LEWISTON – It might have been only a prompt for the camera, but when U.S. Sen. Susan Collins suggested leading a chant with 40 workers at Falcon Shoe Co., everyone beamed.
“Made in the U.S.A.!” they shouted in unison.
A month after being purchased by a British-based boot maker, Falcon had something to cheer about. The 42-year-old company is hiring again, has quintupled the amount of space it’s using at the Continental Mill, and is aggressively pursuing military boot contracts using a prototype boot that incorporates stealth technology.
“We want to be among the first to manufacture with this type of technology,” said Roland Landry, general manager at Falcon, as he grabbed a boot component off a rack. “It could be a year to get a contract, but that’s what we’re going for.”
The boot Landry was holding has a pixilated, mosaic pattern of various shades of brown. The pattern makes the boot invisible to night-vision goggles, a technology that has already been incorporated in U.S. military uniforms. A green version of the same boot rests next to the brown one, a prototype for the Canadian military, which uses green-based camouflage.
Collins was touring the shoe shop Tuesday, glad for the opportunity to share in some good news for Maine manufacturers. Falcon Shoe was plucked from the edge of insolvency earlier this month when Hi-Tec Magnum bought it. The sale meant continued employment for the 26 Falcon employees who were still working for the firm – which once employed nearly 500 – and a promise of growth.
Already Falcon has increased its work force by 14, with plans for 40 more by year’s end. It also now uses 180,000 square feet of the Continental Mill, versus the 48,000 square feet it used before the sale.
The company is in the midst of modernizing its production, pulling out machines from the ’60s and ’70s and replacing them with a new pass-through system. The pass-through system allows a boot to be assembled in one continuous operation, rather than having it assembled piecemeal in batches.
The company is also adopting just-in-time manufacturing guidelines, producing orders as they come in, rather than building up a tremendous inventory. Landry said he used to have a $3 million leather stockpile; now all the leather he needs for a week’s production can fit into three large cardboard boxes.
“It’s made a huge impact on our bottom line,” he said.
Dan Biron, director of manufacturing for Falcon, said there’s great potential for the Lewiston operation. He said the available space at the mill has corporate headquarters considering whether to use Falcon as an East Coast distribution site for Hi-Tec Magnum. He said he’s also aware of Auburn’s newly designated Foreign Trade Zone, which could save the company money in its import of raw materials and export of finished footwear.
The FTZ is considered outside U.S. Customs territory and can potentially offer a break in duty taxes to certain companies. Biron said Hi-Tec Magnum could save significant costs if it can import boot components and raw material from places like Asia, assemble the footwear in Lewiston, then export the finished products to European markets.
“We’re definitely interested in the FTZ,” he said.
Landry praised Collins for her help in pursuing federal contracts, which she underscored Tuesday. As Landry was showing Collins one of the stealth boot prototypes, she remarked that Brunswick Naval Air Station is a test site for new military uniforms, and that people there were complaining about their boots. She offered to put Landry in touch with the right people to pitch Falcon’s prototype.
“We could take over some samples and get immediate feedback,” said Landry. “That would be terrific.”
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