{"id":15316,"date":"2018-09-28T09:44:14","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T13:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=15316"},"modified":"2018-09-28T09:44:14","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T13:44:14","slug":"living-legends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/living-legends\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Legends"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 2018 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of Maine\u2019s firms pre-date the founding of the United States. <\/span>How do these businesses keep their edge?<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Olivia Gunn Kotsishevskaya<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Living-Legends\"S<\/span>ome of us cringe at the thought of being handed charge of our grandmother\u2019s Siamese cat, let alone the family business, one that carries history, culture, and memories\u2014not just for the family but a community. Call it fate, luck, or a burden, the owners of these treasured Maine companies seem predestined to carry on a family tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome Home<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife didn\u2019t want to do it,\u201d Ken Mason<\/strong> says of managing the Seaside Inn<\/strong>, a gorgeous oceanside resort on Gooch\u2019s Beach in Kennebunk, and family heirloom if you\u2019ve ever seen one. Trish is a ninth generation innkeeper, a role she never coveted. \u201cShe grew up on the property,\u201d Ken says. \u201cAt the time, their house was right next to this inn. She saw her parents work all day every day. There was no privacy. Guests would just come walking through!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

When the Seaside Inn torch was offered to them, neither Ken nor Trish could let go of the pang of guilt at the thought of passing on it. Imagine dropping a 360-year-old piece of rare cut crystal. Negotiations saved the day. \u201cThe agreement was if we were going to do it, we were not living on the property,\u201d Ken says. \u201cTrish wanted to have our own home for our family.\u201d So, under that accord, Seaside Inn is still invigorated by the family that\u2019s run it for 362 years. <\/span><\/p>\n

Purchased in 1756 by Trish\u2019s great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Jedidiah Gooch, this inn has welcomed visitors to this property since 1660. At least. <\/span><\/p>\n

Trish\u2019s family roots run so deep here, they almost seem to pre-date Kennebunk\u2019s gulls and barnacles, though Native Americans can claim the earlier presence, since the Eastern Abenaki thrived in a village on the north side of Gooch\u2019s Creek. Jedidiah arrived in 1637 as one of the first European immigrants to settle Maine as a colony under King Charles II. The family name is even in Kenneth Roberts\u2019s 1930 classic, Arundel<\/em>. Trish recalls an \u201ceerie\u201d feeling coming over her as she read the novel in high school.<\/span><\/p>\n

For generation after generation, the inn was passed on to the first-born son. In 1925, Helen Bell Twombly, Trish\u2019s great-grandmother, was the first daughter to inherit the inn\u2014the first time the name would change from Gooch. The second was when Trish\u2019s grandmother, Virginia Twombly, later Virginia Severance, took over in 1950. \u201cWe\u2019re not putting any pressure on the kids,\u201d Ken says. \u201cIf they go off for a career and want to come back later on, I\u2019d be fine. But I want them to go out and experience things on their own.\u201d That is, a choice is a choice only when you choose it. \u201cWe don\u2019t push the family history on them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Seaside, Ken served in the U.S. Coast Guard as a chief petty officer at search and rescue stations. \u201cI was in charge of running search and rescue boats. I also spent a summer in Africa teaching several nations boat operations and law enforcement.\u201d Today, he is the man behind the curtain at the inn. Though he married into the family, he\u2019s never been shy to implement new ideas. \u201cThe first year we took over, I installed central air-conditioning, computers\u2014everything was still done on typewriters\u2014we didn\u2019t even have an automatic coffee machine,\u201d he says. The earlier generation did, however, see the value of the world-wide web and treated viewers with photo updates of the beach every few minutes. Today it\u2019s a livestream broadcast. \u201cWe at least brought it up to the 20th century, but we still try to keep everything as homey as possible. That\u2019s why we have the \u2018Welcome Home\u2019 sign above the front desk. We have 82-percent return guests. That\u2019s what they like.\u201d Having a committed staff helps. \u201cOur breakfast cook, Holly, has been here since my wife was a little girl. Up until this year, we had Holly\u2019s mother here and her two sisters, her brother, and her nephew. It was kind of like a second family running the business.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While Seaside Inn maintains its familiar comforts, finding enough people to keep the wheels turning is always a challenge. Not as many people feel the calling \u201cto do this kind of work anymore; be it housekeeping, laundry, or even maintenance,\u201d Ken says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a pay-scale issue, because we pay well. Trying to fill these positions now is much harder than it used to be.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span>n even more surprising matter has been navigating the uncontrollable. Take the riff over tariffs, for example. \u201cI\u2019m not going to get into politics,\u201d Ken says. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a bunch of Canadian guests who\u2019ve been coming for years and years. They called us up and said, \u2018We\u2019re not coming this year.\u2019 They were blunt about why. I tried to explain that we don\u2019t represent the government and that we\u2019re just plain old people like they are up there. But a lot of them made a stand this year. They said they weren\u2019t coming.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A hallway at Seaside Inn is lined with family photos of those who\u2019ve overseen the grounds long before Ken and Trish. Knowing so many before them have dealt with their fair share of change\u2013as often as the tides that sweeten this retreat, nestled between the past and the future, between the Kennebunk River and the beach\u2013must provide terms of endearment that only nine generations could know.<\/span><\/p>\n

Steady as the Pines<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2010, Kevin Hancock<\/strong>, 52, was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder that causes spasms in the vocal cords, impairing his ability to speak. The diagnosis, along with inspiring two books, forever changed the way he would look at leading his family\u2019s 170-year-old company, Hancock Lumber<\/strong>. \u201cI don\u2019t like to compare leadership styles from one generation to the next,\u201d Kevin says. \u201cTimes change, and what works best changes [what we do]. I think the key is that each leader is authentic to who he or she is and changes the company for the better in his or her own way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe couldn\u2019t really talk when he wanted to or run meetings and lead the company in the traditional way he was used to. He had to stop and listen,\u201d Erin Plummer, spokesperson for the company, says of Kevin. <\/span><\/p>\n

Kevin considers this a blessing. In a sense, it gives more of a voice to his employees. This has become one of the most prominent values in a company named \u201cBest Place in Maine to Work\u201d four years in a row.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kevin took over the lumber business from his father, David, who died in 1997. But he wasn\u2019t alone. His mother Carol is the \u201cunsung hero\u201d of the company and \u201chasn\u2019t missed a board meeting in 20 years.\u201d Still, at just 30, he\u2019d become president of the company he\u2019d seen his parents run and grandparents run before them. \u201cMy dad was a very well-respected and successful business leader,\u201d Kevin says. \u201cSo was my grandfather. They both had a great way with people. Growing up watching them helped me see that a company is really all about the people who work here.\u201d Today he oversees 540 employees and the production of over 85,000,000 board feet annually between three sawmills in Bethel, Casco, and Pittsfield. <\/span><\/p>\n

Considered the 71st oldest business in the United States by Family Business Magazine<\/em>, Hancock Lumber is a Maine staple. \u201cGrowing up,\u201d Kevin says, \u201cI remember the company as an integral part of our community. Our corporate office in Casco was called \u2018the office\u2019 by most everybody who lived in the village.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Cream of the Crop<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

While many of us were playing with action figures and dolls, Lindsay Skilling<\/strong> was playing \u201coffice,\u201d filing papers, organizing her desk. She couldn\u2019t wait for \u201ctake your daughter to work day,\u201d when she\u2019d strut through the doors of the family business by her father\u2019s side. \u201cThat was my favorite time of the year.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Lindsay\u2019s early start clearly paid off, as she\u2019s worked her way up from miniature assistant to CEO of Gifford\u2019s Ice Cream<\/strong>. As part of the company\u2019s fifth generation (along with siblings Samantha and John, and her cousin, Ryan), she\u2019s kept a sweet heritage intact. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur parents tried to kind of push us away from the business,\u201d she says. \u201cThey dealt with the stress of growing the business, and they didn\u2019t want us to feel like it was something we had to do. I knew I always wanted to work here, but when thinking about colleges, I needed to experience something other than Maine.\u201d That took her to Bryant University in Rhode Island, which admittedly still felt a lot like Maine. But even there, she found herself coming home every chance she had.<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>hough her grandmother, Audrey Gifford, brought the company to Skowhegan with her husband Randall in the 1970s, Lindsay is technically the first woman to lead the company as CEO. \u201cI don\u2019t think of it that way,\u201d she says. \u201cYes, I am a female who is a CEO. However, I\u2019m doing whatever it takes to work alongside my family members to carry on our family\u2019s tradition of making award-winning, quality ice cream.\u201d Way cool. But is there pressure? \u201cQuite a bit, to be honest. And it\u2019s not pressure anyone is putting on us other than ourselves. We want to carry on this family business. We don\u2019t want to let our father, our uncle, and grandparents down.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

She\u2019s not on track to do that anytime soon. As the new generation \u201ccame aboard\u201d the firm still owned by her father, John, and uncle, Roger, they implemented a few fresh ideas of their own to a business legendary for its freshness, including a consultant and more perspectives across the company. \u201cIt\u2019s helped open the lines of communication from every employee and was something that both Roger and John remarked upon as being something they wished they\u2019d done.\u201d With yearly sales of over two million gallons of ice cream, recent expansion to their manufacturing plant, and a three-year partnership with the Boston Bruins, it\u2019s safe to guess that great-great grandfather Nathaniel Main and his \u201chorse-drawn wagon\u201d would agree these newbies have really got the scoop<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 2018
\nSome of Maine\u2019s firms pre-date the founding of the United States. How do these businesses keep their edge?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-15316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-october-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15320,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15316\/revisions\/15320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}