Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - Page updated at 11:50 a.m.
Top companies of the decade
Top companies of 2009
Precision Castparts
Precision Castparts has shown that old-line manufacturing industries such as recycling scrap steel can thrive in today's global market. The Portland company tops The Seattle Times' 19th annual ranking of the region's top public companies for 2009 and for the decade 2000-09.
The low-profile company has benefited greatly from the push by Boeing and Airbus to build big, complicated new planes. For example, each 787 contains about $5.6 million of Precision-made components.
Itron
Founded: 1977
Headquarters: Liberty Lake
Major operations: Automated meter-reading module operations in Minnesota; electricity meter operations in South Carolina; 55 other manufacturing and distribution facilities and 84 sales/administrative offices around the world.
CEO: Malcolm Unsworth
Employees: 9,000
Major products/services: Meters and meter-reading systems for electricity, gas and water utilities
Average annual shareholder return, 2000-09: 27.3 percent
Schnitzer Steel
Founded: 1906
Headquarters: Portland
Major operations: Major export facilities in Tacoma, Portland, Oakland and Massachusetts; smaller scrap yards in 15 states and Puerto Rico; steel minimill in Oregon; 47 auto-parts stores in 14 states and Canada
CEO: Tamara Lundgren
Employees: 3,323
Major products/services: Processes and sells ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal; makes finished steel products from scrap; sells used auto parts
Average annual shareholder return, 2000-09: 23.3 percent
Paccar
Founded: 1905, as Seattle Car Manufacturing Co.
Headquarters: Bellevue
Major operations: Manufacturing plants in Washington (Renton), Ohio, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma; also in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom
CEO: Mark Pigott
Employees: 15,200
Major products/services: Light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks under the Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF brands; financial services and information technology; truck parts
Average annual shareholder return, 2000-09: 19.3 percents
Starbucks
Founded: 1971
Headquarters: Seattle
Major operations: More than 16,000 stores in 51 countries, including 11,000+ in the United States
CEO: Howard Schultz
Employees: 142,000
Major products/services: Coffee, tea, other beverages
Average annual shareholder return, 2000-09: 14.6 percent
Precision Castparts
Founded: 1956
Headquarters: Portland
Major operations: 111 offices and manufacturing plants in the United States; 64 overseas
CEO: Mark Donegan
Employees: 20,600
Major products/services: Cast- and forged-metal pieces for aircraft engines, gas turbines and other industrial uses; fasteners; specialty alloys
Special sauce: Squeezing operating costs during the slump should result in fatter profit margins as orders pick up.
Amazon.com
Founded: 1994
Headquarters: Seattle
Major operations: Uses 20.3 million square feet of office, warehouse and data-center space - nearly 14 million square feet in North America and an additional 6.4 million overseas.
CEO: Jeff Bezos
Employees: 24,300
Major products/services: Sells nearly everything you can think of online, both directly and through third-party sellers; also sells tools to digital entrepreneurs and makes the Kindle e-reader.
Special sauce: The Kindle e-reader marks Amazon's determination to remain a force in media sales, even as more and more content phases from the physical to the virtual world.
Flir Systems
Founded: 1978
Headquarters: Wilsonville, Ore.
Major operations: California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania; Estonia, France, Sweden, United Kingdom
CEO: Earl Lewis
Employees: 21,400
Major products/services: A wide range of products that use infrared technology, including military-targeting systems, security cameras, rifle scopes, homes-inspection devices and night-vision systems for cars.
Special sauce: Flir focuses on developing new high-end uses for infrared imaging, then pushing them down in price and into broader markets
Coinstar
Founded: 1993
Headquarters: Bellevue
Major operations: Redbox headquarters and main office of electronic-payments business in suburban Chicago; main offices of money-transfer business in California and London, England
CEO: Paul Davis
Employees: 2,600
Major products/services: DVD-rental and coin-counting machines; electronic payments and money transfers
Special sauce: The Redbox DVD-rental business has turned out to be a lucrative category-killer.
Todd Shipyards
Founded: 1916
Headquarters: Seattle
Major operations: Seattle, Everett
CEO: Stephen Welch
Employees: 550
Major products/services: Shipbuilding and repair, for both military and commercial vessels.
Special sauce: It's hard to argue with nearly a century of experience.
Decade of performance
The Northwest 76
Low-profile 'Old Economy' companies prove to be major forces in the Northwest economy.
What will it take to be successful in the next decade | Jon Talton
No time to be smug. The next decade is going to be every bit as challenging as the last one, Seattle.
Top companies ranking by shareholder return
Top public offerings in the Northwest
Featured company videos:
CEO Pay |Numbers don't tell the whole story
The stock market's rebound last year proved a gold mine for some local CEOs. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz rose to the top of our list.
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