BOWDOIN — Running himself over with a crane couldn’t keep Stephen Martin down. “I don’t care what you do, just cut them off, I’m going back to work tomorrow,” Martin remembers telling the doctor looking over his broken legs and feet after an on-the-job mishap almost 20 years ago, to which the doctor replied, “You […]
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Posted inBusiness
Working: Back to school
LEWISTON — At 18, Tina Howe graduated from high school, moved out on her own, enrolled at the University of Southern Maine, and after a semester, flunked out. “I didn’t take it seriously,” she said. “I wasn’t ready, and a lot of students just coming out of high school aren’t ready. So I spent a […]
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Posted inBusiness, Lewiston-Auburn
Working: Rusty perfection
LEEDS — The 1954 Ford F-100’s frame is patched together with 29 vintage license plates, held down with screws dipped in acid and left out in the rain to get them nice and faux-old. The overhead light in the truck cab is a bare light bulb. The seat covers are burlap sacks. The change cup on […]
Posted inBusiness
Working: Auburn photographer Rene Roy, capturing one moment at a time
AUBURN — Among the tricks to Rene Roy’s whimsical sleeping baby portraits: Make sure they’re super young and have a waterproof bean bag underneath. To shooting pets: Keep calm, be quick. To getting out of her own shell: Stop caring what others think, smile. Roy started her photography business after graduating from college in 1998, […]
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Working: Living in, running The Great Outdoors
TURNER — Thirty-five years ago, Mary Seaman’s parents, Jo and Clint, out on a boat ride on Pleasant Pond, pulled up to The Great Outdoors and jokingly told the owners they were there to buy the sprawling former girls’ camp. The couple got a call not long after. Were they serious? Because it was for […]
Posted inBusiness, Lewiston-Auburn
Working: Jennifer Gammon, Making pottery, hoping you can taste the happy
LEWISTON — Leaning into a lump of stoneware clay on her pottery wheel, Jennifer Gammon coaxed a cup to life. She built sidewalls, leveled the top and pressed a finger into its spinning sides to create a series of trademark ridges, from the bottom to the top. In her basement studio, Gammon is relaxed, doing […]
Posted inBusiness, Lewiston-Auburn
Working: Jeremy Hiltz, Helping addicts get back to work
LEWISTON — Jeremy Hiltz is a drug and alcohol counselor who, six months ago, started spending Friday mornings at the Lewiston CareerCenter, giving addicts advice on how to get back to work. It’s about self-esteem and a paycheck — and he speaks from experience. Hiltz, a 37-year-old who looks like he only stopped playing high […]
Posted inBusiness, Lewiston-Auburn
Working: After a layoff, making it work
MECHANIC FALLS — Mike Brown started his home improvement company after losing his longtime job at Bath Iron Works to a layoff, then losing his next job when his new employer went under. He does roofing, siding, anything handy, and with a fleet of three trucks and three eye-catching license plates — NOTACON, NO CONS […]
Posted inBusiness, Lewiston-Auburn
People You Know: Paul Jalbert, Going at a steady clip
AUBURN — When Paul Jalbert started cutting hair 60 years ago, he was a junior in high school following his dad into the trade. Flattops cost 50 cents, shaves were $1 and you didn’t think of doing anything fancy. “They’d say, ‘Paul, if you use that hair dryer on me I’m not coming back,’” Jalbert […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, The Franklin Journal
Working: Marking time for mountain races
AUBURN — Tom Kendall never planned to keep time. Rather, as the parent of high school competitors who’d wait hours to hear the results of ski races, he wanted to make better use of his time. So, in the mid-1980s, the Auburn computer salesman wrote a program that collected the handwritten, stopwatch scribbles of volunteers […]