MILLINOCKET, Maine — On a chilly January Sunday evening, millworker Tom Picard eats the last carrots on his plate, pushes away from the kitchen table and begins a weekly ritual he never believed he’d have actually to endure.
It’s time to go to work, however there’s no job for your man here in the once-fantastic milltown he’s always called home.
Grabbing an insulated duffel, he and his wife stack up compartments of leftovers and dishes she has actually been food preparation and freezing, which he’ll take along with him. Picard bustles around, compiling others gear he’ll need for the next four days — his job week — 125 miles south of here.
Since he began working industrial jobs after his higher school graduation in 1980, Picard has actually been laid off at least 10 times. Right from school, he began working at the Millinocket Foundry and Machine Co., where he learned valuable skills, as well as the fickle nature of business. As soon as orders piled up, he worked. As soon as orders lagged, he repeatedly was laid off. During his periods away from the foundry, he would certainly job temporarily at the fantastic Northern paper mill in Millinocket.
“I was a ping-pong ball for 6 years,” Picard says. He has actually worked welding oil tanks for trucks in Brewer, for public works plowing snow and a variety of others industries.
At one time or yet another — and sometimes, several times — he has actually worked at all the paper mills in the region.
Millinocket. East Millinocket. Lincoln. He loved working at all of them. however they’re all shuttered.
For the past two years, he has actually commuted between Millinocket and Waterville, where he works at the Huhtamaki mill, which produces molded fiber products that include Chinet paper plates and four-mug carriers, as a pipefitter and welder.
“I sure miss out on the days As soon as I’d walk 15 minutes to work, carrying my lunchpail, then walk spine house at the end of the day,” he says, shaking his head.
Nowadays, he leaves Millinocket on Sunday, drives two hours south to an apartment in Winslow, grabs a few hours of sleep, then heads to the Huhtamaki mill early the next morning. After four or 5 days of work, he returns house — yet another two-hour drive, this time heading north.
He’s not alone.
Robbie Plourde, his roommate, does the same thing. They’ve likewise got buddies commuting from the Katahdin region to mill jobs in Baileyville and Madison.
“That’s the brand-new normal,” Picard says, citing a phrase he repeats often. “The brand-new normal: We commute, and we rent.”
And each week, they leave their loved ones behind so they can easily put their hard-earned skills to job far from home.
“Don’t forget me,” his wife, Tammy Shorey Picard says, concerned her husband might load up his pickup truck without saying goodbye.
“I won’t,” he replies along with a smile.
And he won’t. however first, there’s yet another thing he has actually to group up. It’s a grueling life he’s living, however he does treat themselves once in a while. Like now.
“It’s the very first of the month!” he exclaims, backtracking to the freezer. “I can’t forget my Thin Mints!”
One small comfort in a hectic life: Picard buys a case of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies once a year. Then he stores them in the freezer and celebrates each passing month by taking a single box to his apartment.
Thin Mints packed, he stops and kisses his wife, then wearily heads to the door.
After it closes and his wife can’t hear, he exhales.
“This is always the hardest part,” he says, softly, “heading down here every Sunday.”
Yes, this may be “the brand-new normal.” And Picard is happy to have actually found a job he enjoys.
That doesn’t make it any easier.
The changing landscape
Over the past few decades, Katahdin-region mills haven’t been the only ones to fall. Head down the Penobscot River and the banks are littered along with mills that are no longer. Old Town. Brewer. Bucksport. Across Maine, the story is the same.
From 2001 to 2014, Maine’s papermaking capacity dropped by 788 metric short tons — second only to Wisconsin’s decrease — as mills closed. And data from the Maine Department of Labor further illustrates that grim picture: In 2001, an standard of 12,000 individuals were employed manufacturing paper in Maine. By the middle of 2015, that number had dropped to merely 5,000.
Recent closures have actually led some mill employees to commute to others mills, some far from house like Huhtamaki.
“Right now we have actually 11 employees [out of about 500] that travel an hour or much more [to get to work],” Beth Drennan-Bates, the human resources manager at Huhtamaki, said. Of those 11, only three, including Picard and Plourde, rent apartments and stay in the Waterville area during their job weeks. Others from the Katahdin region, she said, were hired at the mill, then decided to relocate permanently and no longer commute.
Drennen-Bates said retention of those traveling workers has actually proven difficult.
“As several individuals as we’ve hired [when other mills closed], we haven’t retained them all,” she said. “several individuals go spine to their hometown former jobs or their hometowns merely to be closer to home. It’s a rather difficult situation.”
Moving to a brand-new mill can easily be stressful, she said, and As soon as a worker has actually been employed, as sometimes happens, for decades for one company, it’s hard to make the transition.
“To make that modification to a brand brand-new place, a brand brand-new job, where you have actually no seniority, it’s rather tough,” she said.
Drennen-Bates estimated 30 employees have actually been hired from closed-down facilities. Of those, merely seven remain employed at Huhtamaki.
Julie Rabinowitz, director of policy, operations and communication at the Maine Department of Labor, said lengthy commutes are becoming much more normal, even outside the industrial sector.
“There’s some of that [commuting] not only in the paper industry,” Rabinowitz said. “There’s individuals that live in southern Maine and commute to Boston. There are individuals all over the state that commute to Bath Iron Works.”
Her department is among the very first on the scene after paper mills shut down. Its Rapid Response Group scrambles to give resources to hundreds of individuals that suddenly locate themselves in the job market. While Picard says the skills he made through a string of professional stops allowed your man to move forward, haltingly, without retraining, others have actually used that training to transition in to others jobs.
When much more compared to 500 workers lost their jobs at Bucksport’s Verso mill in 2014, the Rapid Response Group was there. Today, 86 percent of those that lost their jobs are either re-employed or undergoing training for brand-new careers, Rabinowitz said.
That retraining and re-employing effort can easily become much more difficult in others situations, Rabinowitz said.
Picard understands that much better compared to most. He says workers in towns such as Lincoln, which has actually several smaller sized towns surrounding it, have actually much more options for potential employment that are unrelated to the mill. In addition, he says, towns like that are much more all set to deal along with the loss of even a major employer. Millinocket was essentially a “company town,” along with the mill serving as the catalyst for all others business that existed. Head west after leaving Millinocket, and there are no neighboring towns along with their own businesses and industry. Instead, there’s miles and miles of forest.
“Check out Millinocket,” he says. “We’re at the end of the road.”
Why not move?
Life at “the end of the road” can easily be remarkably rewarding, Picard says. And that’s one big reason he doesn’t want to leave Millinocket.
He loves spending time on nearby lakes, and enjoys the reality that within 10 minutes of leaving his driveway he can easily be in the woods, hunting.
But he admits the weekly commute — and time away from his wife — is hard to deal with. Others have actually suggested a seemingly simple alternative to his dilemma, which he rejects.
“This is just what individuals can’t understand. They say, ‘Why don’t you merely sell your estate and move down [to the Waterville area]?’” Picard says. “Here’s the deal along with that: I’m going to be 55 in March. I’ve got eight much more years to 62. I want to retire. And if I sold this estate today, I go down there and buy a estate … guess where that mortgage is carrying through? My golden years. I’m going to be paying a mortgage, down there, after I retire. You can’t do that.”
One problem that faces individuals like Picard: Millinocket is shrinking, and was well prior to the former fantastic Northern mill was sold several times and closed for good in 2008. The mill in East Millinocket followed fulfill in 2014.
According to U.S. Census data, the population of Millinocket was 7,657 in 1980. Over the next three decades, it shrank to merely 4,466 in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available.
The shrinking population is clear throughout life there. For instance, As soon as Picard graduated from higher school in 1980, there were 186 in his graduating class. According to the Millinocket superintendent’s office, 54 students graduated from Stearns in 2015.
Likewise, Millinocket’s economic health has actually taken a beating. According to Trulia, a real estate tracking website, the standard listing price for single-family homes in the town during the last week of 2015 was $51,865.
Shorey Picard, Picard’s wife, is a real estate agent. She said that while homes — especially well-maintained ones that are occupant-all set — are selling, the market has actually slumped significantly.
“I’ve seen homes, a ranch, selling for $65 or $75 [thousand], however spine along we might have actually gotten $95 [thousand] for it,” she said.
Still, Picard is committed to staying in Millinocket, so he continues to do just what he’s done for nearly two years.
He commutes. He rents. Then he returns house for the weekends.
Not that he counts those days away from the mill as days off.
The job never ends
It’s 3:35 a.m., and Picard digs in to a bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. His shift at Huhtamaki officially starts at 6 a.m., however he’ll clock in at 5 a.m., then job an hour late, finishing his four-day job week along with 48 hours — unless he takes a day of additional overtime, which he tries to do two times a month.
“This is my day,” he says, as he watches the TV news and prepares to head out in to a dark winter morning. “I brush my teeth, consume my cereal, and off I go.”
That, at least, is the plan. Being that far from house — and his wife — he knows the strategy can easily modification at any time.
“It’s difficult, because I worry about her being able to preserve the home,” Picard said. “There’s been a couple of times where something has actually happened and she’s called me during the day. I’ve had to stop, get hold of from work, and drive all the means to Millinocket to fix the problem, then turn right around and get hold of spine down here.”
Picard isn’t alone.
“There’s many, many, several individuals in the state of Maine, and many, several of my former co-workers that are dealing along with this struggle, day in and day out,” he said. “I have actually it a lot much better compared to some of them.”
Still, he admits that As soon as he returns house at the end of a job week, his work’s not done.
“It’s nice to get hold of home, [but] it’s always playing the catch-up game,” he said.
Lawns need to be mowed. In the winter, even though Picard has actually a plow clear the means for his wife As soon as he’s not there, there’s still shoveling to be done after snowstorms As soon as he returns home. Repairs need to be made. The couple said they make special plans to go out to consume As soon as Picard returns, and during the summer they look forward to spending time in their boat on a nearby lake.
“I try to get hold of most of [the work around the house] done in one day or a half a day so I can easily spend time along with my family and my grandkids,” Picard said. “It’s a lot of catch-up, however it really makes you appreciate them that even more As soon as you do get hold of to see them.”
His Winslow roommate, Plourde, said being away from house can easily be a drag.
“It sucks,” said Plourde, that lives in Enfield along with his wife and two school-age children. “You’ve got to do it, so that’s just what you do.”
Plourde said commuting to a job for two years has actually essentially eliminated any free time.
“Basically, for the last two years, it’s been no hunting, no fishing,” Plourde said. “All that stuff’s gone.”
Grateful to still have actually a mill to go to
The life’s not ideal for the commuters. however Picard is thankful for his latest opportunity, even if talking about his employment past frustrates him.
He has actually the layoffs memorized, you see.
One year, 5 minutes prior to his shift ended on Christmas Eve, he learned he had been laid off from Millinocket Foundry and Machine Co.
His father died the next day.
Twice much more — on Dec. 26 and Dec. 27 of others years — he lost jobs during the Christmas season.
“I hate Christmas,” he said. “I love Christmas, however it’s a love-hate relationship. It’s always something bad that happens on Christmas. … I don’t like to dwell on stuff like that. I try to focus on the positive.”
But even the positive memories can easily be tainted by frustration.
“Everywhere I’ve worked, I miss,” Picard said. “however you can’t hold that inside of you forever. You’ve got to move on. modification is inevitable. You’ve got to roll along with the changes. Some individuals can easily deal along with it, and some can’t.”
Picard says he’ll keep on to be uneasy until he retires. however he’ll sustain doing just what he’s doing as long as he has actually a job at the mill.
He’ll wake up early. Stay late. Commute. Make the time he gets along with his wife and family count. Chance for the best. Prepare for whatever comes. Stock up on Thin Mints.
Keep finding a means to move forward, no matter just what happens.
That, after all, is the brand-new normal.
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