Francis Miller started working during World War II at the age of eleven in a Westport crab cannery. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1949 he purchased his first boat and began fishing out of Westport. By 1959 he fished both locally and in Alaska and he began expanding his fleet. In 1978 he had one of the first factory trawlers fishing in Alaska waters. As his fleet grew he took Arctic Alaska Fisheries Corporation public in 1986 with more than 20 vessels. Through all of his company’s growth, Francis continued to be the skilled fisherman whose job it was to keep the boats fishing. By the early 90s, Francis’s ability to keep the vessels operating allowed the company to employ more than 2,200 with a fleet of 34 boats. Gross revenues reached more than $300 M when Arctic Alaska Fisheries caught the eye of the national Tyson brand who bought the publicly traded company in 1992.

After a brief time away from fishing, Francis returned to his roots and invested in a crab processing plant in Westport that later became Ocean Gold. His entrepreneurship and innate ability to capture trends in the industry fueled the growth of that company which is now globally recognized as one of the premier processors for Pacific whiting. The 2005 addition of the Ocean Protein fishmeal plant in Hoquiam and the 2008 opening of the Ocean Cold storage facility in Westport is revitalizing the fishing industry with growth and prosperity.