"We developed quite an aggressive business plan, and we're meeting that plan," said Chris McNeil Jr., president and chief executive of the corporation, which is based in Juneau.

"We'll show a profit for 2002," although the amount of net income won't be announced until audits on Sealaska's finances are complete, McNeil said.

Sealaska has been digging itself out of a sea of red ink that saw the corporation lose $121 million in 2000 and $21 million in 2001.

The losses were a result of market downturns in almost every area in which the corporation had invested, from the stock market to the timber business, and to subsidiaries which made parts for the computer industry.

To get into the black, Sealaska shut down a plastics molding plant and a plant that made electronic parts for computers, both located in Washington state. The corporation reorganized its remaining interests in manufacturing with a plant in Monterey, Mexico and a new partner.

"There's been a lot of consolidation in businesses that serve the high-tech sector," McNeil said.

The lagging economies of Asia have also dragged down earnings of Sealaska Timber Corp. Timber harvesting, mostly on Sealaska-owned lands, is a core business for the parent corporation.

"Timber prices are the lowest they have been in 10 years," McNeil said. "It's a highly competitive and rapidly changing sector, and we've spent a lot of time on our harvesting and marketing strategies."

Sealaska has been the major harvester of timber in Southeast Alaska in recent years, exporting logs to Asia and, more recently, to the Pacific Northwest.

Sealaska Timber Corp. has maintained a steady level of cutting 100 million board feet a year.

That level can be sustained on Sealaska-owned lands, particularly when the corporation gets its remaining 60,000 to 70,000 acres in land entitlement from selections made under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, McNeil said.

A new initiative for Sealaska Timber in the last year is moving into China, which is now the largest purchaser of logs in Asia. The corporation's traditional markets have been in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but China has now been added.

"It's a developing market for us. Our initial shipments were lower grade timber, but we expect to sell higher grades of logs over time," McNeil said. China's economy is developing fast, and the manufacture of upper-end luxury goods like pianos will result in increasing demand for finer grades of wood. High quality sitka spruce from Southeast Alaska is prized for musical instruments like pianos and guitars, McNeil said.

Sealaska Timber is based in Ketchikan but maintains a marketing office in Seattle.

In another initiative related to timber, Sealaska is working with Oregon-based Timber Products Co. on the possibility of restarting a wood veneer manufacturing plant in Ketchikan.

The plant was shut down just after it started when its owner, Gateway Forest Products Inc., filed for bankruptcy. Gateway's assets have been liquidated and the plant is now owned by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, which has been working with Timber Products and Sealaska on a plan to get the plant back into operation. The Oregon company operates wood veneer plants and was a customer of the Ketchikan plant.

McNeil said Sealaska is being cautious in its approach to the plan, but would like to have an operating veneer plant in Ketchikan as a customer for lower grades of wood that are harvested by the timber subsidiary.

Two other investments by Sealaska have turned out to have done relatively well. A high-profile initiative to bid for lucrative wireless communications licenses in major U.S. cities ran into legal snarls, but Sealaska got most of its investment back with interest, and retains an interest in wireless licenses in smaller U.S. markets, McNeil said.

The corporation staked $40 million to the joint-venture with two other Alaska Native corporations, Arctic Slope Regional Corp. and Doyon Ltd., and telecommunications giant AT&T. They bid on wireless licenses auctioned by the federal government after the owner, NextWave Communication, filed for bankruptcy and defaulted on payments to the government for the licenses.

The venture, known as Alaska Native Wireless, won licenses in the rebidding, but NextWave sued to get its licenses back and ultimately won its case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Though the group didn't get the big city wireless markets they sought, there was some silver lining in what happened for Sealaska, McNeil said. While the $40 million was tied up in escrow, the stock market plunged. Had the money been invested in securities instead of in an interest-bearing escrow account, Sealaska would have lost considerable money, McNeil said.

The corporation has also done well with an initiative to help a southern California tribe develop a resort and casino near San Diego. The $14.7 million loan has been repaid and Sealaska retains a carried working interest in the project, McNeil said.

A promising new initiative the corporation is investigating is the possible sale of sand and gravel from Sealaska-owned lands near Yakutat, on the Gulf of Alaska coast. There is a good market for gravel in West Coast states.

The corporation is now working with the Yakutat community on possible options for the project, McNeil said.

Another Sealaska subsidiary that shows promise is Synergy Systems Inc. The Redmond, Wash.-based firm helped develop the case for the Microsoft Corp. X-Box gaming console, and built a prototype for a new video player which was recently unveiled by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

The work prompted Microsoft to name Synergy one of its top suppliers, according to Todd Antioquia, Sealaska director of corporate communications. "It was a pretty happy day for us when we were awarded that designation," he said.