BETHEL – Finding and keeping a job in the wood products business has been tough for Kathy Hebert of East Bethel. She’s survived five straight manufacturing plant closures and been laid off four times since the mid 1980s.

But, thanks to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Rumford Career Center, and SAD 44’s Adult Education program, Hebert believes her career is now on the right track.

“If all else fails and the wood industry ends up being a bygone thing, I have the training to succeed,” she said Saturday.

That training came late in her career, when, at the age of 45, she was laid off in January 2002 as a result of the closing of Saunders Brothers Inc., formerly Gilbert Wood Products Inc., of Locke Mills.

“At my age, that was a real scary thing,” Hebert said.

“When you get laid off like that, you have no idea what you want to do. I was in my mid-40s and I had a daughter in college, and the last thing you want to do is go back to college,” she said.

Enter the U.S. Labor Department’s Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which aids workers who have been displaced by foreign competition.

“When the plant was ready to close, an emergency task force came in and explained TAA to us,” Hebert said.

Then, she and others went to the Rumford Career Center, where they took basic tests to determine what their skills and interests were, and if they needed to return to school.

“Most of us needed English and math,” Hebert said.

Marlene Gile, an employment consultant with Western Maine Community Action at the career center, steered them to adult education classes at Telstar High School in Bethel.

In the adult education program at Telstar High School, Hebert said a career counselor helped her decide to return to college.

“Counseling gives you the courage,” she said.

Through the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, Hebert was able to reap unemployment benefits while seeking re-education and job skills training at SAD 44 and Mid-State College in Auburn, she said.

“I cannot say enough good things about the TAA program, adult ed at Telstar, and Marlene and the Rumford Career Center. They really made it an enjoyable adventure,” Hebert said.

Near the end of her Mid-State term in October 2003, Hebert landed an office and production managerial job with the Eldred Wheeler Co. furniture manufacturing plant in West Bethel, she said.

That job ended last month when the plant closed, and she was again laid off.

But, she said, one of the plant’s vendors, Clint Bradbury, leased the plant to start a new business, Premium Specialty Hardwoods. He then hired her to be its office manager.

“If it hadn’t of been for TAA, I don’t know where I’d be,” she said.