WINDHAM – With Bushmaster Firearm’s sudden announcement last week that it will close March 31 and lay off 73 employees in the process, the property’s owner, state and local leaders are scrambling to replace one of Windham’s best-known and most successful companies.

Dick Dyke, the former owner of Bushmaster who bought it out of bankruptcy in 1976 from a Bangor start-up and grew it into one of the most successful and recognizable military and civilian gun makers, is working behind the scenes this week with local legislators and the governor’s office. The group hopes to either find new employment for Bushmaster’s employees or bring another company into the 60,000-square-foot facility located in Dyke’s Windham Business Park, off Route 302 in North Windham.

Dyke, who said he was encouraged after talking with Gov.-elect Paul LePage on Monday and Gov. John Baldacci on Tuesday, is joined in the effort by Sen. Bill Diamond and Rep. Gary Plummer, both of Windham, who on Tuesday met with Baldacci.

Dyke, who lives in the mountains overlooking Las Vegas during the winter but comes back to his renovated home on the Naples Causeway in warmer months, knows the odds of finding a similar manufacturer that can provide high-paying jobs with quality benefits are slim, but the 76-year-old lifelong entrepreneur who has owned 63 companies said he won’t stop until he does so.

“It all came as a surprise,” Dyke said in a phone interview earlier this week. “Their lease runs out on July 1 and I get left with 60,000 square feet. But more than that, there are a lot of employees, many of whom I hired myself many years ago, that I’m very, very concerned about. There are few companies in the area that can pay a similar wage or offer profit sharing.”

Dyke added, “But I don’t intend to leave that big park empty, I can tell you that.”

Dyke said he is hoping Diamond, LePage, and Maine’s U.S. senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, will all work together to “think through what kind of company we can get in there. We need to find what’s missing, what will have a national reach, as Bushmaster did, so that’s what we’re doing.”

Bushmaster is owned by Freedom Group, that in turn is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a hedge fund capital investment group which bought Bushmaster March 1, 2006. In subsequent years, the hedge fund brought other weapon makers, such as Remington and Marlin, under its umbrella. Dyke said he signed a five-year, non-compete clause, which runs out April 16, 2011, a few weeks after Bushmaster closes its Windham doors.

Dyke was born in Wilton and came to Portland as a U.S. Treasury agent fighting organized crime in his younger days. He settled in Windham on a 130-acre parcel and began buying, operating and selling businesses. Even in Nevada, he’s helped resurrect ailing companies turning them around into successes, something Diamond said Dyke excels at.

“The guy is amazing. He’s living out there in Henderson and he sees this ice cream place struggling. He buys it, turns it around to the point it’s now doing very well. He just has this instinct for making things work,” Diamond said.

Dyke, who said he fell in love with Windham, still owns the business park where Bushmaster is located and has maintained a relationship with employees at the company. In the wake of the company’s announcement last Friday, Dyke said he’s received numerous e-mails and calls from those employees thanking him for their jobs and time at Bushmaster.

“They’re all scared to death, as you or I would be,” Dyke said. “I don’t want to give them false hopes, but I’m certainly going to do what I can. We’ll do our best to give them something to replace it with.”

Meanwhile, local government is doing what it can to help with the immediate fallout of the announcement. While Freedom Group, which operates the gun makers under the Cerberus umbrella, has announced that it will provide severance packages and possible re-employment at other plants, the likelihood of employees being able to get jobs at other factories within the Freedom Group is slim since the company closed Bushmaster as a cost-saving measure. That means government may have to provide unemployment benefits and retraining opportunities, both of which Diamond said the state is already looking into.

“We’re very pleased Dick is enthusiastic about getting involved and help. He is obviously very energized about this. We, the local legislative delegation, are also doing what we can as well. The governor’s office, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the owner of the space, we’re all in this together doing what we can.”

Specifically, Diamond, Plummer and state Rep. Mark Bryant are focused on first providing a safety net for employees. Diamond said this involves providing retraining for those Bushmaster employees wanting to pursue other careers or help finding other jobs.

“How do we get them back in the workforce, that’s our main goal,” Diamond said.

Secondly, Diamond and others, including the current governor and governor-elect, are working to find another employer to come into Dyke’s 60,000-square-foot space.

“Preferably it’d be a manufacturer, because that’s what the space is designed for, and that’s what we would be hoping for,” Diamond said.

Freedom Group itself will also help employees with fallout from the closure. According to public relations specialist Jessica Kallam, the company has already hired a team to “help employees (in Windham) to find new jobs inside or outside Freedom Group.”

Why did it close?

Bushmaster representatives are not commenting extensively on what went into the decision to close the Windham facility. Kallam said the closure is due to “increasing costs and greater competition” which she said forced not only the Windham closure but another facility’s closure in North Haven, Conn. that made Marlin rifles. She said the company is consolidating Bushmaster and other brands’ production into one manufacturing facility in Ilion, N.Y.

While Bushmaster was praised as a prime employer in Windham, in recent years dozens of neighbors of the facility have complained about outdoors weapons testing done on daily basis in the pit behind Bushmaster’s plant. Last winter, a petition was signed and delivered to Windham Town Hall requesting the town do something to limit the noise pollution. Last spring, town and Bushmaster officials toured an indoor rifle range at Saco Defense and discussions have been ongoing concerning an indoor range. With the closing, the noise issue will become moot. When asked whether he thought the neighbors’ concerns factored into the decision to close, Windham’s economic development director, Tom Bartell, said he hadn’t heard it was a factor.

“We don’t know. We have heard that they had a solution worked out, toward an enclosed firing range, but obviously it hasn’t moved forward,” Bartell said.

When asked about the rifle range issue, Kallam said she hadn’t ever heard of the issue.

“Either way, that question would go unanswered, whether that played a role, but it seems that would be a minute issue,” Kallam said.

Many are discouraged that the announcement was made so close to Christmas and came without warning. Windham Town Manager Tony Plante found out through a reporter’s inquiry last Friday night after a press release was issued by U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s office. Diamond said the company didn’t notify state government of the shutdown, which is usually customary, he said, adding that the Baldacci administration in recent years has been able to work successfully with companies intending to close. Even Dyke said Bushmaster failed to notify him as well. Instead, employees relayed the message to Dyke Friday after Bushmaster human resources representatives notified the employees en masse with security guards present, Dyke said. Security guards continue to remain on site this week, barring media interaction with employees.

Since Bushmaster won’t actually close until March 31, Kallam said employees will have plenty of time to prepare for the transition. The long delay is also intended to allow the Windham company time to fulfill orders that have already been placed.

“The notice is to allow a seamless transition and not create any interruptions in our existing sales orders already on the books,” she said. “Our customers can be assured that this is not going to impact orders customers currently have with us.”

Reaction

Bartell, who has appeared in multiple media outlets discussing the closing of the iconic Maine gun maker, is “disappointed that the decision was made, and as a town we need to keep moving forward for everyone’s sake,” he said.

Bartell, who has seen four Windham companies close in the last month, remains optimistic that the area can come back stronger.

“Through streamlining regulations and improving infrastructure, we can bring new manufacturing jobs and make this community better. We still have a great workforce, and we can tout that as companies look to where they want to move,” he said.

Like the legislative delegation, Bartell said Windham government will do its part.

“Windham people take care of Windham folks. People can be assured Windham people will step up. We always have. We always will,” Bartell said.

And another local business leader, Barbara Clark, executive director of the Sebago Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, said she is likewise disappointed and is hoping Bushmaster will indicate why it closed and whether there was anything local leaders could have done to prevent the closing.

“What I’d like to know is why didn’t it work here? Is there something about Maine or this region that factored into your decision? What is the reason you’re leaving?” Clark said. “I’m not sure we’ll get it from them, but that sort of information would help us in the future.”

An FPS security detail stands guard at Bushmaster Firearms’ North Windham facility Tuesday afternoon barring non-employees from entering the area. Bushmaster, which was bought in 1973 by local businessman Dick Dyke and sold to Cerberus International in 2006, announced its intention to close the Windham facility March 31 with rifle manufacturing moving to a factory in New York. Dyke, who still owns the gun maker’s 60,000-square-foot manufacturing space in the Windham Business Park, is working to bring a new employer to the park. (Staff photo by John Balentine)