I have been touring Pettibone Manufacturing in Baraga, Michigan. After walking me through the plant, Kevin Walsh, president of the company, had me sit down with Ray McDonald and Phil Latendresse, a couple of Pettibone's engineers. This is part four of my report of the visit at Pettibone.
The entire engineering staff at Pettibone
was schooled at Michigan Tech, Ray said. "They are all Michigan Tech alumni. Why? It has a reputation as one of the finest engineering schools in the country and it's only thirty miles from here, that's why."
Phil Latendresse had gone to work for Oshkosh Truck straight out of college. How had he heard about the opening on the engineering staff at Pettibone? "From a vendor of Oshkosh Truck's, who also supplied Pettibone, who is married to my wife's cousin, he told me," Phil said.
"When I got his resume," Ray said, "I put him on my 'Must Call' list and did some local checking on him. I got all good reports."
The return to Baraga County was a homecoming for Phil's wife, too, as she was originally from the area. "I would have tried to come back sooner," Phil said, "except my wife was in training in radiology at Mercy in Oshkosh."
Phil had left for Oshkosh with no intention of coming back to this area - "We were grinning as we left the U.P.," he said.
Much of Ray's career was elsewhere as well. He, too, was "absolutely not coming back. We had a family get-together in Arizona and talked about it. We said there was no way in hell we'd go back to L'Anse. Those were the words that came out of our mouths, but they didn't come from the heart." Ray's wife is a L'Anse native.
Then why did he come back?
Ray explained: "When we leave here, even in disgust, we leave a piece of ourselves here. We don't feel whole until we come back and get it."
"I just hired a product designer from Hancock who had worked in Lower Michigan for twenty years," Ray said. "The pull of home. I think it's unique."
What brought Phil back?
"Our son was growing up in a larger town, that's not the same as growing up in the U.P.," he said.
"He was missing the chance to grow up a Yooper," Ray added.
"The economics of living here doesn't match what we've experienced elsewhere," Ray said. "On the surface there is no economic drive to come here. It doesn't add up to come back."
But then he talks about "the cost of expectations."
In strictly economic terms, Ray said, "it's very difficult to keep up with the Joneses. It's very easy to keep up with the Murtomakis. You could use any Finnish name. When I say that around here, people know what I mean. People are happy here with a comfortable three-bedroom home and a five-year-old pick-up with a snowmobile on the back."
Phil said: "Landscapers don't get a lot of business around here."
Ray said: "Landscaping is turning trees into stumps."
"If you move into this area expecting to spend $200,000 on a home, you'd be hard-pressed to find one," Ray said. "If you go to Oshkosh expecting to spend $49,000 on a home, you'd be hard-pressed to find one."
"That's not violating city code," Phil added.
"You might think it sounds hill-billy, but I'd take exception to that," Ray said. "The schools and the academic opportunities here are as good as any place. The northern Europeans who settled this area had high scholastic standards and they brought them here. When we take our students other places, they're on a par with those students. When people from elsewhere come to Michigan Tech, they have to struggle just like we do."
"The first time I left here," Ray said, "I joined the Navy. When I came back from the Navy, I had a drive to go off and better myself. I went down to Winneconne, Wisconsin, and worked for J.I. Case. It's Ingersoll now. Back then engineering worked out of a storefront on Main Street. The guy who ran things down there, Bill Schoepman had to come over their and meet this new fellow from the U.P. He shook my hand and said "People from up there can make do."
People from up there can make do. "The deeper you think about it," Ray said, "the more it defines us."
"There was a reputation," Ray said. "If you left L'Anse or Baraga and needed a job, say you went to Detroit to one of the Big Three, they'd hire you. They knew you were educated; they knew you'd work your ass off; they knew you wouldn't complain."
To be continued....
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