Connections Magazine

Sales, in the capital city of Juneau, and Anderes Oil, in Ketchikan, built trusted reputations and devoted customers in their local communities. We felt Crowley was the best fit for our employees and for the community in Juneau. It's a nice feature that the people our customers are used to talking to will still be here. They'll still get the same voice on the phone. With their businesses spread 230 miles apart, the Jacobsen (Taku) and Anderes families worked as a team, ordering fuel in tandem to lower shipping costs. But they'd never done business with Crowley. That is, until the destinies of the three companies intersected this summer, and Taku and Anderes separately agreed to sell their operations to Crowley. The agreements give Crowley its first chance to enter the Southeast region, the only major part of Alaska where it lacked a business presence. And it gives the two families the assurance that their employees and customers will be well served. Taku picked Crowley, above other suitors, in part because Crowley would retain all 13 employees and the name of the business, said president Jeff Hansen, a 26-year employee of Taku who married into the Jacobsen family years ago. "We felt Crowley was the best fit for our employees and for the community in Juneau," said Hansen. "It's a nice feature that the people our customers are used to talking to will still be here. They'll still get the same voice on the phone." The late Clarence Jacobsen founded Taku Oil in 1953, delivering fuel for Unocal that kept residents warm in the region's soggy winters. Coincidentally, that was just months after Crowley began hauling the woodchips in Ketchikan. Juneau had just 6,000 residents then. But it would grow in size and prominence, becoming the state's capital city when Alaska achieved statehood in 1959. Today, it's the largest city in Southeast Alaska, with a population of 32,000. Jacobsen's business also expanded with Taku eventually buying Unocal's assets when that company decided to divest, including a 2.5-million gallon storage terminal, a deep-water marine fuel dock and two service stations. Taku did steady business, providing a variety of petroleum products and becoming the leading fuel provider for the fishing fleet, Hansen said. The success came despite competition from the other two fuel suppliers in Juneau and companies with a presence elsewhere in the region and state. Nonetheless, Jacobsen's five children had grown increasingly uneasy about the ever-present swarm of changing regulations, and whether a small company could keep up. A big fear, Hansen said, was "finding out too late that we were supposed to do something Above: Customers fill up at one of Taku's self-service gas stations. Left: Taku's Jim Carson takes notes after a gas delivery at the company's fuel station. 14

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