FREEPORT

After five continuous decades with one of the

Midcoast’s largest employers, Al Andrews, 67, of Durham, is ready to call it a day. Andrews said he will take voluntary retirement at the end of March, after spending most of his career as a driver.

It’s become exceedingly rare for an employee to stay with a single company as long as Andrews, but Andrews said he’s never had a desire to work elsewhere.

“I’ve been very content,” Andrews said. “I like my job.”

He said he’s stuck with L.L. Bean, in part, because of how well he says the company treats its employees.

“They treat me awful good,” he said. “They always have.”

Andrews started work at the Freeport retailer part-time in 1967 when he was 17 years old and still in high school. The Monday after he got his diploma, he started working there full-time. Eight years later, Andrews became L.L. Bean’s first, full-time truck driver.

Throughout his career, he’s met every one of the company’s presidents, including the first — Leon Leonwood Bean.

“The one I really knew was Leon (Gorman). He took over as president the year I came to work,” he said.

For the past 40-plus years, Andrews can be seen on Freeport and Brunswick roads making stops at L.L. Bean’s various facilities, hauling merchandise and other material — “junk stuff like cardboard, whatever they need out of the building,” he said.

Forty-two years ago when he moved from the company’s clothing department to shipping, he said he drove a “small one-ton Ford, with a little 12- foot box on the back.”

“We’ve got a Freightliner out here, now, about three times the size of that one. There’s quite a difference, ya know?” he said.

His route hasn’t changed much in that time, but he said he enjoys the routine: “I can tell you where I’m going to be, say Feb. 14 at quarter to one. That’s something I’ve always liked.”

According to company spokesman Mac McKeever, L.L. Bean was about a $4.5 million company with nearly 200 employees when Andrews started. Today, it’s a $6 billion entity with close to 6,000 year-round employees at 20 different facilities — including distribution and manufacturing — in Freeport and Brunswick, in addition to stores from Maine to Colorado.

McKeever spoke about the importance employees such as Andrews are to the company.

“Obviously, we’re well known for our customer service, the front-line folks, but there’s so much that happens behind the scenes that enables us to do what we do,” McKeever said. “From a logistical perspective, it’s just remarkable.”

Andrews is not the only member of his family to work for the company. He says his father, two uncles and an aunt also worked for the company.

And while both L.L. Bean has grown tremendously and, along with it, the town of Freeport, some things have stayed the same.

“They’re still just as good a company,” Andrews said. “They look after everybody.”

jswinconeck@timesrecord.com

Then and now

• ACCORDING TO L.L. Bean spokesman Mac Mc- Keever, the Freeport-based outdoor retailer was about a $4.5 million company with nearly 200 employees when driver Al Andrews started. Today, it’s a $6 billion entity with close to 6,000 year-round employees at 20 different facilities — including distribution and manufacturing — in Freeport and Brunswick, in addition to stores from Maine to Colorado.