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| Handcrafted: Hattie Brown the grandmother of toy plant owner Michael Rainville, makes wooden blocks. She's one of three generations
of family members to help out at Maple Landmark. Nicole Hill |
A Vermont toymaker sees business boom after China scare
The family-run manufacturing plant has expanded its workforce by two thirds – and the order backlog is still triple that of last year.
from the December 24, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Andrew leans in from his corner. "Passion," he offers.
"That's right," his father says.
•••
Rainville grew up in an environment where life orbited around family and work. His grandparents were farmers, and his parents, both teachers, also owned and operated a general store. From early on, Rainville liked to craft things with his hands. The analytical side of him prompted thoughts of efficiency and economies of scale. "I'd make six cribbage boards and imagine the opportunity to make six dozen," he says.
When Rainville was 15, a salesman at the family's store offered to take some of his products on the road, and Maple Landmark was born. By the time he was 21, Rainville was running a company. He broke ground for a headquarters just before college ended.
It was perhaps fate that his wife, Jill, would eventually join the business. Shortly after their first son, Adam, was born, she became the company's office manager. Now, the entire family is often here for hours at a time. Recently, when school was canceled because of snow, both boys worked upstairs on the assembly line.
Jill Rainville says time has allayed her initial worries about too much marital proximity. "Mike has his office, and I have mine," she says. "Every once in a while it gets a little tense, but it blows over." These days Jill rises at 4 a.m. to start paperwork and wakes every else by 5 a.m., including her husband, who'd "better get up or he misses his shower slot."
For Rainville, the whole scene is basically what he'd envisioned: "I'd always thought it was neat when couples would work together and the whole family could be in on something."
To his mind, the recall of 25 million toys from China was inevitable. "We've tied ourselves very closely to an economy that is contrary to our beliefs," says Rainville, citing concerns about pollution, exploitation, and "a lack of respect for the things that this country stands for.... The business that goes over there is looking to find shortcuts, and they got what they paid for."
He buys as many materials locally as possible – wood from nine miles up the road, a finish developed at the nearby university – and will continue the practice. Rainville doesn't sell to many large retailers, but sticks to specialty stores. "We haven't let the large retailers beat us into submission, and we're not going to," he says.
As Rainville speaks, a bevy of workers in the shipping bay readies packages for pickup. Dozens of boxes will fan out to toy stores and families across the country. It's another chapter in the story Rainville imagined for his life – 2,200 customers and counting.
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