February 1997 as an 18 year old father I took a job at Celotex. The location I worked at was a shingle mill. We made ton’s of shingles, from your basic 3-Tab shingle to the elite ‘Presidential Shake’ shingle. We put out a lot… of garbage. Really it shocks me to think about how much trash we put out the door that later came back to us.
It was a union shop. I was actually a union steward for a period. At times we had 150+ people working there during my 3 years stint at that location. At other times it employed thousands of people. But this thing happened, creative destruction. Celotex did not adapt, companies like Owens Corning did. The end result was that Celotex went out of business. I quit six months before the location I was at went out of business for good, because I saw it coming and at that time I had a couple babies to take care of with one on the way.
Creative destruction is really the corner stone of capitalism. You have to let things die, companies are not immortal. There is no reason why Ford, GM, Chrysler, and AIG should be considered to big to fail. Why?
Below are some pictures I took today while driving past what used to be Celotex. A place that used to employ thousands. Now was just a bulldozed field.
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[Initially Written 3.4.2009]