Axel Englund opened Englund Marine on July 22, 1944, in a 50-by-50-foot building on a rebuilt dock at 101 15th St. with three employees. It was, at that time, one of at least four marine supply stores in Astoria.

Seventy years and five months later, his son Jon and grandson Kurt, CEO and president of Englund Marine Group, respectively, gathered more than 100 of their employees in the warehouse on the backside of their 44,000-square-foot retail center on Hamburg Avenue Saturday.

Their employees came during the company’s slow season from the Pacific Northwest Coast and west from Montana, south from Westport, Wash., and north from Phoenix, Ariz. The company now employs 126 at its 11 locations across the Western U.S.

That’s up from 98 in 2004 and 112 in 2009, said Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Davis. Employees are split, 80 on the retail side and 46 working in the company’s quickly growing wholesale operations. On average, said Davis, employees of Englund stay there for 9.3 years, far above the 4.6-year national average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

“Over the past five years, we’ve grown 50 percent as a company,” said Davis of the company’s revenues, pointing out a 36 percent growth over five years in retail, and 80 percent in wholesale.

Retail sales still make up about 65 percent of the company’s revenues, said Kurt Englund, adding that the commercial fishing fleet is still “the backbone of our business.”

While retail makes up the bulk of the company’s revenues, the wholesale business allows the company to buy supplies at better prices and ultimately make more money, Davis said.

Company President Kurt Englund did most of the talking for his family at the gathering Saturday at Englund Marine, as father Jon Englund, who’s served as CEO for the past 35 years, listened.

His father is 77, said Kurt Englund, but plans on staying involved in Englund Marine as long as he can, after being thrust to the head of the company in 1980 when Axel, who started the company when Jon was 7, died.

Jon Englund’s sons have been involved with the company since the late ’80s and early ’90s, managing its various locations. Jay Englund, 48, joined in 1986 full time and manages the company’s raft shop in Warrenton. Kurt Englund joined in 1991 and manages the Astoria location.

They also have two cousins, with the company for about 30 years, who manage locations in Newport and Coos Bay. And there are plenty of locations to manage. It’s too early to tell whether the fourth-generation of Englunds, who are still in school, will be interested in the family business, Kurt Englund said.

Between 1966 and 1993, Englund Marine added locations in Ilwaco and Westport, Wash.; Newport, Charleston and Warrenton in Oregon; and Eureka and Crescent City, Calif.

In 1983, Jon Englund, by then the head of the company, entered the wholesale market by buying U.S. Distributing in Portland, starting the Englund Marine Group, which includes several subsidiaries. In 1994, it purchased marine distributor Seacoast Supply to accentuate its wholesale business.

Englund Marine entered Phoenix in 1995 with Marine Wholesale, serving the Southwestern U.S.

In 2001, Englund Marine bought out Fisher Brothers, a 100-year-old industrial supply house in Astoria. It incorporated the company’s offerings into its new, larger store on Hamburg Avenue, opened in early 2006.

Its subsidiary, U.S. Distributing, opened a satellite store in Missoula, Mont., in 2007, focusing on after-market parts and accessories similar to those wanted in the Phoenix warehouse.

The Englund Marine Group now includes 11 locations through subsidiaries of Englund Marine & Industrial Supply Co. in Oregon, Washington and California; Marine Wholesale in Arizona; and U.S. Distributing in Oregon and Montana.

Some of the company’s major accomplishments over the past five years, said Kurt Englund, focus on its efforts to become more digitized, switching to electronic invoicing and launching a new website for its wholesale business, www.englundmarinegroup.com, in 2012.

The company’s most recent acquisition was in Astoria, where last month in assumed the lease of Columbia Pacific Marine Works next to its main Astoria retail center. It plans to use the 10,000 square foot building, formerly for mechanical work on boats, for warehousing.