Folding wood furniture is staple product for Orono manufacturer

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ORONO — Few people know that there’s a furniture manufacturer just a short distance from the IGA on Mill Street. Even fewer people realize that there’s an outlet store right inside the furnituremaker’s front door.

James Shields knows all about the company, though, because he purchased it in January 1985. And the name of the firm that Shields bought?

The Byer Manufacturing Co., appropriately.

Joseph Byer established the company in 1880. “Legend has it that Byer was founded in downtown Bangor, making overalls for the lumber industry,” Shields said.

In August 1925, Byer Manufacturing relocated to 74 Mill St., Orono, to the rambling building that once housed a Catholic church and the Orono Theatre. In fact, a map in Shields’ office depicts downtown Orono a century ago; marked on the map as a Catholic church is the building that Shields now owns.

The firm manufactured folding cots and chairs, as well as camping supplies. Cots remained the business staple until 1985, when Shields moved to Maine and bought Byer. He explained that “I had an interest in associating myself with a company making quality products with the aid of Maine people.”

Byer Manufacturing employed 11 people in 1985. Today, there are 30 people working in the 30,000-square foot building (“it’s much bigger than I thought it was,” Shields said); growth has occurred because of one reason.

Innovation.

While Byer could boast in January 1985 that it was the oldest manufacturer of folding wood cots in the United States, “there was no way we could rest on our laurels,” Shields said. “We had to develop new products so that we could expand our market.

“In my first year, we took one of our cot frames and put a colorful fabric on it and developed a sack to pack it in. A great way to haul around a folding cot; everything’s wrapped up in one sack,” he said.

Byer, which sold its folding cots wholesale, enjoyed a good reputation with its commercial accounts. Then in spring 1985, “a representative from the Orono Festival Day asked me if I would like to set up a table to display what we made here,” Shields said.

“I did, and I had countless Orono residents stop and say to me, `I never knew what went on inside that building,”‘ he recalled.

Those comments led Shields to establish a factory outlet store, now open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The store displays many Byer products, including some made exclusively for the store.

The merchandise ranges from folding cots to folding chairs, camp stools, and camp tables. Byer covers its wooden furniture with durable fabric made in vibrant colors. Everything’s made out back, where employees work across three floors.

“The essence of our company is our folding furniture,” Shields said. He added that “yes, you could perceive of many products as strictly for camping, but our furniture has spread into personal use, both in the home and for many non-camping activities.”

Take the Maine Lounger, for example. This folding wooden chair comprises two separate pieces that when torn down and packed together, can be carried in one hand to the beach, the patio, the den, or wherever.

“The Maine Lounger is the most popular product that we’ve introduced,” Shields said. He then demonstrated another Byer development, a portable sport seat made with an insulated and padded seat and back.

Like the Maine Lounger, the sport seat folds into a single entity, making it easy to carry to and from sports events. “We developed the concept from a padded sport seat that people were buying to sit on cold bleachers,” Shields said. “We thought we could go the concept one better. Why not a padded back, too, that you could lean against?”

Byer Manufacturing “generates its ideas internally,” he commented. “Our staff looks for new products or ways to adapt existing products to new uses. It’s a challenging business.”

Many Byer products do appear in camps, albeit lakeside second homes that don’t resemble tents or hunting camps. Shields explained that his firm sells “to the the premiere incentive and corporate-gift market,” an upscale niche that encompasses many commercial accounts both here and abroad.

Shields cited specific examples: a company that bought Byer tote bags and embroidered them with the Merrill Lynch logo; a film company that bought 100 camp stools last year and gave them to its movie-production crew; and a book publisher that purchased 1,000 camp stools made with an attached book pouch.

Those stools were given away at a publishing trade show in Dallas.

“We’re doing a good business in Japan, primarily with wood products and proprietary leather-handle tote bags,” Shields said.

Byer Manufacturing also does custom stitching, as exemplified by the tote bags (also available in the outlet store). The company sews machinegun-barrel cases for Saco Defense, luggage for L.L. Bean, and seedling bags used during reforestation.

Folding wood furniture remains the Byer staple, however. The firm markets such merchandise under the trade name “Byer of Maine.” Robert Bass, the sales manager, oversees a network of independent sales representatives who cover the United States. These representatives, who work for Byer, also represent other (but non-competing) furnituremakers.

As he walked through the plant, Shields explained how Byer produced folding wood furniture. The company purchases green hardwood “bars” (or slats) from mills within a 50-mile radius of Orono, then dries the wood in kilns beside the Stillwater River.

Once dried, the bars are brought inside and fed through molders that plane the wood on all four sides. Employees then run the bars through boring machines that trim each bar to the proper length and bore it with the appropriate number of holes.

Afterwards, in the rivet room, employees attach metal components (hinges, nuts, bolts, etc.) to the wood bars, which then become frame components. In a separate room far to the building’s rear, other employees assemble the frame components into the appropriate products.

Leaving the assembly room, Shields headed downstairs and entered the second-floor cutting room. Sewing machines lined the wall that parallels the Penobscot River; fabric bolts mounded the tables that centerlined the rectangular room.

Shields demonstrated the electric knife that employees use to cut a pattern from the cloth. Then he explained how the sewing machines stitched cot covers and fabric for Byer Manufacturing furniture.

On the third floor, employees stitch tote bags, knapsacks, and dufflebags. Custom stitching is a growing part of our business, as are screen printing and embroidery, Shields said.