Kaibab Industries, a Garfield County employer for more than 30 years, is poised to close its doors forever next month.
In its heyday, the sawmill and logging operation employed 400 in this southern Utah community. Layoffs and attrition have whittled that number to 75. Now, they'll be on the streets next month.The sawmill cut its last log in June and Kaibab officials expect to close the planer operation in August.
Ted Atherley, operations manager for Kaibab Industries, headquartered in Phoenix, Ariz., said his company is getting out of the logging business for several reasons.
Both Dixie National Forest and the Kaibab National Forest, where Kaibab Industries harvested its timber, have reduced the amount of available timber in recent years. The cuts forced Kaibab to shut down a similar mill in Fredonia, Ariz., in April 1995.
That, combined with pressure from environmentalists, homeowners and foreign competition, made it tough to keep the mills open.
The shutdown has left mill workers worrying about their future, although county economic develop-ment officials say things are not as bleak as they might seem.
But trying telling that to Marion Littlefield of Tropic, Utah, who went to work in the mill after he graduated from high school in 1961. He lost his job when the mill closed a month ago.
"I'm too old to move and too young to retire," said Littlefield, 53.
Still, he's found a job working for lower wages and fewer benefits at the Utah Forest Products mill in Escalante.
That's exactly the point that Garfield County Economic Development Director Bruce Fullmer wants to make: While the mill closing will have an impact, there are still jobs out there.
"You can never have anything like that happen without there being an impact," Fullmer said. "But I guess I have a more optimistic outlook than those who are being displaced."
Fullmer points to two new companies moving into Panguitch in the next couple of years. Genesis Machining of Sandy plans to build a machine shop next fall and Satterwhite Homes of Texas, which builds kit log homes, is already building its sawmill.
Both companies have said they are willing to hire and train displaced workers.
"We are hoping that opportunity is going to allow some of those people to remain in the area," Fullmer said. He said those who will be hired by Genesis will be hired at around $8 an hour.
But new businesses take time to get started, and mill workers are running out of time.
"A lot of them are going to have to move," said Kaibab's Atherley. "They're is not enough work around here in Panguitch."
Fullmer said there are a few jobs in Garfield County's growing tourism industry that could support a former mill worker's family - duties like full-time maintenance positions.
"These may not be the highest paying jobs, but it's better than nothing," he said.
Littlefield isn't convinced that's true. But he said there was no denying the inevitable.
"We've been under a lot of pressure for the last five years," Littlefield said. "There have always been rumors."
But the fear came home when Kaibab closed the mill in Fredonia. "The last two years we knew it was coming," he said.
That didn't make the end any easier. Even so, when the last log went through the mill, there was an odd sense of relief combined with sadness.
The event took place without fanfare, with no cameras or microphones. The company president, he said, took a snapshot. And that was it.
The closure has also brought about a fair amount of resentment, mostly over environmentalists. But Littlefield said he's angry at the people who built cabins and summer homes in the woods, and then complain that logging was somehow threatening their investment.
"My personal feeling is those private landowners detract more from the Forest Service land than the logging," Littlefield said. "When I drive through there now I'm a little bitter."