041111 Perdue Farms Facility Shuts Doors

Showell, MD - Big changes are coming for Herb Brown following the closure of the Perdue Farms poultry processing plant in Showell.

"Don't get too fat, now," his co-worker Barbara Cuffee chided him. Brown, 63, just laughed.

"I'm doing something I never did before," Brown said. "I've never retired before."

Perdue announced the closure in September. The company purchased the facility nine years ago, but in recent years had relied heavily on other Delmarva plants to offset profit losses.

The plant was the workplace for 326 employees. Perdue offered all of them jobs at other company-owned sites in Delmarva, said Perdue spokesman Joe Forsthoffer.

About 150 will report to the Salisbury processing plant, Forsthoffer said, while 87 head to Georgetown. A few took jobs at other sites in Delaware and Virginia, while eight were assigned to the Innovation Center at the Salisbury headquarters, he said.

"You pretty much have production people going to production jobs," Forsthoffer said. "They're not just going to knock on the door and say: 'Hi, I'm here from Showell. What am I supposed to do?' "

He said the company will also offer shuttle bus service to take employees to their new workplaces. Some others, like Brown, opted to retire. About a dozen employees -- four percent of the plant's work force -- aren't retiring but declined to take another job with Perdue, Forsthoffer said.

"Yes, a plant is shutting down. But jobs aren't going away," he said.

Brian Veditz, director of the Lower Shore Job Service, said his office had only seen a few Perdue employees in the weeks before the closing.

"More may come in next week," he said. "We didn't expect large numbers to decline jobs with the company."

Chickens brought to the Lower Shore what automobiles brought to Detroit -- job tenures measured in decades, not months or years. Brown had worked in the poultry business since 1960, starting with a Golden Pride plant in Stockton when he was 19.

"That's where I was born, and that's where I still am," he said. "I was putting chickens in a box and sending them to people."

On Nov. 9, 1979, he said, he walked into his first day of work at Showell Farms. When Perdue bought the facility in 1995, he stayed. By 2004, Brown had moved from the packing department to the ice house to preparing rotisserie birds.

Brown, along with some other employees, will remain at the Showell plant for about two weeks, dismantling equipment.

Equipment bound for Salisbury will be up and running, Forsthoffer said. The last processed birds, he said, will be gone and a small security and maintenance staff will remain.

"Come Monday, when you go by there, there will be no sign of the plant operating," he said. Brown said he couldn't begin to guess how many birds have passed through his hands after 44 years in the business.

"If I had a nickel, just a nickel for every one, I could go to Hawaii for the rest of my life," Brown said.

Since those nickels can't be found, Brown says he'll spend time with his already- retired brother, gardening and helping out at Mount Hope Baptist Church in Stockton, where he is a deacon.

Cuffee, who ribbed Brown about his retirement, said she's heading to the Georgetown plant after 29 years in Showell.

"I think everybody needs a change sometimes," she said.

Julia Charles, bound for Salisbury's Innovation Center after 27 years at the Worcester County plant, said it's a relief that some employees will be able to stick together at new sites.

"It's not just one person, going by yourself," she said.

At 12:30 Friday afternoon, the plant's shift ended early, and the parking lot was emptier than it was an hour before. The administrative building felt like a principal's office on the last day of school.

Brown, after one last lingering moment outside the plant's gates, walked away with a promise in mind.

"I'm not going to be bored in retirement," he pledged.

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