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Planting a new life

Former Maytag workers find hope in RLC's horticulture program

By Tara Fasol, The Southern

Monday, May 5, 2008 10:53 PM CDT

INA - With 137 combined years of employment, five displaced workers from the former Maytag plant in Herrin were forced to find new careers when the doors closed in December 2006. They chose to plant a new life by taking classes at Rend Lake College.

The Herrin factory had begun as a Norge plant; Maytag later purchased the company and continued to manufacture appliances there. When Whirlpool purchased Maytag, it opted to close the Herrin plant.

Richard Allen dedicated 37 years as a Maytag employee. Cheryl Vinson worked the assembly line for 33 years. Mike Wade and David Barnard trailed only slightly with 28 years each. Angela Bird joined three generations of family members as a Maytag employee and invested 11 years in the company. Barnard lives in Freeman Spur; the other four are Herrin residents.

On May 10, 2006, all five received the news they were without a job, without health insurance, and without any ideas of what the future would hold.

"They shut the production down," Barnard said. "They made an announcement and they sent us home."

Bird and Barnard both said they had heard rumors of the plant closing and others about it being bought out by a larger company.

"There were rumors," Bird explained. "But nobody believed it until that morning."

As hundreds of displaced Southern Illinois residents began the grueling search for new employment in an already distressed economy, five chose to turn a hobby into a career.

Bird and Barnard, who had become friends, signed up for the horticulture program at Rend Lake College and were quickly joined by Vinson.

To their surprise and pleasure, they bumped into Wade and Allen, who also signed up for the same courses through a dislocated workers' program offered by Man-Tra-Con Corp.

"We all picked horticulture because it is outside and working with plants and I think we all enjoyed that," Vinson said. "I chose it so I could be outside instead of inside and in a plant, where I had been for 33 years."

Bird said she had been enrolled in a dental assistant program before accepting a job at Maytag. She dropped out of that program when her employment started. She said she looked into nursing after the displacement but couldn't get into the program because of the waiting list. That's when she turned to horticulture.

Allen said he spent one entire year just looking for employment, which he never found.

"We all stripped a lot of gears trying to get in another mode of action," Vinson said.

Wade said the fast pace of keeping up with factory work was hard to let go of for the more relaxed environment of the greenhouse.

"I was scared to death the first day, but I love it," Bird said. "My biggest thing is just getting to wake my mind up. On the assembly line, you had to zone out."

Barnard said he feels there is a reason for everything that happens and is happy his negative circumstances led to a future career in something he already enjoyed.

"We are known on the campus," he laughed. "We cut flowers and bring them to the instructors."

As the group sat in the greenhouse on the Ina campus during a plant sale, they talked about their plans for the future. Although each one came to the horticulture program from the same factory, they will soon spread their wings and branch out into careers that fit their own unique personalities.

"I want to go into landscaping," Barnard said.

"I want to do a greenhouse business," Wade added.

Allen said he is interested in testing soil and Bird said she is still undecided.

"I want to raise my own produce and take them to the farmer's markets and just be independent," Vinson said.

In December, four of the five will graduate. Because he got a late start in the program, Allen will graduate next May.

"It's about the worst time of the year for us to find a job," Wade said. "The job search will start really quick."

The funding through the dislocated workers' program runs out at the same time as the crew graduates, so all five will be seeking jobs.

"Having already known these guys and us going to school and being united has really helped us all get through this," Wade said. "There's always somebody there to help you."

tara.fasol@thesouthern.com / 351-5824