The San Fernando Valley has a diverse group of large private companies, ranging from a tool retailer to a trade journal publisher, from car dealerships to transportation logistics. Among companies on the Business Journal’s list of Private Companies with the biggest increases in revenue was Allen Lund Co. The La Cañada-Flintridge transportation broker saw its revenues rise by 28 percent to $662 million in 2018 to put it at the No. 9 spot on the list. In last year’s list, the company had been No. 12 with $516 million in revenue for 2017. Edward Lund, son of the founder for whom the company is named, told the Business Journal that it was a combination of a good market and great customer service that allowed the firm to push up its revenue. Additionally, the company has opened new offices in the past few years that are starting to generate business. Those offices are in Cincinnati; Houston; Little Rock, Ark.; Greenville, S.C.; and Nashville, Tenn. This spring Lund opened a new office in Indianapolis as well. Another contributing factor to the rise in revenue was that Lund’s software sales have picked up. “It is a much smaller portion of our business, but our transportation management software has been growing,” Lund said, adding that about 95 percent of the firm’s revenues comes from transportation brokerage services. Challenges faced by the company include hiring of qualified employees, fast changing markets and digitization of the industry as competition pops up that can match trucks and loads together through algorithms and software that bypasses human input, Lund said. “They are getting a lot of money put into those arenas,” he added. “There are several companies, like Uber, that have gotten into the freight game that have made things challenging.” Sage Publishing is No. 14 on the list. The trade and professional journal publisher and supplier of higher education resources, such as video, case studies and archives, was started more than 50 years ago by Sara Miller McCune, who remains the majority shareholder. A company spokesperson said in an email to the Business Journal that McCune has guaranteed the company’s future independence through her estate plan that will have Sage owned by a number of higher education institutions. “This independence allows us to invest our time and resources in long-term initiatives that will not only serve Sage but also the entire scholarly community,” the spokesperson wrote. A challenge faced by Sage has to do with making research open and available to the widest possible audience so it can make the most impact. Ultimately, this means a major disruption to the ways that academic publishers operate, the company spokesperson wrote. Sage has met this challenge by making investments in opening access to research with Sage Open, a social and behavioral sciences journal seeking to be the premier freely accessible outlet for academic research and by working in partnership with universities to create new ways of accessing and publishing in its journals, the email stated. Economic diversity Topping the Private Companies list, which is based on 2018 revenue, is Harbor Freight Tools USA Inc. with revenue of $5 billion. The tool retailer had been No. 2 on the list last year, and switched positions with the previous No. 1, Dole Food Co. Inc., which is now No. 2 with $4.5 billion in revenue. The oldest company of the bunch, 126-year-old citrus growing co-operative Sunkist Growers Inc., is No. 7, with more than $1.1 billion in revenues. Headquartered in Valencia, the co-op has farms in California and Arizona, and grows more than 40 varieties of citrus, including oranges, lemons, grapefruit, tangerines, tangelos, mandarins, specialties and organics. In an email to the Business Journal, Christina Ward, director of global brand marketing, said Sunkist has a strong brand and a great story to tell “We connect with our consumers of all ages in retail stores and online, through social media and on the web,” Ward wrote. The key to company’s continued success is in its knowledge and technology. Multi-generations of growers come with years of tradition and skills that are passed down. “Something a lot of people don’t realize is that it takes five years or more to get a full production of fruit; that time in between is used to make sure the tree grows properly,” Ward wrote in her email. “And Sunkist growers have been able to successfully pair the generations of knowledge with new technology to grow a great product.” Among the newsier items coming out of Sunkist this year was the naming of Jim Phillips as the new chief executive to replace Russ Hanlin, who retired effective at the end of October.