The Spirit of Enterprise: The History of Pacific Enterprises from 1886 to 1989.(Brief Article)

The Spirit of Enterprise: The History of Pacific Enterprises from 1886 to 1989. By Douglas R. Littlefield and Tanis C. Thorne * Los Angeles, Calif.: Pacific Enterprises, 1990. ix + 198 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, selected bibliography, and index. $20.00.

Pacific Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based holding company, has played a major role in the development of southern California for over a century. Established in San Francisco as a small-scale operator on the fringes of the natural gas business, Pacific shifted the focus of its operations to the Los Angeles area in 1889, and since then the growth of the company and the city have been closely intertwined. From the 1880s to the 1980s, the rapidly expanding southern California market paced Pacific's growth. By the 1930s, the demand for gas had become so great that the company was forced to construct the largest natural gas distribution system in the world to meet the needs of its customers. Beginning in the mid-1980s, when growth in southern California slowed, Pacific started an aggressive campaign to diversify its holdings. By 1990 roughly one-half of Pacific's nearly $7 billion in revenues came from outside the natural gas business.

The Spirit of Enterprise is a beautifully packaged but superficial popular history of the evolution of Pacific Enterprises from small firm to big business. Anyone looking for a brief, highly readable, but perhaps overly positive view of Pacific's history will find this book useful. Professional historians or managers seeking insights into the reasons for Pacific's success or details of its operation will be disappointed.

Douglas Littlefield and Tanis Thorne's main theme is that Pacific has been successful "because of conservative business practices, the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, an astuteness in recognizing sound investment opportunities, and a boldness in expanding its economic base when conditions warranted" (p. 1). With the partial exception of the authors" description of the company's flexibility in meeting new conditions, none of these assertions is ...