Made of steel | Construction and real estate: Mary Howes President, Howie's Welding & Fabrication; managing principal, Otis Mill Ventures
Photo/Tim Greenway
Mary Howes, president of Howie's Welding & Fabriaction
Howie's Welding & Fabrication
1148 Main St., Jay
Founded: 1983
Services: Welding and fabrication of structural steel and other metals
Employees: 10
Annual revenue, 2009: $1.6 million
Contact: 645-2581
www.howieswelding.com
To the casual observer, the two businesses Mary Howes has poured her heart and soul into couldn’t be more different. The first, Howie’s Welding & Fabrication, hugs Route 4 in Jay, a scattered assortment of one-story commercial buildings on seven acres that serves as welding shop, paint shop, retail store and administrative office for the welding company she and her first husband (the Howie of Howie’s Welding) founded the year she graduated from high school.
The second, Otis Mill Ventures, is a sprawling complex of brick mill buildings, perched on 25 acres along the banks of the Androscoggin River that in 1896 was declared the world’s largest paper mill. Its stately sulfite tower (still bearing the sign reading “International Paper 1906”) proclaims to passing motorists on Route 4 that here was a seat of industry.
But Howes has strong family ties to both businesses that drive her to make them successful in order to help sustain the community she loves. “You could call me a hometown girl — I don’t travel much,” she says. “But I care deeply about this community and its roots.”
The mill was the main employer in Howes’ family, where her father worked for 40 years, her brother for more than 30 and she herself drove a forklift the summer after graduating high school. It provided a livelihood to thousands of people, so when Wausau Paper, the last corporate owner of the mill, announced its closure in 2009, Howes was moved to action.
“They had a company lined up to demolish it, and there’s just so much history in that building — it’s a beautiful, awesome building, I hated to think it could be destroyed,” she says.
Adding to its sentimental value was a $4.6 million real estate valuation and its riverside location. Howes and her second husband, Tim DeMillo, thought the mill could be redeveloped for office and manufacturing space. They kicked around some numbers, settled on an offer and approached Wausau.
“That was at 4 p.m. on a Thursday. The man we were talking to said it was a bit less than what they expected,” says Howes, laughing at the memory. “But at 9 a.m. on Friday, he called back to say he’d take it.”
The deal never would have happened if Howes hadn’t been able to walk into a local office of the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments and walk out with a $400,000 line of credit. Howes says her oversight of the welding company earned her a reputation as a sound fiscal manager, something that was tested through two recessions and the tragic death of her first husband when he was only 35.
“I never thought about selling it,” she says of the welding business, despite having two young sons at the time. “I’d already been here 15 years and it was all I’d ever done.”
She invested in the business slowly, adding the paint shop and retail store to keep pace with its growth. Today her 10 employees have full benefits and steady employment — a rarity in the world of small contractors. The recent recession-provoked lull in the fabrication business allowed her to reassign some employees to the mill, taking apart machinery to sell and using the money for renovations.
“We have a great team here,” she says of her work force. “The mill has helped us through a slow period. It’s always a feast or famine in this business.”
Howes’ commitment to her workers is just one aspect of her commitment to the community at large. She serves on the town’s planning board (DeMillo is a selectman); she founded the North Jay White Granite Park to preserve public appreciation of the quarry that produced granite for Grant’s Tomb and other notable landmarks; and she’s working with the Androscoggin Land Trust and the National Park Service to establish a trail through the mill property, linking Livermore Falls and Jay.
A spur from the trail would lead to a museum she intends to create inside the mill. “It’s like walking right into the 1800s,” she says of the mill’s penstocks and turbines. “I think that’s something worth preserving.”
In her own words
What’s the biggest challenge of your career? The biggest challenge for me would have to be after the death of my first husband in 1996 ... How do I carry on with the business, at 32 years old and two young sons to worry about? It was a very difficult time.
When did you know you’d made it? When I got the financing for the mill. I thought, ‘Oh wow, I guess I have a little bit of pull.’
What advice do you wish you’d gotten early in your career? This is a difficult question. It really has been about building my own confidence up, and no amount of advice can do that for you.
“I’ll relax when... my mortgages are paid in full!”
What was your “Haven’t we moved beyond this?” moment? I think it’s rare, but once in a while you get a feeling — I got it from a male lawyer in Wisconsin during the Wausau closing. I think he didn’t believe two women in Maine (Howes and her lawyer, Margot Jolie) could pull this deal together.
Carol Coultas
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