Leather company thrives in Corinna 7 new employees hired in past year

CORINNA – The moment always is dramatic: The cop on television flips open his leather bi-fold and reveals his shield. The arrest is accomplished.

Or the detectives are huddled at a murder scene, leather shield cases with their shining badges hanging from their necks or clipped to their waistbands. They are visible on all the popular cop movies and television shows: “24,” “NYPD Blue,” “Law And Order,” “CSI.”

One of central Maine’s best-kept secrets, however, is that these badge and shield cases, along with a dozen other police accessories, are made in Corinna.

When many leather manufacturing businesses headed overseas, Perfect Fit of Corinna filled a niche for a quality, American-made product.

“After September 11 [2001], there was a greater demand for the red-white-and-blue, USA-made products,” Perfect Fit co-owner Bion Foster said Monday.

Foster said the demand for more police officers and security personnel also exploded, causing a need for attire and accessories. “Sales of Perfect Fit products have grown a consistent 15 percent annually,” he said.

Perfect Fit provides custom-made cases for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, New York Police Department, the IRS, the DEA, the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies, not to mention the White House.

“Last week, we shipped out an order for 34 White House shield cases to people who constantly surround the president,” co-owner Michael Levesque said. “They were beautiful.”

Stitchers, cutters and design engineers work out of a former feed-and-seed building in Corinna, creating a wide range of products beyond shield cases, including cases for coal miners’ meters that gauge underground gas levels, pepper spray holders, wallets, and the many small, leather pieces that secure the gear to a police officer’s belt.

The open, airy production facility hums with activity: Sewing machines stitch the high-quality leather in one area, while cutters use special patterns to cut the leather in another. One wall is stocked with boxes of cases already stamped with gold lettering: “United States Department of Conservation,” “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” “Federal Bureau of Prisons.”

Another display wall looks like it belongs in a bakery with more than 700 steel cutting shapes, appearing more like cookie cutters, that are created to custom-fit badges. They range from the heavy, Texas Ranger-style badge to the traditional New York City detective shield to the Wild West star.

Perfect Fit of today started off as the former Seamans Manufacturing Co.

Business partners and lifelong friends, Foster and Levesque, both of Hampden, bought Seamans in early 2001. Then, in a move to cut out the middleman, they bought the distributor that sold Seamans’ products, Perfect Fit Shield Wallets Inc. of Goshen, N.Y. They immediately moved Perfect Fit to Corinna.

The merger allowed the company to double its profit margins at once.

It also allows the company to beat the pants off its overseas competition, Foster said Monday morning.

“We have a 48-hour turnaround on orders,” he said. “This is virtually unheard of in this industry.”

The company has 17 employees. Seven new employees have been added this year, including Kristen Sansome, 29, formerly of Atlanta, Ga.

Sansome came to Corinna two years ago as a quality control officer working for a private contractor on the Corinna Superfund site. She immediately fell in love with the area and the people. Knowing that the Superfund site would close this year, Sansome began looking around and found a position at Perfect Fit.

“It was a good, good decision,” she said, beaming.

Gary Leighton, 52, has quite a different story. For more than 25 years, Leighton worked as assistant director of research and development at Dexter Shoe Co. When that industry closed in 2001, Leighton needed retraining. He went to Eastern Maine Technical College for a year, focusing on computer-aided drafting and design – but couldn’t find employment.

Then along came Perfect Fit, and it was. Leighton is now the company’s production manager.

“It is not a business the size of Dexter Shoe, but there isn’t the pressure here either,” he said. “After 9-11, most places were either downsizing or not hiring. That’s not the case here.”