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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Having the right gear can save you from a world of hurt Eagle Enterprises’ experience and knowledge can help you obtain quality equipment and clothing for any safety situation
Alan Bailey PNA Contributing Writer
Think Alaska and you think about survival in some of the world’s most rugged territory. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that the state boasts a premier supplier of safety and survival gear — Anchorage-based Eagle Enterprises Inc. has established an international reputation for its expertise in Arctic clothing and Arctic survival gear.
“Eagle Enterprises started in 1971 as oilfield supply services and marine services, packing life rafts,” Shane Langland, the company’s president, told PNA.
Over the years the company has continued its marine and aviation life raft services. However, the company has also grown to become a supplier of a wide variety of commercial and industrial goods and services.
“So what we are now is a commercial sales house for safety and survival equipment, industrial supplies, for pretty much any industry that has safety requirements,” Langland said. “We can do containment equipment for asbestos removal all the way to water making equipment that can supply an island of people.” Protective clothing Eagle Enterprises supplies breathing apparatus, safety glasses, hard hats and respirators to both the fire service industry and the oil industry. “One of the projects that we’ve been doing lately is we outfit crews that do work on the North Slope — from their boots to their hats,” Langland said. “They come in (here) and then they go out to work.”
The company has even designed its own brand of Arctic outerwear, called Eagleloft.
Eagleloft originated as a project to outfit the Alaska State Troopers with winter parkas. “We took a sample of what the state troopers were looking for in their outer parka and designed it to match (their) specifications,” Langland said.
Eagle Enterprises has succeeded in selling the Eagleloft parkas to police departments around the world, as well as to the Alaska State Troopers. “It’s done very, very well — it’s very durable, very strong,” Langland said. “We’ve sold them to the federal government for air force bases — that’s kind of rewarding to meet that specification.” Survival kits The assembly of survival kits has also become one of Eagle Enterprise’s specialized business lines — the company designs and sells kits for a wide range of applications, including hotels, aircraft and company cars.
“We design a lot of custom kits for hotels, for vehicles or for unique survival situations,” Langland said. “We keep in touch with the latest gear, with who’s making it, with what the faults are — we see it, we touch it, we play with it and we develop that expertise in what really works.”
In one of its most unusual assignments, the company designed survival kits for people working on oilrigs in the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea is very shallow, so that rig workers might have to wade through slush and ice after an emergency rig evacuation.
“We were able to design these kits so that the rig workers can escape the rig and have the right equipment to survive,” Langland said. Airliner emergency kits Langland feels particularly proud of his company’s achievements in developing emergency kits for airplanes operating in the polar regions.
“Designing a kit for a disaster over the North Pole in an airplane and helping some major carriers develop an action plan if that were to happen was very challenging,” Langland said. “You’ve got weight requirements, space requirements, but if you end up having to dump it in Siberia you’ve got extreme conditions you have to deal with.”
Eagle Enterprises started working with one air carrier. Then, as other carriers became involved in the project, the initial approach of storing emergency kits on aircraft evolved into the concept of staging kits at strategic sites. “We designed some survival kits that are staged around the world and that these carriers can then take to the (emergency landing) site,” Langland said. New locations In 2000 Eagle Enterprises bought a business in Homer. “They were mostly a life raft re-pack station for fishing vessels and commercial boats — so we do that service down there as well,” Langland said.
The Homer business has also opened a retail store for safety and survival gear.
In a recent venture Eagle Enterprises has opened stores to sell Helly Hansen clothing in Anchorage’s 5th Avenue Mall and on Homer Spit. The Helly Hansen gear dovetails into Eagle Enterprises’ range of protective clothing. “We opened that in April last year — it’s done very well — we’re very pleased,” Langland said. “It does so well because the product is such a good quality.”
Eagle Enterprises has also opened up business on its web site, www.ultimategear.com. The company developed the site to eliminate the cost of printing a paper catalogue and to enable the marketing of a wider range of products.
“(The web site) has been profitable every year,” Langland said. “It’s not a tremendous amount of sales, because so much of what we do is hazardous materials which we can’t send through the mail.” Shipping costs also limit Internet sales from Alaska. Safety and survival expertise Although Eagle Enterprises has developed a very diverse range of products and services, the company’s core focus remains safety and survival. The company has established a reputation for its expertise in providing quality products that meet customer requirements.
“We tend to stick with products that we know meet our needs and requirements, that stand the test of time,” Langland said. Customers know that they can rely on Eagle Enterprises for reliable, fit-for-purpose gear.
Although quality gear sometimes costs more than the “bargain basement” options, expert advice can save customers’ money. “Most of the things that work the best are typically the least expensive,” Langland said. “The fancy gadgets we find don’t always work when it really gets down to it.”
People also need expert advice when assessing the needs of a particular safety situation. For example, different work environments require different styles of safety glasses. “You’re asking us to tell you how to protect your eyes from whatever environment you’re in — well we’d better understand very clearly what your environment is,” Langland said.
And survival gear demands especially careful selection.
“You only need (survival gear) when you’re really in trouble,” Langland said, “and, contrary to what most people believe, accidents happen faster than you can prevent. When you get to that point, you’re relying on the survival gear you have purchased and the training you have received.” Eagle Enterprises takes pride in its knowledgeable sales staff. “One of our largest challenges is training new people into what we do, because we are so incredibly diverse,” Langland said. “There’s a full year of on-job training before someone can answer customer questions with confidence,” he said. Customer focus Langland said that he expects Eagle Enterprises to maintain its customer-driven approach to doing business — the company continuously modifies or extends its product and service lines to meet evolving customer needs.
“We kind of view our relationship with our customers as partnerships — if they have success, we have success,” Langland said. “As opportunities in Alaska arise, our customers will require us to do different things in different places we will continue to grow in whatever way our customers need us.”
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