryn
• Position: FROM THE EDITOR - Editorial

It's a beautiful month for business. The sun is shining (most of the time), green is peeking out of white, and it's time for the Corporate 100 at Alaska Business. Life doesn't get much better. This year we again recognize and honor the state's largest employers as they persist through a turbulent economy, keeping Alaskans in work and providing the products and services we rely on to keep us warm, fed, and healthy and happy.

Combined, the 2018 Alaska Business Corporate 100 employ 72,899 people in Alaska and 2.4 million worldwide. And though that represents a roughly 18 percent drop compared to last year, when the number of Alaska employees was 89,329, the drop is partially affected by a number of businesses joining or dropping off the list, as well as some changes to employee reporting methods, according to the company-submitted surveys. In December, Alaska's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.3 percent, according to Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development figures, marking the state's highest unemployment rate since 2012. While that is... well, a less-than-ideal ideal figure, it is just that, a figure. Alaskans know how to roll with the punches and nothing shows that more than the continued opportunities offered by the Corporate 100 and the dozens upon dozens of small businesses throughout the state; factor in the multitude of rural locations in dire need of services and the workers who offer them, and the employment picture becomes a bit brighter.

Alaska always has been and remains a land filled with opportunity--opportunity that all of the businesses on the Corporate 100 recognized and built their successes around. We feature four such companies in profiles in the Corporate 100 Special Section: Alaska USA Federal Credit Union, Alyeska Resort, Foundation Health Partners (operator of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital), and Baker Hughes, a GE...