CULVER – For the past 20 years, Brenda Heinonen has raised her family in the rural landscape surrounding Culver, where she has worked for nine years in operations for Seaswirl Boats Inc. On Sunday, she will pull up roots and move with her husband and fellow Seaswirl employee, Rob, to Little Falls, Minn., where her employer’s production operation is relocating.

”I decided to go because I love our boats,” Heinonen said, her eyes welling with tears. ”I’ll miss the mountains – there are no mountains like this in Minnesota – but I think it will be a great adventure.”

The Heinonens are so far the only two Seaswirl employees relocating to Minnesota.

The departure signals the end of an era for Culver. The town of 1,119 residents will lose about 200 living-wage jobs – most Seaswirl hourly workers make $10 to $16 per hour – and thousands of dollars in tax revenues. Seaswirl has been in Culver since 1972.

Culver residents and business owners, however, say the plant’s closing won’t hurt the town because most Seaswirl employees commuted from other areas, and Central Oregon’s population growth is bringing new commerce to Culver.

Instead, the changes are more emotional with the closing of a town icon.

”There’s just a sadness to it,” said Charles May, owner of the Culver Market, another 30-year-old landmark in the small town.

But business will be fine, said his employee, Debbie Nickel.

”People will always come in to get beer and cigarettes,” she said.

And in the long run, both Nickel and May expect another large employer will move into Seaswirl’s plant. Companies from around the country already have inquired about the site, city officials say.

Shipping out

Heinonen is one of only six Seaswirl employees who were initially interested in the boat manufacturer’s offer to relocate to Minnesota – the other interested employees decided not to go – leaving the remaining 170 employees to find other work in Central Oregon. Thirty employees already have left for other jobs after learning of the plant closure two months ago.

”The changes weren’t so bad at first, when they were (reorganizing) the company,” eight-year maintenance worker Don Milliron, 30, said of the company’s November announcement that some production was moving to the East Coast and that nine jobs would be cut.

”But once we heard about this (in February), it was a bummer,” Milliron continued. ”I think people are trying to look at the positive side of it, though.”

Seaswirl officials say the closing is a cost-saving move driven by a nationwide slowdown in the boat industry, as home equities have dropped and consumers have less money to spend on luxury items like Seaswirl watercraft. Additionally, officials say most Seaswirl customers are on the East Coast.

On Wednesday, Milliron joined his remaining co-workers for a picture around the last Seaswirl boat coming off the assembly line: a 23-foot Walk Around Striper. Employees smiled for the camera, some giving their peers bunny-ears and others lounging on the large white boat behind them that will retail for upward of $50,000.

Behind the smiles, however, some workers are worried about their future. Many have worked with the company for decades and most are supporting families. And with 200 layoffs at nearby manufacturing companies in Central Oregon, including Bright Wood Corp. and Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp., some workers worry they are entering a competitive market for living-wage jobs.

Culver resident Donna Horyn, 51, has worked at Seaswirl for 18 years. Her last day is April 27 and she doesn’t know where she’ll end up.

”It’s very scary because I haven’t been in the job market for 18 years,” said Horyn, who has worked hanging canvas and attaching hardware. ”I don’t even remember how to interview – but that’s what the classes can help with.”

Horyn has been taking classes to learn how to become a more employable person. She’s learning more computer programs and administrative skills and is taking typing classes.

Moving to Minnesota was out of the question.

”This is my home,” she said. ”I graduated from Culver High School and was born in Prineville. This is where I want to stay.”

Closing shop

Seaswirl has been making 18- to 26-foot saltwater fishing boats in rural Culver since 1972. The company has been the town’s largest employer and was Central Oregon’s 23rd-largest employer in 2006 with 253 workers, according to Economic Development for Central Oregon.

The company produced 12 boats per day at its peak production in 2005, said Randy Stutzman, Seaswirl’s vice president of finance and administration.

Since February, the plant has been slowly closing down operations after Seaswirl’s parent company, Genmar Holdings Inc., announced it was closing the Culver site and moving operations to a Genmar facility in Little Falls. Genmar acquired Seaswirl in 2001 from Outboard Marine Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2000.

Seaswirl’s manufacturing plant is nearly empty now, with a few boat parts piled here and there. A strong resin smell permeates the main manufacturing buildings, where employees put finishing touches on the boats Wednesday.

Manufacturing of two models already has been transferred to plants in California, and the manufacturing of 12 models will be transferred from Culver to Minnesota, Stutzman said.

For employees not moving to Little Falls, most won’t get severance packages, Stutzman said. The 20 to 24 salaried employees were offered a severance package, Stutzman said, though he did not know the details.

Most of the 140 jobs will end April 27, he said, with three remaining until June.

A small town moves on

In Jefferson County, Seaswirl’s closing, coupled with Bright Wood Corp.’s 140-person layoff earlier this year, will amount to about 310 jobs lost in Madras and Culver.

Some laid-off Seaswirl employees say they’ll look for work at Madras’ Deer Ridge Correctional Institution, which is in the process of hiring for 400 to 500 positions – many of which have been filled – at its minimum- and medium-security facilities. The minimum-security prison is expected to open in September, employing 150 people. The medium-security prison will open in February and take the remaining employees.

Others, like Horyn, are getting retrained for a different industry.

City and employment officials are trying to help the laid-off workers get new jobs, Culver Mayor Daniel Harnden said.

Harnden was part of Seaswirl’s first wave of layoffs in November. He says the plant’s closure will account for a loss of $31,000 per year in lost inventory taxes.

”For a small community, that’s pretty big,” he said.

Seaswirl’s 40-acre property already has drawn some bidders, he added. Some companies had been trying to relocate to Culver before Seaswirl announced its closure, he said, and the city had to turn them down because it didn’t have industrial space available. Now, that’s changed.

Earth2O, which bottles water next to the Seaswirl facility, is buying one of Seaswirl’s buildings, Seaswirl officials said, to use for bottling and storage.

For the rest of the facility, Harnden hopes to attract an employer that will boost industry in town. He said a California company is one of the interested parties and would bring 200 jobs to the region. Other smaller companies would employ 15 to 35 people, he added.

Otherwise, Harnden doesn’t believe Seaswirl’s closing will hurt Culver’s community or businesses.

Beetle Bailey Burgers owner Carolyn Baggett agrees, saying the community’s support will help the town bounce back from any loss it endures.

She bought Prineville’s historic Tastee Treet in 1995. In 1996, many of Central Oregon’s wood mills started closing, she said.

”I thought I was sunk,” Baggett said. ”But things went well.”

She believes the same will be true for her burger joint.

Back at the Seaswirl main office, 20-year accounting employee Jackie Finley watered a sprawling office plant. The office’s numerous plants are some of the only items not boxed up for Minnesota. Finley doesn’t know where she’ll go when the office shuts its doors. She’s confident she’ll find work somewhere, maybe at the new prison.

But she’s more worried about the plants.

”They’re my babies,” she said.

SEASWIRL HISTORY

1955 Founded in Canby

1972 Moves to Culver

1987 Owner Bob Trent sells business to Outboard Marine Corp.

2000 Seaswirl closes following Outboard’s bankruptcy filing; the parent company looks for a new buyer

2001 Minneapolis-based Genmar Holdings Inc. purchases Seaswirl

November Nine jobs cut, some production relocated

February Seaswirl announces all operations will move to Little Falls, Minn.

April Seaswirl packs up