Layoff leaves futures in doubt

In the wake of severe layoffs by the Tricon Timber Company, many former employees are considering leaving Mineral County in search of employment.

“If they don’t own property or own homes here I don’t see how they’re going to able to survive,” said former Tricon millwright Stephen Bourn. “If they don’t have roots down here or some sort of backup financially I don’t see how they’re going to make it.”

Bourn has been living in St. Regis since January of 2002 and working for Tricon as a millwright for the last three years.

“When anything breaks down, we’re there to fix it,” Bourn said about his former job.

After losing his job with Tricon two weeks ago along with around 40 other Tricon employees, Bourn has had to come to grips with the fact that if the timber market continues to struggle, he may have to find another form of employment.

“We kind of saw this coming,” Bourn said.

This is actually the second time Bourn has been laid off from the Tricon plant in St. Regis. In October of 2007 he was laid off but the company rehired him in February of 2008 when the market improved.

“We went pretty strong in ‘07 and we didn’t think we were going to get hit quite this hard. We thought we might see some layoffs but I didn’t expect to get laid off,” Bourn said.

Bourn said that he plans to stay in Mineral County through the winter but if he is not rehired in the coming months he and his wife will have to leave the county.

“I just hope that they put the shift back on in the next couple months. If they don’t, come springtime we’re going to be forced to move,” Bourn said.

Bourn said that one of the big reasons he was working with Tricon is because he likes life in St. Regis and he would rather stay here. However, he rents his home and cannot afford to stay on without a solid job.

“I might look at working in the mines in the Mullan area,” Bourn said.

Bourn said that he planned to buy a home and settle down in Mineral County permanently, but with this second layoff he has put any plans to purchase a house on hold.

With his experience in the timber industry, Bourn said that, unless the price of timber improves, he doubts the industry will fully recover.

“A lot of it depends on whether or not the lumber market goes back up. If it doesn’t I don’t see them putting the second shift back on,” Bourn said.

Bourn said that the timber industry’s problems smack of the tough economic times the nation is facing as well.

“As far as the economy in the rest of the nation goes, I don’t know, it’s looking pretty grim,” Bourn said.

Tricon manager Angelo Ververis has said that the layoffs were a last resort for the company and they were not happy to let those employees go, but Bourn says the loss of those workers will affect the company.

“They had to make some serious cuts to keep the doors open. I believe that they did what they thought they had to do but it’s affected quite a few people,” Bourn said.