Photo / Fred Field
Puritan Medical Products and sister company Hardwood Products Co., are limited partnerships under the Hardwood Manufacturing umbrella, and the largest employer in PIscataquis County.
February 25, 2020
Puritan, Hardwood suit is tale of family business going in opposite directions
Photo / Fred Field
Timothy Templet, executive vice president of Puritan Medical Products, and his daughter Virginia Templet, who is the marketing manager.
By Maureen Milliken
Hardwood Manufacturing LP in Guilford is two businesses — Hardwood Products Co. and Puritan Medical Products Co. — that began as one, a toothpick manufacturer, more than 100 years ago. The two became limited partnerships under the Hardwood umbrella in 2002.
Last summer, when Puritan Executive Vice President Timothy Templet was interviewed by Mainebiz for a profile of his company, he said the link between the two could be frustrating. The forests surrounding Guilford, in Piscatiquis County, are great for the wood products Hardwood makes, but not for the sophisticated medical devices Puritan produces.
"We're here because of the wood," Templet said. "Ironically as Puritan grows, we don't have anything to do with wood any more."
Templet moved to split the two companies last week, filing a lawsuit in Cumberland County Superior Court. The suit asks that the ownership structure be dissolved, which would clear the way for Puritan's sale to a new owner. In the interim, the suit asks, the company's general manager would oversee operations.
The company has been owned by the family since it began in Guilford in 1919, and, with more than 550 employees between the two limited partnerships, is the largest employer in Piscataquis County. The companies had about $55 million in revenue last year.
One company, two directions
Hardwood Products Co., run by Templet's cousin John Cartwright, makes toothpicks and sticks for ice cream, corndogs, flags and corn on the cob, as well as wooden spoons for ice cream cups. The products are produced under the Trophy and Gold Bond wood products brands, and benefit from being in the center of Maine's thick north woods.
Across School Street, Puritan Medical Products Co., which was certified by the Food and Drug Administration in 1975 as a medical device manufacturer, makes more than 1,200 types of swab and other devices for the medical, diagnostics, microbiology, forensics and other industries. Its products are in demand worldwide with the rise in DNA, advanced disease and food safety testing.
Puritan's diagnostic testing devices are used around the world to test for viruses. In 2012, the company launched UniTranz-RT and Opti-Swab, media for viral and bacterial transport, and a line of specimen-collection devices. The products are available at a range of medical suppliers and cost between $300 and $400 apiece.
In all, the company produces 5 billion swabs a year — 12 million a day. It could make more if it had the space and more employees, Templet told Mainebiz.
Puritan added 40,000 square feet of warehouse space recently, and now has 88,000 square feet of manufacturing space, but it isn’t enough.
“We’re bursting at the seams,” said Templet. He said it's also hard to find employees in Piscataquis County, which is in north-central Maine, not close to the interstate, and has a population of about 17,000.
The lawsuit says that business decisions that would help Puritan grow have been nixed by Cartwright.
Templet lives in Cumberland, about 120 miles south of Guilford, and told Mainebiz, while the business has deep roots in the town, it could also expand in ways that are now limited by its link to Hardwood. While it's committed to its Guilford workforce, he told Mainebiz he'd also like to move some operations south.
The two business have simply gone in different directions and the products they produce no longer are related, he told Mainebiz last summer. "They're linked by family, and that's all."
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