Bancroft Corp. makes slow recovery from near demise
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

PARIS – Diversification is the name of the game for Bancroft Contracting Corp. in Paris, which recently acquired two local businesses.

The heavy industrial construction company acquired both Flanders Electric of Norway and Falls Fencing of Oxford on Feb. 27, said Mark Bancroft, company president. The acquisitions are the latest in a series of restructuring moves at the company, necessitated by the sharp decline in the paper industry in Maine and New England.

From 1990 to 1996, 80 percent of Bancroft’s work came from seven paper mills in Maine and New Hampshire. The company maintained offices at each of the mills, supplementing mill maintenance staff throughout the year and during scheduled mill shutdown periods.

Then the mill work started to dry up. The company began losing money, with just 20 percent of its jobs coming from concrete and steel construction on roads, dams and bridges.

In 2001, the big blow came, when Bancroft lost nearly 50 percent of its business when the mill in Berlin, N.H., closed and MeadWestvaco decided to use only the Cianbro Corp. for all of its mechanical maintenance needs.

The message was clear: diversify or die.

“We had to go back to our roots,” said Bancroft. When his father Allen Bancroft started the company 27 years ago, he saw the need for a heavy industrial construction company in the area, doing a variety of jobs.

When Mark Bancroft became president in 2002, at age 32, he had to make some hard decisions. There were layoffs in management as well as the workforce, which employed a record 300 people in 1996.

Now the company employs 115 workers, with plans to bring back around 50 laid off workers this summer.

The year 2003 saw a “modest profit” for the company, said Bancroft. He is optimistic this year will be even better, as the company bids on commercial and residential projects, modular housing jobs, and road work for the Maine Department of Transportation.

Bancroft said the company also wants to do more work closer to home.

“We want to be a bigger part of this community,” Bancroft said Wednesday.

Allen Bancroft has always believed in giving back to the community, his son said, typically by donating use of heavy equipment for community projects.

“He and I get along really well, largely because of our good communication, mutual respect, and a deep sense of fear on my part,” Mark Bancroft said. “He’s still my boss – I still need his guidance.

Bancroft has four older sisters, and he has always known his future was in the construction business. He received a college degree in construction management and engineering.

He and his wife, Angela, who is expecting in April, have two young sons, aged two and four-and-a-half.

He sees healthy growth in the company for years to come, and is planning to expand the company headquarters on Phillips Road in the near future to supply more office space.