Cook Inlet Region Inc.

2000 Top 49ers Ranking: 4

Position Last Year: 5

1999 Revenue: $297 million

Number of Employees: 75

After bringing in a record $57.4 million in net income for 1999, there is but one thing Cook Inlet Region Inc.'s President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Marrs is concerned about: the Native corporation's bottom line.

"You have to have a long-term view. You must have cash flow, money for reinvestment, money for shareholders' dividends, and you have to hit some home runs once in awhile," he said. "You can from time to time hit them."

Marrs' strategy for hitting the long ball is simple: be selective about whom you partner with, surround yourself with the best teammates you can find, and wait for the right pitch. Nowhere have his tactics scored bigger than with CIRI's $115 million partnership with VoiceStream Wireless Holding Corp.

Deutsche Telekom, a telecommunications company based in Germany, has offered to purchase the company for $50 billion. The CIRI-controlled partnership holds licenses to provide personal communication services in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle, Tulsa and Washington, D.C.

If the sale is approved by federal regulators, Mans said the value of CIRI's investment would soar to between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion. According to the sale agreement, CIPI would swap its 8.1 million shares of VoiceStream stock for 25.9 million shares of Deutsche Telekom stock and $24.3 million.

Marrs said he just hopes CIPI shareholders will be patient, as the Federal Communication Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission must approve the sale, which could take 12 months to 18 months.

"It wasn't a bad ball, if it all comes out," Marrs said.

With more than 2 million customers nationwide, VoiceStream is the eighth largest wireless carrier in the United States. The German company wants VoiceStream because it offers GSM technology nationwide.

GSM, which stands for Global System for Mobile Communications, is a digital, cellular radio network operating in more than 200 countries worldwide. It provides almost complete coverage in Western Europe, and growing coverage in the Americas, Asia and elsewhere.

Of special interest is the capability of the GSM network to be used for data computing. Most people think of voice calls when they think of cellular phones. But because GSM is digital, you can connect your GSM-enabled phone to your laptop computer and send or receive e-mail, faxes, browse the Internet, securely access your company's LAN/Intranet, and use other digital data features including Short Messaging Service.

Acquiring VoiceStream would make Deutsche Telekom a global telecommunication power. VoiceStream customers could also use their phones overseas by inserting a card.

But not all Marrs' hits clear the wall.

He said he makes some errors and cited the corporation's entry into heavy-equipment leasing in the Pacific Northwest as the most critical.

"We sort of did it wrong. We kept management when we should have let them go. We dug ourselves a pretty deep hole, but we are digging ourselves out of it," he said. "I misjudged it. It's always easy to come in fast, but it is slow getting out. Luckily, we have a great group of people digging us out of the hole I dug us into."

While the heavy-equipment leasing company tries to recoup its losses, Marrs said the rest of the corporation's ventures are doing well.

Despite a decline in tourism in 2000, CIRI added 36 rooms to its Wind-song Lodge in Seward and 108 rooms to Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, and announced a joint venture with Doyon Ltd. to operate a concession at the entrance of Denali National Park and Preserve. In 1999, the corporation posted revenues of more than $15 million from its tourism-related operations.

Revenues exceeded $297 million last year, with shareholders' equity in the corporation topping $838 million. Marrs said the last quarterly dividend CIRI paid was $6.28 per share. The corporation paid more than $15.6 million in dividends in 1999.

Despite being one of Alaska's most profitable Native corporations, Marrs is reluctant to say CIRI is the most successful.

"I think if you look at each of the other Native corporations, you will see they are successful in their own rights. But they have different objectives," Marrs said. "We are totally bottom-line oriented."

Marrs said Arctic Slope Regional Corp. is concentrating on generating revenue; Northwest Alaska Native Association is focusing on creating jobs; Bristol Bay Native Corp. also is concerned about jobs, as well as protecting the subsistence lifestyle of its shareholders; and Calista is primarily concerned about subsistence. "It's all hard to balance, but you cannot say we are more successful than the others because not everyone is concerned about the bottom line."