Full circle | The owner of Whitney Wreath shares his thoughts on doing business Down East
Whitney Wreath in Machias expects to add hundreds of jobs this fall thanks to a new contract to supply balsam fir products for the 2009 L.L.Bean holiday catalog. With the addition of three new facilities in Machias and Baileyville to meet demand – bringing the company’s production facilities to a total of nine – Whitney Wreath’s workers are “busy little elves,” according to David Whitney, president and owner.
Whitney also owns a tool rental business in Machias and harvests blueberries, so he has his finger on the pulse of the Down East economy. He talked with Mainebiz about his businesses and the wider economic climate in the region. Below is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: What does the L.L.Bean contract mean in terms of jobs for your wreath-making business?
David Whitney: It will mean hundreds more seasonal jobs as well as dozens more many-month jobs, as well as a handful more full-time jobs.
How many people will you employ across all three businesses?
I would say close to 800. Right now we have about 50 people on the payroll. Up until a couple weeks ago, we probably had 150 on the payroll because of blueberry peak.
And you’re setting up some extra space?
We are. We have rented an additional three buildings and one is a shipping depot. Product is made at different intervals from shipping do in order for product to coincide, product comes in and is labeled by product and destination, what’s going where, and then it is sorted to go on the proper UPS truck. Then [there’s] two other production facilities, one for wreaths, one for centerpieces, and with those three that will make nine production facilities that we operate out of.
Where are these three facilities located?
Two are in Machias, along with our headquarters, our original plant, which is in downtown Machias, and the third one is in Baileyville, which is very close to Domtar. There’s a good labor pool there, they’re very happy to see us.
So some of the people who lost their jobs at the mill will start working for you?
I would say that some will, but a lot of them went back to work. Some have definitely been displaced, and whether or not it’s those workers or wives of those workers, it’s a good labor pool there.
Are those three extra facilities a direct result of the work that’s coming from L.L.Bean?
Yes. We are making all of the balsam fir Christmas wreaths and all of the balsam fir centerpieces. We are making four products in all. They’re talking with us about additional products for upcoming years.
Have you ever done work for L.L.Bean before?
Yes, actually we made dried floral product for them back in the ‘90s. We decided not to do that any longer, the dried floral business, and we stopped doing that in ’97. And then last year we produced one balsam fir wreath for L.L.Bean and then this winter they came to us and for whatever reason they wanted a lot more.
What’s going on with the wreath business?
First of all, the wreath business never stops for us, it is a 12-month out of the year business. Throughout the year, there are different seasons, different aspects of the business, so it’s never constant. Right now we’re very busy setting up new production facilities for our increased business and we are assembling decorations and we have just completed bow making and reindeer moss picking and preparation, so we’re busy little elves.
We will actually start production of wreaths in November and it will go for about six weeks, the peak being early December.
Have you agreed to do that work just for this season for now?
I would just as soon not talk about those details of my contract. But I will say that their and our intent is for a very long-term relationship. The length of our relationship is pretty much in my lap. We produce and deliver to them a good-quality product on time and they want to keep doing business.
What’s the climate been like for business Down East?
We’re in the rental business, and I would say our rental business is off about 10% from last year at this time. From what I understand, people are throwing around that number, 10%, quite a bit.
The lobster business is way off, the price is way down, real estate business is nonexistent. Well, that’s not true, there are some sales, and I think it’s getting somewhat better, I think that real estate has bottomed here and I think it’s starting to maybe improve a little bit. Although that’s certainly not my expertise, that’s just a gut feeling.
I was talking to a buddy of mine who’s in the excavation business and he’s very busy, and I talked to another buddy of mine who’s in the excavation business and he just bought another excavator. I don’t know that that’s any indication or not, but (the economy) is not disastrous.
And keep in mind, Washington County never booms, so these bust times aren’t as dramatic. Although I know a lot of people are very much hurting for money. I have mixed feelings about it. I see the individuals that I sense are really struggling … I feel really, really blessed that we’re in this growth mode. I guess it was just kind of our time and one great customer came along and changed the direction for us. We’re just really, really fortunate and I feel blessed to have that responsibility. I feel it is a responsibility because there are so many people who rely on us as a company. I know that more and more and more nonprofits and schools and good causes … are reaching out trying to get donations from businesses and I think the more that that happens, the more businesses are tapped out. I see the requests for donations as more than usual.
Do you see future growth into other areas?
I do, I think alternative energy has opportunities in Down East Maine. The offshore wind farms, the onshore wind farms, the tidal electric generation that’s being explored, I think that’s all fabulous. I hope that one of the LNG deals works out and I’m optimistic that somehow, sometime, it will.
I’m also extremely enthusiastic about the Sunrise Trail. It’s a rail trail that’s been developed between Ellsworth and Ayers Junction, which is down by Dennysville, close to Eastport. It was an abandoned railroad line, abandoned I believe in ’85 or ’86, and a group of us, of which I’m one, have been working to develop it into a multi-use trail for a number of years. It has just opened and the traffic that is happening as a result of it, and the people that are out and moving about — when people are out and moving about they spend money.
I’m an all-of-the-above sort of guy, I don’t think that there’s any one magic answer to economic development for Washington County, and I wouldn’t hang my hat on ecotourism as the savior of the county, but anything helps. This trail is the longest off-road section of the whole East Coast Greenway, which goes from Key West to Calais, Maine. People are coming to hike and bike it, and I think the more that the East Coast Greenway markets the Sunrise Trail as being that longest stretch, then this is going to be kind of the crown jewel of the East Coast Greenway. It’s bound to bring a lot of people.
Do you think that over the last year, the mood Down East has changed much?
I think that the mood, the climate has been gloomy overall. You know with Domtar and its questionability — it closed down, it opened up — who knows what the future is. The logging business is really hurting, the lobster business is really hurting, the blueberry business I think is the little darling of the state of Maine with the whole health story. I think the future of the wild blueberry business is fantastic. I’m a fourth-generation wild blueberry farmer. The price softened a little bit this year based on global demand, but I think the long-term prospects for that are really good.
What I worry about the most is the ongoing onslaught of regulation. The lobster industry with the sinking rope, that’s very problematic for that industry. There’s a lot of concern from the lobstermen about these offshore wind farms displacing their fishing areas, but also what’s the impact of new regulations? Will that further impact the fisheries? In any farming, there’s ongoing pressures about aerial applications of pesticides or chemicals of any sort, and there’s just a chip-chip-chip chipping away of our business owners’ right to do certain things and more and more and more regulation, whether it’s labor regulation or environmental regulation or Endangered Species Act regulation or whatever. It just seems to be so daunting.
I really am an optimist, which I believe has been a great part of my success, but I struggle to stay as optimistic as I need to be and as optimistic as I want to be in light of all of the regulation. And it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, whether it’s county or town or state or federal or some agency that’s somewhere in between constantly looking over your shoulder, saying “What have you just done wrong?” I think that’s one of our greatest challenges.
How has that affected your businesses?
It just keeps me on my toes, all the time.
How have your businesses remained successful?
Something that was instilled in me as a child, and I think was instilled in my father as a child, is that you treat everybody nicely. In my business, the person that gathers the [tree branch] tips we call a tipper. The tipper is every bit as important as a buyer that I might deal with at one of my customer’s companies, and everybody else in between is just exactly as important. Everybody deserves the same amount of respect, especially if they’re respectful back. I think that approach has trickled down through my company so that people enjoy working here and people want to come back. And customers enjoy working with us because those who work directly under me and those who work under those people all get that same culture passed on down through. I don’t want people treated poorly.
I am absolutely convinced that that is one of the biggest secrets of my success. If you treat people with respect and you greet them with a smile, and you are the proverbial duck moving calmly across the water even if you are paddling like hell underneath, and you carry yourself with dignity and treat people nicely — whether it’s a customer or a vendor or an employee at any level — and at the same time, if you can keep your costs in line and keep a reasonable profit margin so that you can make a profit, then it’s all going to come together.
What do you see for the future for your three companies? What’s the next goal?
I’ll tell you what, the biggest goal that I have right now is to get through this season. Then in January I might think about long-term goals. The longer-term goals would be to improve efficiencies and improve on ways to build in consistent quality for all of our endeavors. I never plan the growth, the growth comes. I’m not a 10-year planner, I do see myself planning a couple or three years out, but right now I’m very satisfied to have the short-term plan of getting the deal done right now.
Jackie Farwell, Mainebiz staff reporter, can be reached at jfarwell@mainebiz.biz.
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