Sea change | Paul McFarland, general manager of O'Hara Corp. in Rockland, brings Mitchell Cove boats down the coast
Paul McFarland has watched O'Hara Corp. thrive with Maine's changing landscape.
When McFarland got a job three decades ago at the Rockland company, it was mostly a fish processing plant. It had been processing fish since its founding in 1907.
But in the intervening years, the fishing industry took hit after hit. In the 1980s, new laws meant to keep foreigners from fishing Maine waters inadvertently flooded the fisheries with eager local investors. Fish stocks dwindled and Maine fishermen struggled. "You can see the shell of what was once there," McFarland, 63, says of the old fish plant that's now used for storage.
As stocks dwindled, O'Hara fishermen found fish elsewhere — first in Newfoundland, and finally in Alaska, where the company currently runs three factory trawlers for groundfish like cod and flatfish. The operation brings in the bulk of the company's revenue, though McFarland declined to discuss sales figures.
But credit the 150-employee company's longevity to a healthy dose of diversification: Over the years, McFarland, the company's general manager, has worked with both Frank O'Hara Sr. and Frank O'Hara Jr. to ferret out new business opportunities. The company owns half a shipyard, and is the largest lobster bait dealer in the state. It owns a 100-slip marina. It is involved in the scallop business. It took over buildings abandoned when other fisheries were shutting down and converted them into the office buildings they are today. And don't forget ice: Bags of O'Hara Ice are distributed to convenience stores around Maine.
So, when McFarland heard the man who created the fiberglass molds for Mitchell Cove boats, based on Mount Desert Island, was selling out, he saw an opportunity. He had noticed the Mitchell Cove lobster boats up and down the coast, and knew they would appeal to both lobstermen and pleasure seekers. In particular, lobstermen were impressed by the speed Mitchell Cove boats could achieve, not just for their jobs, but for the ever competitive lobster boat races held along the Maine coast each summer.
McFarland brought the idea of buying the Mitchell Cove business to co-owner Frank O'Hara Jr., who McFarland describes as a good businessman but a bit conservative. "One thing I think you'll find of the Down Easters is that we are very conservative," he says. But McFarland adds that he "kept banging away at him, and beat him over the head enough that we did it."
David Schlaefer, the former owner, already had turned away another prospective buyer who wanted to export the molds to China for cheaper production. But he liked O'Hara because its operations are still based in Maine, says McFarland. So he sold the molds to O'Hara at a cost McFarland declined to disclose.
The acquisition of the Mitchell Cove boats is another chapter for O'Hara. The company recently finished the first Mitchell Cove model — a 35-foot lobster boat — and anticipate producing one to two boats a month. O'Hara has six workers dedicated to the boats, and McFarland says the company would like to produce completely finished boats, where customers can customize everything from the engine to the boat's woodwork.
And while McFarland anticipates the boats will only fill five percent of the company's total annual revenue, this diversification has been key to O'Hara's continued success. "This is a baby step, but this is the way to build a business safely," says McFarland. "We have not grown by leaps and bounds."
Indeed, slow and steady is okay with McFarland, who says he's watched several chapters of Maine history pass through the fishery and that the constant activity of the place has kept him young. "As long as my health is good and as long as we keep the same kind of people around here I will stick around," he says.
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