The other day, just beyond the steam plant, I bumped into him by the big hog fuel pile.

After a smile and a nod I asked him, “How’s it going Gerry?”

He replies, “Pretty good – awful busy!” and then scurried off to another meeting.

I watched him go and admired him. Sadly widowed a couple of years back, rich enough to be anywhere in the world he would want to be, and he chooses to come into this old mill to work long hours every day for a pretty amazing reason!

I wanted to take him aside and tell him, “Hey, thanks from all of us – eh.” He would have maybe said “Thanks for what?” in a show of humility that would have been genuine, but he would have known what I meant.

I recall meeting him when our mill was starting up again after a fishy bankruptcy that an American “shell company” had pulled off after buying us. Something to the tune of $14 million dollars owing or so it was with a number of people losing much to those modern day carpetbaggers.

But that’s water under the bridge now.

We asked him if he would come back to run our old and complicated powerhouse like he did for us for many years, along with his old pal Terry.

“I’ll help you guys anyway I can and any time that I can. But my financial situation is such that anything I make will go dollar for dollar for taxes, to be frank,” he said.

If it was anyone else I might have thought they were both begging off and bragging, but it was common knowledge that this guy had made solid investments with his hard – earned money over the years and retired early with all our good wishes a decade ago.

But it was good to know that we, who were working towards the restoration of our region’s biggest employer, were able to draw on a friend to the cause.

And so it was that we started up again. Things were shaky at first and then it began to look better and better for our high-quality dissolving sulphite pulp that fewer and fewer mills can make.

We saw that despite the fate the rest of the pulp mills were facing; this 90-year-old mill on a lonesome inlet just might be able to make it!

After the re-opening it came about that we realized quickly that none of the “experts” from the city could operate our unique and often tricky machinery that requires both experience and ingenuity, as much as your standard industrial education certificates. Indeed, the old steam plant was perhaps our most challenging task.

It’s used to dissolve the hemlock, balsam and spruce chips. Then they’re reconstituted to a fine pulp that’s used in everything from artificial sponges, cigarette filters, and food additives to nitrocellulose munitions. We then dry this pulp on rollers with steam, just like the other pulp mills do.

However, it was almost impossible to find a “quarterback” to operate the plant efficiently or steadily. That is until we “dug” these two ol’ guys out of their happy decade of retirement!

Thus, two fellas who didn’t need a dime came back from their comfortable retirement to our resurrected mill to ensure the boilers and evaporators puff away for just like the old days.

And because they did, those of us who are still struggling towards a pension, raising families, trying to pay off the house and car, and the like, are, and should be, extremely grateful to them.

But the big kicker here is, as I said before, neither one of these guys needs a thin dime. They came out of retirement to simply save our “bacon!”

They didn’t need the headaches either, but they came, it would seem, just so that their neighbours will have employment.