Posted on 11/01/2002 1:30:30 PM PST by metesky
By Wayne Brown, Of the NEWS Staff e-mail Wayne
Last updated: Friday, November 1, 2002
Houlton furniture firm to close, 50 jobless
HOULTON - Houlton International Corp., which manufactures hardwood furniture components, will close its doors by the end of the year, putting more than 50 people out of work.
Several companies that supplied hardwood logs to the firm also will be affected.
The culprit, according to Peter Collett, company vice president, is foreign competition in the domestic furniture business, primarily from China.
"They've got 30 percent of the domestic furniture market and are expected to double that in the next few years," he said Thursday in his office. "It's impossible to compete with foreign wages."
For Collett, who represents the fourth generation of his family to work in the business, the closing is upsetting because of what it means for employees.
"We have excellent employees who put out an excellent product," he said. "We feel awful for the employees we'll be putting out of work."
Employees were notified on Tuesday of the decision to close.
Houlton International has been located since 1961in a converted U.S. Air Force hangar at the Houlton Industrial Park off Interstate 95 along the U.S.-Canada border.
The company was founded in 1921 in Brewer as Brewer Manufacturing, primarily making paintbrush handles. It moved to Old Town in 1947 after fire destroyed the Brewer plant.
The company processes more than 3 million board feet of lumber annually in the manufacture of hardwood legs, arms, back posts and spindles for chairs, turnings for cribs and lamp bases.
It counts Ethan Allen, Hitchcock Chairs, Childcraft, and Brooks Furniture among its accounts.
Collett said company management, which includes his father, Bruce, the majority owner, has seen problems developing for the past few years.
"We just saw no improvement ahead," he said. "The next year doesn't look promising.
"It's something we didn't feel we could continue without going behind," he said.
While the news was sobering, town officials as well as representatives of the Southern Aroostook Development Corp. and the Northern Maine Development Corp. already have met with plant management and have begun developing strategies to save the 60,000-square foot plant.
"We need to market what resources we have and try to put together an entrepreneurial approach to keep it up and running, and keep it in Houlton," Town Manager Peggy Daigle said Thursday.
She said the town and other economic development agencies will be looking on both sides of the border "to see what might be of interest. We're aggressively looking at all options."
Collett said manufacturing equipment, the sawmill and kiln would be kept in tact to aid efforts to find a new owner.
Representatives of the SADC and NMDC plan to tour the facility next week as they begin efforts to market the plant to other manufacturing interests.
The plant has many things going for it, according to Brian Longstaff, community development specialist for the NMDC, including no debts, a good location and an excellent lease deal with the town.
He expressed optimism that another wood-products manufacturer will eventually be found.
"We're going to help them any way we can," he said. "We're looking at getting these jobs back in one way or another."
... The culprit, according to Peter Collett, company vice president, is foreign competition in the domestic furniture business, primarily from China ...Those evil Chinese low-wage trees.
"So goes Maine, so goes the country"..? Get used to it USA. You all thought you were all gonna make $100 Grand a year in the "Service Economy". Yup! Big bucks, sitting at your computer, "telecommuting" for 4 hours a day, maybe 4 days a week at most.
Well, I hate to increase bad news, but more of this sort of thing is coming. Contrary to what all you IT's were told by PC Magazine, the "Old Economy" and manufacturing is what creates well paying jobs and drives the US economic engine. Those people on e-Bay need an object of value to sell.
bttt
OH! Don't worry. Baldacci will make all things right! /sarcarm
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bush, Bush, Clinton , Bush.
You don't it get do you? Republican or Democrat, the people that run for office do not understand the basic foundation of a nations wealth. To become president or even senator, you will have to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Either from daddy or "Uncle Sugar" as was Clinton.
There will be no more "Yeoman Farmer" presidents, as Jefferson envisioned, only the spawn of the Ivy League. Reagan was a fluke. We are all Wilsonian Democrats now.
It's so hard to keep track of Maine's economic activity...
1: Send all manufacturing industry to china
2: Bring Mexico's population to the USA
1...2... DUMPISTAN.
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