This article appeared in The Parkersburg News on Sunday, August 19, 2007

Former Fenton workers worried

By CONNIE CARTMELL

MARIETTAWhen retired glassware decorator and painter Diane Gessel thinks of her friends still working at Fenton Art Glass Co., she is concerned and worried for them.

"It's sad, just so sad," Gessel said of Fenton's closure announced last week. "Whole families were hired over there. What are these people going to do?"

She is worried about employees who still work in her old department. Gessel, 64, who retired in 2003, started decorating glass at Fenton in 1972.

"There are some girls there who are self-supporting," she said. "There is a girl whose husband passed away last year. She's been a decorator for years. What will she do? Where will she go?"

Gessel said years ago, when things were good at Fenton, she sometimes worried about what she would do if she ever lost her job.

"I used to say, 'I can't lose my job because I don't know anything else,'" she said. "I was not trained in anything else."

For dozens of skilled glassworkers who will certainly lose jobs when Fenton closes down operations, there may be no other comparable jobs.

"Over the years I've seen other glass houses go out of business," said Jim Stage, who worked at Fenton from 1967 to 1985. "It worries me. Even if Fenton comes back, if the skilled workers leave, jobs are lost. It takes years to learn those skills."

Stage, who is now co-owner of Williamstown Antique Mall, one of the region's largest Fenton dealers, is not optimistic that the company will pull out of its nose dive. His shop's inventory is 70 percent vintage Fenton, he said.

He's watched over the past year as news from Fenton only got worse.

"In the 1970s, Fenton was big," he said. "We probably had close to 300 or 400 employees. We had 24 shops (departments) operating at one time. When I left, there were seven or eight shops and now it's down to two shops."

The U.S. economy hurt Fenton, along with the cost of raw materials, especially natural gas, Stage said.

Gessel said she never expected the plant to close entirely. She had been in contact with Fenton family members in recent months and asked what was going on.

"I was told it wasn't looking good," she said. "I live right across the street. It's bad living here and watching it day in and day out. The parking lot is empty."

She and her family moved across the street from the plant because it was more convenient to be close by when she was raising her three children.

"I never needed a babysitter," she said with a laugh. "The whole finishing department watched out for them, telling me about every person who went in or out."

There were the elaborate Christmas parties for workers and their families every year, when all the Fenton family would attend and many employees would wear long, fancy dresses.

Gessel remembers the good times.

"It started changing maybe 15 or 20 years ago," she said.

She is still upset that Fenton seems on a pathway to closing its doors for good.

"I hate it," Gessel said. "It's been a big part of my life. When I heard, it was like someone ripped the rug from under me."

Carnick Hamperian, 83, also of Williamstown, retired from Fenton 19 years ago and was an employee for 30 years.

"I was supervisor in the mold shop. It was a good place to work," he said.

Over three decades, the company grew and prospered, he said.

"Frank and Bill (Fenton) were excellent bosses. It was a family place," he said.

Sad and nostalgic is how Hamperian views his association with Fenton today. He visited his old mold shop Monday. Of 10 employees who had worked there, only a single worker is left that he hired. That worker will keep his job until they shut the plant down, Hamperian said.