Entrepreneurs of the Year: Transportation/Logistics

Award Recipients: Tim M. Beaver CEO, John S. Graham CSO; Global Diving & Salvage [Seattle]

When the seven scuba divers behind Global Diving & Salvage banded together in 1979 to provide day-to-day diving, ship husbandry, marine construction, small vessel salvage and spill-response services in the Puget Sound region, they probably didnt imagine that in 30 years theyd be the largest diving contractor on the West Coast, a leading provider of marine construction and infrastructure support services in the United States, and an internationally recognized casualty responder.

The company faced its most significant risks with each expansion beyond the Pacific Northwest. With neither outside investors nor significant capital investment, Global Diving & Salvage repeatedly went up against better-established and better-funded competitorsespecially in the Gulf of Mexico. Its competitive edge was remaining true to the founders core values of honesty, safety and hard worknow shepherded by two original founder divers: Tim Beaver and John Graham.

Today, the company has 400 full-time employees, regional offices in Seattle, Anchorage, San Francisco and Houston, and has played a key role in the aftermath of major aquatic catastrophes, including the Exxon Valdez and BP oil spills. During the Hurricane Katrina cleanup, 80 Global Diving & Salvage workers spent three and a half years working in the Gulf, fixing 125 oil-drilling platforms piece by piece.

Finalist: Bryan Mistele, President & CEO, INRIX [Kirkland]

When Bryan Mistele left Microsoft to launch INRIX, the worlds first crowd-sourced, real-time traffic network, he navigated the rejection of 70 venture capital firms and worked for a year with no salary. But he had confidence that comprehensive and accurate traffic forecasts using GPS signals from vehicles on the road would trump the old method of relying on road sensors on limited travel routes. Today, the road is clear for the 5-year-old startup, which counts high-tech companies, automakers and governments among its many customers.

Finalist: Bohn H. Crain, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Radiant Logistics Inc. [Bellevue]

Bohn Crain is a straight-shooting entrepreneur who finds success in fostering mutually beneficial relationships, most recently at Radiant Logistics, a non-asset-based third-party logistics provider in Bellevue. During the past five years, starting with the purchase of AirGroup, a logistics company based on a franchisor/franchisee-type model, Crain has created one of the fastest-growing logistics networks in America by providing transition/consolidation opportunities for the many aging transportation-agent businesses launched after the deregulation of the transportation industry in the 1980s.