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Historical Profile: Alfond’s pockets deep, more than likely open
By CHRIS CHURCHILL
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 11/16/2007

This story was originally published 4/10/05 in the Kennebec Journal.

Most Mainers know his name. It is, after all, etched into buildings from Orono to Biddeford and beyond. And it's hard to watch the sports segment of the evening news without hearing it.

Yet Harold Alfond's face is rarely on television. He's seldom quoted in newspapers.

If he walked into a crowded restaurant, he might not be recognized. It's likely most Mainers would not know the face belonging to one of the the state's wealthiest — and most generous — residents.

The part-time Belgrade resident apparently likes it that way. He makes few official public appearances. He almost never talks to the media. He didn't return repeated phone calls for this story.

Still, Alfond is hardly a recluse. He has a wide network of friends, including some of the state's and nation's most influential people. And his friends describe him in glowing terms. They say he's an icon. An American original. A living legend.

"He's a great human being," said Larry Mahaney, head of Webber Oil and Alfond's next-door neighbor in Palm Beach, Fla.

"There are few people in your life who are difference makers," said Jack Deering, an Alfond friend from Falmouth. "He's one of them."

Alfond spent a good part of his life building a business, Dexter Shoe, and amassed a staggering fortune estimated at well over $1 billion.

He's spent just as much of his life giving away that fortune, bit by bit.

The Harold Alfond Foundation, established in 1950, has disbursed more than $100 million. Much of that money has benefited central Maine, especially Waterville, the city where Alfond lived for many years and where his loyalty still lies, according to friends.

Drive around the city and you'll see the difference his money has made.

On North Street, children play at the Alfond Youth Center and swim in the Alfond Municipal Pool.

At Colby College, students live in Alfond dormitories and exercise in the Alfond Athletic Center.

At MaineGeneral Medical Center, cancer patients are treated in a radiation therapy center he backed.

"He's been wonderful for the Waterville area," said Mary Derosier, president of the United Way of Mid-Maine. "But he's been wonderful for the whole state."

The giving continues: Alfond recently offered $1.5 million to a Thomas College athletic center. He is also backing the proposed regional cancer center MaineGeneral Medical Center hopes to build in north Augusta with $5 million of his own cash.

FROM AWAY

Despite his loyalty and generosity to Maine, Alfond is not native. He's from Massachusetts.

One of six children born in 1914 to Russian immigrant parents, he grew up in Swampscott, an affluent seaside town about 20 miles north of Boston. Alfond went to high school there and loved sports, playing basketball, baseball and football.

Part of the Horatio Alger-like legend surrounding Alfond says he rose in the business world despite not getting a chance to attend college. In truth, he earned an athletic scholarship to Dartmouth College.

He turned it down. He went to New Hampshire, but not to school. He followed in his father's footsteps into the shoe industry, working in a Derry, N.H., factory.

"I missed being a college man," Alfond once told the Portland Press-Herald. "My advice is to get a college education no matter what the cost. In my day, you could get along without it. Not today."

Alfond migrated north, coming to Maine to work with his father at Kesslen Shoe Co. in Kennebunk.

At the time, northern New England was the heart of the North American shoe industry. Shoe shops hummed in nearly every city built along a river, employing thousands.

IF THE SHOE FITS

In 1940, Alfond was just six years out of high school.

According to legend, he picked up a hitchhiker who told him about a vacant shoe factory for sale in Norridgewock. Alfond mentioned the building to his father, who dug into his savings to purchase the factory for $1,000.

Together, they founded Norrwock Shoe Co.

A mere three years later, with his father in poor health, Alfond sold the shoe company for $1.1 million. The agreement ensured he would stay on as the company's president, a position he held for 25 years.

That same year, 1943, he married Dorothy "Bibby" Levine, daughter of a prominent Waterville family. Together, they would raise four children in central Maine: Ted, Susan, Bill and Peter.

Alfond was an affluent man before he was 25. His next venture, however, would put him among the nation's wealthiest businessmen.

Encouraged by Maine's two U.S. senators, Owen Brewster and Margaret Chase Smith, who wanted to bring economic development to a struggling central Maine town, Alfond bought a vacant mill in Dexter.

In 1957, aided by tax breaks, Dexter Shoe Co. was born.

The company would sell more than 100 million shoes and transform the shoe business, reshaping much of central Maine along the way.

NOBODY TOLD HIM HE'S RICH

Alfond usually is described as affable and unpretentious. A rich guy who acts like an average Joe.

Newspaper articles note the holes in his shoes. Friends describe him as humble and modest. In pictures, his clothing is often rumpled, and he's usually wearing a pullover sweater — not a coat and tie.

His bald head reflects light and his shoulders slump slightly forward. His mouth forms a half-moon smile.

He looks into the camera like he's just finished telling the photographer a particularly funny joke.

"He's a very uncomplicated person," said Mahaney, the Webber Oil owner, who talks to Alfond nearly every day. "He's rich, but nobody told him."

He's good, easygoing company, friends say. But almost any mention of Alfond includes a mention of another side of his personality: a fierce competitiveness.

Whatever game he's playing, Alfond wants to win.

That seems especially true on the golf course. Ask for a memorable Alfond anecdote and friends — who have nicknamed him "the commander" — unfailingly remember an afternoon on a golf course.

Colby College President Hank "Bro" Adams remembers the first time he played with Alfond. He could tell Alfond was checking out his game, trying to determine what kind of competition he would present.

On the first tee, Adams bogeyed. Alfond made par.

According to Adams, Alfond turned to him with a mischievous smile and said, "'You want to play for money?' "

And when Alfond plays a game for money, friends say, he almost always wins — a fact as true in the business world as it is on the golf course.

"If you get into a putting contest with him," said friend Deering, "you'd better watch your dollar."

But if Alfond wins the money, he'll likely give it away. Friends joke that he fights like a dog to win one dollar, then donates $5 million a day later.

Friends also say Alfond is humble about his generosity. But they say the philanthropist is not generally shy — despite his reticence with the media and desire for a low profile.

Even in front of the cameras, he has his moments.

At a recent press conference announcing MaineGeneral's intent to build a $30 million cancer-treatment center — and a $5 million Alfond Foundation gift toward its construction — the day's hero surprised the crowd by scrambling to the podium and launching into a rousing, impromptu news conference.

"This isn't just going to be the best (cancer center) in Maine," he rasped into a microphone, with words that again revealed his competitiveness. "This is going to be the best in New England!"

BITTER FEELINGS

Alfond donations such as the one to MaineGeneral always bring favorable publicity — and rightfully so.

But whenever there's an announcement of his generosity, or another glowing television report, there is also grumbling from people who say they knew a different Harold Alfond.

There are many who knew him as a hard-driving boss. People who worked in his factories.

So if Alfond is now considered Maine's very own Santa Claus, there are a raft of former employees who still — years after they left shoe shops behind — consider him a real-life Scrooge.

"Sweat shops," said Royce Libby of Skowhegan, referring to the Alfond-led factories where he worked for 20 years. "That's the only way I can describe it."

Libby and others remember grueling days of hard labor that paid poorly and offered few benefits. They remember longtime workers fired for arriving a few minutes late. They remember unsympathetic foremen who pushed workers beyond their limits.

Workers remember Alfond as a boss who would visit the factories sporadically. Once there, he'd sometimes gather employees around, exhorting them to work harder in the face of foreign competition.

It's unclear if Alfond's factories were harder places to work than others during a time of heavy industry. It's equally unclear if it was Alfond's desire to compete and win that led him to push his workers.

But it is clear that hard feelings toward Alfond linger in some parts of central Maine.

Alice White, 63, of Clinton once worked in a Norrwock Shoe factory.

She was 17 and recently married when she went to work there.

"Was it a good place to work?" she said. "No. We worked like hell."

White jokes that everyone should have a chance to work in an Alfond-run factory, because the experience creates an appreciation for every other workplace.

But White was serious when she said many of Alfond's workers led tough lives. They worked hard to support their families. They did the best they could. And, White said, they could have used even a miniscule bit of the generosity Alfond now is so famous for.

SHREWD BUSINESSMAN

Dexter Shoe started small. But it got very, very big.

By the time Alfond sold the company in 1993 to the legendary billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Alfond and his nephew, Peter Lunder, had built the company into a behemoth producing 30,000 shoes a day — a success made all the more remarkable because it came as the domestic shoe industry was in sharp decline.

By most accounts, Alfond and Lunder built the company by investing in technology, keeping debt low and being innovative.

Some credit Dexter Shoe with inventing the factory outlet store. Alfond apparently noticed people would buy slightly imperfect shoes, so he opened a store in Dexter that sold them.

The outlets were a hit, but the factories weren't making enough imperfect shoes. So Alfond started selling "stale inventory" at the store, making a profit on shoes that weren't selling in department stores.

Dexter's log-cabin-style stores became ubiquitous across New England's landscape, numbering 80 at the time of the company's sale.

Other shoe companies moved operations abroad, but Dexter bucked that trend and continued to make much of its product domestically. When Alfond agreed to sell to Buffett, according to an article in Forbes magazine, it had four factories in Maine, employing 2,400 in state and another 1,500 in Puerto Rico.

Alfond had rebuffed other offers, but listened to offers from Buffet, an investor legendary for his business acumen. The Nebraskan is considered the world's wealthiest man.

Buffett offered cash, but Alfond told him he would only take stock in Buffett's mammoth holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

It was an arrangement Buffett had never accepted before, but agreed to this time.

He gave Alfond 2 percent of his firm's shares, which then had a value $420 million.

That stock today has an estimated value of about $2.1 billion, although it's unclear whether Alfond still owns all the shares.

"What they did, in effect, was trade a 100 percent interest in a single terrific business for a smaller interest in a large group of terrific businesses," Buffett wrote in a 1993 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders.

"They incurred no tax on this exchange and now own a security that can be easily used for charitable or personal gifts."

FOUNDATION OF GENEROSITY

That fortune forms the lifeblood of The Harold Alfond Foundation.

With offices in Portland, the foundation relies on a $25 million fund that Alfond replenishes when necessary. And its choices on what projects receive money still depend on the impulses of just one man.

"There are only two active trustees," said Greg Powell, who manages the foundation. "There's him and there's me. And only his vote counts."

Alfond tends to support athletic facilities because he has always loved sports. He has a soft spot for academic buildings and hospitals, too — especially if they're in Maine.

But he does not have a soft spot for wasting money. Powell and others credit Alfond for bringing a corporate mindset to the charitable world.

The foundation's donations almost always come as matching grants, meaning the money comes only when the charity has raised an equal amount of money. There's no free ride.

"It builds the donor base of a charity," Powell said. "So that, in the future, there's a whole group of people involved in the organization and there to support it."

Getting Alfond money is like an honor in itself. Because of the thousand or so requests he receives every month, Alfond chooses only organizations that are well run and have an important mission.

"To him, picking a charity is like picking a stock," Powell said. "He's applied business principles to his giving."

But if an institution receiving money expects Alfond to fade into the background after the money is raised, they're in for a surprise. He stays involved until the building is occupied. Even then, he might make a few visits.

"You work with him on a project," said William Cotter, one of four Colby College presidents to work with Alfond. "You don't just present it to him."

Alfond doesn't require that his name adorn the buildings he helps fund. But Powell and others said it's an honor Alfond is thrilled to receive.

He wants to be remembered, they said, and wants to leave a lasting legacy.

That legacy includes the foundation itself. Though he declined to discuss specifics, Powell said The Alfond Foundation is set up to exist — and give — well beyond the life of its 91-year-old founder.

But the funding process will by necessity become more formal, and foundation recipients won't receive lasting lessons from Alfond.

Former state Treasurer Sam Shapiro remembers a campaign he chaired for a Waterville synagogue many years ago. He approached all of its members, including Alfond, whom he asked to donate the modest sum of a few thousand dollars.

"Kid, I'm going to teach you a lesson," Alfond said. "You never get more than you ask for. You could have gotten a lot more from me."

SHUTTERED FACTORIES

Less than 10 years after Alfond sold to Buffett, the Dexter Shoe factories that employed so many were closed. As with much of New England's manufacturing, the factories migrated overseas where labor is cheaper.

"I think it was a heartbreaking experience for Mr. Alfond to see the company lose its footing in Maine," Powell said. "I don't think he could have brought himself to do it."

Just outside Boston sits a red-brick, four-story building. Across the building's front, large gold letters spell out: "Harold Alfond Center."

This is the home of the Two-Ten Foundation, an organization that provides counseling and financial support — including a large college scholarship program — to shoeworkers left behind by the industry's departure.

Alfond has given that foundation more than $2 million.

"He's been one of the most wonderful donors," said Peggy Kim Meill, the foundation's president, from her office in Waltham, Mass. "If the world had more Harold Alfonds, it would be much more compassionate."

Dexter Shoe's impact in Maine has diminished, but the impact of its founder will last.

At the University of New England campus in Biddeford, future doctors attending the state's only medical school attend classes in the Harold Alfond Center for Health Science.

At the University of Maine at Orono, hockey fans cheer in the Harold Alfond Sports Arena and football fans roar in the Harold Alfond Sports Stadium.

At the Goodwill-Hinckley School for Boys and Girls in Fairfield, hard-luck kids study in the Alfond Middle School and play in the Alfond Recreation Center.

The list could — and does — go on and on . . . and on.

Chris Churchill — 623-3811, ext. 431 cchurchill@centralmaine.com

ABOUT HAROLD ALFOND

Born 1914 and one of six children of Russian immigrants, Harold Alfond grew up in Swampscott, Mass. He turned down an athletic scholarship to Dartmouth, instead following his father in shoe industry.

In 1940, legend says, he learned from a hitchhiker about a vacant shoe factory for sale in Norridgewock. With his father's help, he purchased the factory for $1,000. Three years later, he sold it for $1.1 million, while staying on as company president.

Also in 1943, Alfond married Doroty "Bibby" Levine, with whom he would raise four children.

In 1957, Dexter Shoe Co. is born. It would grow to include at least 80 log-cabin style stores across New England and produce 30,000 shoes a day.

In 1993, Alfond sold the company to Warren Buffett — not for cash, but for stock in Buffett's much-desired holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. The stock was valued then at $420 million — and now likely well in excess of $1 billion.

Today, Alfond is Maine's largest benefactor, giving through his foundation millions to fund athletic facilities, schools, hospitals and other charities.

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France Ashenfelter of Winthrop, ME
Nov 17, 2007 12:31 AM
What an amazing and selfless man. My husband was fortunate enough to know him well. Our most sincere condolences to the entire Alfond family. May the happy memories you hold dear help to ease your sorrow.report abuse

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