Katahdin mills soon to hire staff 200 retirements to open positions in next 5 years

Wanted: Paper millworkers.

With as much as 50 percent of Katahdin Paper Co. LLC’s 600 workers eligible for retirement from jobs at the East Millinocket and Millinocket paper mills over the next five years, you can expect to see Help Wanted ads emanating from the Katahdin region a lot more often.

Company officials expect about 200 workers age 55 to 65 to retire by 2013, but that’s a conservative estimate, said Glenn Saucier, Katahdin Paper’s human resources and public relations manager.

“The exact numbers will vary from year to year, but we will be replacing the older work force, the baby boomers, as they retire,” Saucier said Wednesday. “The number could grow in excess of 200 workers, depending on people’s choices.”

The loss of experienced, dependable workers to a younger work force is a mixed blessing to any business, as the younger workers aren’t as familiar with their jobs but generally get paid less than retirees, who often leave a business at the top end of the pay scale.

For Katahdin towns such as East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket, the worker turnover has its benefits. They include the prospect of younger families buying homes and moving into town and new children populating schools that have lost half their population over the last 10 years.

“It’s not unexpected, but it’s welcomed,” Millinocket Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said Wednesday of the retirements and the influx of new people they are expected to bring. “This is just the first group of retirees that may start retiring over the next few years.”

Town officials are working with millworkers and others to ensure recruiting success, Conlogue said.

So far, the two mills in town have replaced a half-dozen retirees with no difficulties. Most have come from within a 40-mile radius, so it’s unlikely that many Katahdin homes have been purchased yet, Saucier said.

“We are in hopes that the hiring will bring younger people into the community to replace these retirees,” Saucier said.

The jobs filled or coming open run the gamut, Saucier said. They include millwrights, electricians, equipment operators, papermakers, pulp mill operators, clerical staff and supervisors.

With about 500 workers, the East Millinocket mill produces paper used in phone books and reference materials and the 150-worker Millinocket mill makes paper for magazines, calendars, catalogs and direct mailing inserts.

The idea of Katahdin Paper Co. LLC bringing people into the region strikes a warm chord with residents, many of whom still feel the sting of the layoff of some 1,100 workers and the subsequent massive drop in population from the late 2002 shutdown of the company’s predecessor, Great Northern Paper Co.

The parent company of Fraser Papers, Brascan Corp. of Toronto, purchased the former GNP mills in 2003 during the bankruptcy of previous owner Inexcon Maine. The mills resumed operation by mid-2003.

The Brascan deal was valued at $103 million for Great Northern’s assets, including the No. 11 machine in Millinocket, which makes supercalendered paper, that less than a year earlier had been refurbished for an estimated $130 million.

Another hopeful sign for Millinocket: No. 11 has sold out its capacity for the year, Saucier and Conlogue said, and other mill operations are going 24-7.

“What it shows is that Katahdin Paper is starting to accomplish the goals it set out to do four years ago and from that perspective is doing very well,” Conlogue said.

“The order base looks pretty decent right now, but we are being optimistically cautious because of the way the industry is today,” Saucier said. “We are doing OK.”

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