Entrepreneur and airline pioneer in Alaska and the Cascades
Nikola Bezmalinovic was born in 1895 in Brac, one of 79 islands in the Adriatic Sea archipelago off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. There, fishing and the sea was a way of life but offered limited opportunities. At age 14, Nikola borrowed money from his father for steerage passage to New York—as he told the Seattle Times in 1969, “I had no relatives, friends or acquaintances in the United States, so I was on my own.” He worked in a Brooklyn restaurant until he earned enough money for a train ticket to Tacoma, Washington, where he joined a community of other Croatian immigrants. He subsequently went to Alaska, acquired his first fishing boat, and worked as a superintendent in a fish cannery. In 1922 he bought an abandoned fish cannery near Sitka, the first in a series of aggressive business moves which would lead to his owning the three largest tuna and salmon canneries in Alaska, two gold mines and a large fleet of fishing trawlers. Along the way, he changed his name to Nick Bez, which was easier for people to spell and remember.
Realizing the need for improved transportation in Alaska and the coastal Pacific Northwest, Bez started a small charter airline in 1931, called Alaska Southern Airways, in part to support his business operations. In 1934, he sold the company, at a profit, to Pacific Alaska Airways, a Pan Am subsidiary set up to gain a foothold in Alaska.
As his wealth grew, Bez became a supporter and major contributor to the Democratic Party, and when President Harry S. Truman visited Seattle in 1945, it was Nick Bez who took him and Washington senator Warren Magnuson on a short fishing trip, with Bez rowing the boat.
In 1946, Bez launched his second airline, with a small fleet of converted C-47s. Called West Coast Airlines, its slogan “Serving the Evergreen Empire” matched its route structure which extended from Bellingham, Washington to Medford, Oregon. In 1949, Bez negotiated a merger deal with Southwest Airways, but approval was denied by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which instead suggested a merger with Empire Air Lines, which Bez then pursued. The merger was consummated in 1952 with the launch of West Coast Empire Airlines, later shortened to WCA.
There followed several years of slow, steady growth, and West Coast Airlines entered the jet-age in 1958 as the first airline in the world to operate the Fairchild F-27 turboprop. DC-9s joined the fleet in 1966.
In 1963, Nick Bez acquired 34% of the stock of Pacific Airlines (the former Southwest Airways) as a prelude to a friendly merger, but the CAB blocked the move and Bez was forced to sell his shares.
However, patience and persistence paid off in 1968 when the CAB, seeking to reduce subsidy payments to local service carriers, approved the merger of two financially struggling airlines, Pacific and Bonanza, with fiscally stable West Coast Airlines. Combined operations began on July 1, 1968 and the new airline was called Air West, with Nick Bez as CEO and Chairman of the Board.
But Air West began losing money almost immediately, and within a few months Bez was in negotiations with two legendary airline personalities, Howard Hughes and Donald Nyrop, over the future of Air West. Ultimately an agreement with Howard Hughes was affirmed by Air West shareholders in December 1968, with the deal consummated in April 1969.
However, Nick Bez had died almost three months earlier, on Feb. 5, and could not savor the consummation of the biggest business deal of his life.
