You name it, and we'll fly it.

• Author: Backman, Harald
• Position: Northern Air Cargo - Company Profile

For the past 40 years Northern Air Cargo has provided a lifeline of supplies for Alaska Bush-based businesses as well as rural residents.

It all began with the dream of a young pilot named Bobby Sholton. Back in the early 1950s, when Bobby was flying passengers and mail for Wien and Alaska Airlines, he saw a business opportunity.

Sholton was convinced that rural Alaska would support a carrier dedicated to air cargo. What he needed was the right aircraft, which turned out be the famous C-82 Flying Boxcar.

For its day, the Flying Boxcar had tremendous cargo lifting capability. This capacity, coupled with the ability to operate on small, remote airstrips, made it possible for Sholton and Maurice Carlson to found Northern Air Cargo in 1956. At that time, and in the years that followed, one of Sholton's favorite statements was, "You name it, and we'll fly it."

As the company fleet grew, the airline pioneered delivery of specialized, outsized cargo such as generators and vehicles to remote DEW-Line sites, mines and rural settlements. In 1969, the company added the first DC-6 to the operation and by 1982 had begun scheduled service to many of Alaska's rural communities.

Today, Northern Air Cargo carries more than 100 million pounds of cargo throughout the state each year making it the largest air cargo carrier in Alaska.

The company operates scheduled flights to more than 20 Alaska destinations as well as charter and flag-stop service to dozens of other locations in Alaska, Canada and the Pacific Northwest. In addition, its popular NAC LINK service coordinates air cargo shipments to and from Alaska on a worldwide basis.

Besides performing these invaluable services, NAC employs more than 250 Alaskans statewide with an annual payroll of $10 million.

At the beginning of this summer, President Mary Sholton Witte announced a $3.5...