Leon Gorman’s legacy

Freeport's flagship L.L.Bean store closed for four hours to honor Leon Gorman, longtime president and chairman of the company's board, who died Sept. 3 at age 80 after battling cancer. More than 500 people attended his memorial service in Westbrook on Sept. 13.

There's been much discussion about Gorman's legacy. Gorman's maternal grandfather was L.L.Bean founder Leon Leonwood Bean. He was the son of Barbara Bean Gorman and John Gorman.

He led the Freeport-based company as CEO or chairman for 46 years before retiring as chairman of the board in 2013. He retained the title of chairman emeritus. During his tenure, L.L.Bean was transformed from a catalog company with a single retail store and 100 employees into a multi-channel retailer with more than 5,000 employees and sales of $1.6 billion.

At least part of his legacy seemed to be his generosity and Bean's open-door policy.

I first came with my family to L.L.Bean when I was five or six years old, before Leon L. Bean died and Gorman became CEO. I have a picture of my dad from the front of the store and even then it touted “24 hour service.”

But in many visits in the past year I have been struck by the sense of openness and the friendliness of the staff. It's one thing to have a no-strings policy for returns, a good website and ample parking. It's another when the people who work in a store are friendly, helpful and seem genuine in the way they offer to help customers.

Gorman lived at the center of Yarmouth — not on a huge estate or at the end of long driveway with a wrought-iron gate, but in a residential neighborhood on Portland Street.

Doors of the Freeport store do not have locks — it is normally open 24/7. The day of his memorial service, with the store closing from 8 a.m. to noon on Sept. 13, the company hired security to stand at the entrances. Coffee By Design, which has a coffee shop in the flagship store, moved its operations out to the giant Bean boot at the front entrance, and served coffee to shoppers turned away at the door.

Over the span of 12 years, Gorman spent Wednesdays as a volunteer at the Preble Street soup kitchen, the organization said after his death. Tom Bell, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald, wrote in Gorman's obituary that the family had been a generous supporter of the United Way, the Y in Freeport, Boy Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School and the Maine Community College Foundation's Leadership Council. He helped raise money to build the Yarmouth History Center and for the recent renovation of the town library.

L.L.Bean, the company, has given over $6 million to various causes, the Press Herald reported. In the long run, Gorman's gift of generosity of spirit will have an even greater effect.