The Port of Tacoma: Alaska's host on Puget Sound.

Alaskans often cite Seattle as the source for shipping goods to the Last Frontier. That's no longer the case. Tacoma, 30 miles south of Seattle, is the port of choice for most of the companies shipping goods to Alaska.

Say you're using a widget at work, watching Arnold on video, or even just standing and fiddling with your collar. Well, chances are that if you live in Alaska, the widget, Arnold and even your collar came up on a ship out of the Port of Tacoma, Alaska's largest trading partner to the south.

Located about 30 miles south of Seattle, the Port of Tacoma occupies about 1,800 acres of prime waterfront space, allowing the handling and movement of more than 13 million tons of cargo annually. That amounts to more than $23 billion per year in trade, including up to $3 billion annually in trade with Alaska. It is estimated that up to 80 percent of the water-borne cargo bound for Alaska passes through the Port of Tacoma.

"If Alaska were a foreign country, it would rank as our second-largest trading partner in terms of dollar volume," says port spokesman Rod Koon. Koon says Japan tops Tacoma's list with just over $11 billion in trade and Taiwan comes in third at about $2 billion. "Last year Alaska moved up from three or four to number two," Koon said.

Superlatives abound. If taken alone, Tacoma is the sixth-largest container port in the United States and among the top 25 in the world. When teamed with the Port of Seattle, the partnership ranks as the second-busiest port in the country, after Los Angeles. And since Puget Sound also serves the Portland, Ore. and Vancouver, B.C. metropolitan areas, the combined ports are not that far behind Los Angeles when measured on overall impact as a "load center."

Today, the Port of Tacoma continues to expand in international trade, while maintaining its strong ties to the everyday lives of Alaskans. All the time waiting for another big project, which could boost Tacoma's business exponentially.

"If the ANWR goes (into production), we peak accordingly," Koon said.

BRINGING THE GOLD RUSH SOUTH

In 1918 - no doubt eyeing the growth of the Seattle waterfront after succeeding gold strikes in the Yukon and then Nome - the people of Pierce County, Wash. voted to form a port district, a quasi-public corporation devoted to economic development. Three years and $2.5 million later, the port began operations - loading 600,000 board feet of lumber aboard the vessel "Edmore" bound for Japan.

During World War II, ships were still bound for the Far East, but this time laden with soldiers and munitions. Strategic shipyards employed 30,000 people, including, by war's end, more than 4,000 hard-hatted women.

After the war the facility continued to expand, receiving a big boost from the building of the trans-Alaska pipeline and subsequent development of North Slope oilfields.

In 1976, Totem Ocean Trailer Express, one of the two main shipping lines serving Alaska, moved it's facilities to Tacoma to take advantage of training incentives offered by the longshoremen there. Sea-Land Service moved its Alaska and some trans-Pacific operations to the Port of Tacoma in 1985, establishing Tacoma's prominence as "the Gateway to Alaska."

"We learned a long time ago that Alaska was a major trading partner, but we didn't fully recognize it until TOTE made their move," says Dick Marzano, one of the Port of Tacoma's five commissioners and a longshoreman since 1964.

Although Puget Sound's main bonanzas have been through the discovery of gold and then oil in Alaska, they have also benefited from the steady growth of the state's population.

"As Alaska becomes more and more a place where people move to stay and live, that in itself will increase our business together," Marzano says.

STEADY SAILING

The Port of Tacoma showed strong financial results in 1996, earning about $10 million on just over $53 million in operating revenues, a 4.8 percent increase over 1995.

But the biggest impact of Pierce County may be jobs-with more than 10,000 directly dependent on port activities and many thousands more indirectly connected. The annual wage for direct-port jobs is $33,000-55 percent higher than the average for the rest of the county's workers.

Those workers enjoy a mostly secure work environment, with port cargo activity showing increases in some areas, and declines in others. Despite the timber shortage in the Pacific Northwest, the Port of Tacoma still led the nation with $493 million in wood exports.

And the port also welcomes a tenant becoming well-known in Alaska - Tyson Seafoods Group, which opened its fishing vessel maintenance and support facility in May 1996.

Koon says the latest market analysis shows that the port's business with Alaska was fairly steady in 1996, with a modest 1 percent growth forecast for 1997.

That's smooth enough sailing for Sea-Land and TOTE, who are used to dealing with a highly competitive market in Alaska shipping.

Sea-Land decided to move to the Port of Tacoma in 1985 because the Port of Seattle could not offer the company adequate space for development.

"Tacoma is blessed with deep waterways and land that is capable of being developed," says Sea-Land Port Manager Jim Nelson. Currently adding 25 acres to their facility, Sea-Land will soon have a total of 132 acres to work with. That's enough for now - barely.

"(Some days) we are working five cranes and 35 hostlers feeding the ships. We've got other equipment and another 35 hostlers working the trains, as well as drivers out on the street," Nelson said. "The port is not a quiet place."

About a third of Sea-Land's Tacoma business is with Alaska, the rest overseas. Sea-Land in Tacoma is running neck-and-neck with Long Beach as the company's busiest West Coast port. So it is comforting to company honchos that after granting shipping giant Hyundai Merchant Marine (USA) a 50-acre site to build a terminal and dockside rail yard this spring, the Port of Tacoma still has hundreds of acres left for future Sea-Land growth.

TOTE, the longer Tacoma resident, does all of it's business with Alaska, offering its unique "roll-on, roll-off" loading of cargo on wheels or tracks.

"Tacoma has been a fantastic host for us - the labor force is always winning awards in speed and safety," says Alan Stark, TOTE's director of public relations. "We're quite pleased with the operation."

BIGGER, FASTER, CHEAPER

Residents of Alaska (outside of Southeastern, which is mainly served by barges from Seattle), should be pleased to be linked up with the Port of Tacoma.

Sea-Land's Nelson says the increasing efficiency of Alaska's carders have kept pace with the changes in Alaska's needs. He points to a recent U.S. Department of Transportation study which analyzed freight rates to Alaska and found they have increased slower than inflation.

"There's a mistaken perception out there that Alaska pays disproportionately, but in reality (Alaska-bound shipping) is a highly-competitive arena."

One of the factors that makes Alaska such a challenge is that U.S. maritime laws require that only U.S.-crewed, flagged and manned vessels operate between U.S. ports.

While the flow of goods between Japan, Taiwan, Korea and the United States fills ships both ways, many of the Alaska-bound ships are forced to return empty. Only Bering Sea pollock and crab, and Bristol Bay salmon make any dent - a big one, albeit seasonal - on many of the ships' underutilized backhaul.

Thus, says Marzano and others involved in Alaska shipping, the development of manufacturing in Alaska would help shippers run more efficient operations. Anything that helps Alaska develop, they say, helps the Port of Tacoma.