Chuck Bundrant, the titan of the fishing industry who marketed pollock to fast food chains around the world and spent six decades trawling the North Seas, died Sunday at the age of 79.

Bundrant quietly ran America’s largest seafood company, Trident Seafoods, from Seattle, with a fleet of 40 vessels and 16 processing plants, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. Trident Seafoods has grown and employs approximately 5,000 people during peak season in Alaska. Forbes estimates the sales of the private company at around $ 2 billion. Bundrant, who has battled Parkinson’s disease for the past decade, had a fortune of at least $ 1.3 billion when he died, Forbes estimates.

Bundrant, who was born in Tennessee, began fishing in Alaskan waters in 1961. It was then that he left college after a semester and drove a 1953 Ford station wagon with three friends from Middle State Tennessee University in Seattle, arriving with $ 80 in their pocket. Growing up wanting to be a vet, the 19-year-old fell in love with the docks while working for a fish processor. Instead of going back to school, he traveled to Alaska in the winter, where he worked on a commercial crab fishing boat. He eventually became the ship’s captain.

In 1973, Bundrant co-founded Trident Seafoods with two crab fishermen in Alaska. They created the 135-foot Bilikin, the first fishing boat with onboard crab cookers and freezing equipment. In the 1980s, competition for certain fish peaked.

The Alaskan pollock, a groundfish that chefs regarded as junk fish, became Bundrant’s gold mine. Its first breakup came when the Long John Silvers signed a multi-million dollar deal in 1981. That same year, Trident built a fish processing plant in Akutan, Alaska, which became its most remote operation. . Trident then became the main supplier to national fast food chains, including McDonald’s and Burger King, as Bundrant sold pollock for less than the cod they used to buy.

Bundrant has also played politics to his advantage over the decades. In 1998, Trident and other fishing companies pushed Congress to pass a bill that banned foreign fishing companies from working in US waters by requiring 75% US ownership for companies fishing in the ocean. Pacific within 200 miles offshore. Bundrant was one of the architects of Bill.

“Chuck saw all these foreign fishing companies and said ‘I want a part of that’ back in the days when no one was looking at these fisheries,” recalls Brent Paine, executive director of the United Catcher Boats business group who fished in. Alaska and lobbied for the industry for decades alongside Bundrant.

The resulting political spectacle saw Stevens, then chairman of the credit committee, decommission a dozen offshore trawlers owned by foreign companies and strip them in shipyards. According to Paine, Bundrant’s “pipeline” to these key employees at Capitol Hill even led Stevens to allocate $ 3.5 million for an airport built on Akutan Island, so that seasonal workers at Trident could fly more. near the factory where they work, instead of having to take an hour-long ferry ride. It opened in 2012 at a cost of $ 54 million to the government.

The following year, 2013, Bundrant’s son Joe took over as CEO. In addition to Joe, Bundrant is survived by his wife Diane, daughter Jill Dulcich, daughter Julie Bundrant Rhodes and their families, including 13 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

“This business, no matter how small, will remain a close family,” Bundrant said. “This is the key to Trident’s success.

MORE FORBESThis college dropout made a fortune of $ 3 billion selling Alaskan pollock to chains like McDonald’sThrough Chloe Sorvino
MORE FORBESSeafood billionaire, with money at stake, donates to TrumpThrough Michela tindera