Dennis Barker: from factories to farming

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WORKIN' MAN — Dennis Barker stands in front of his 1970 Dodge one-ton truck. Barker and his wife Jan own Hemingway Orchards in Hebron, as well as a forestry service. In addition, Barker manages global operations for GLV Inc., a pulp and paper equipment company.

HEBRON — Dennis Barker is a busy guy.

His current position as global project manager for GLV Inc., a pulp and paper equipment company, keeps him away from home most of the week and even requires international travel – he'll soon visit Shanghai, China and Pune, India to inspect factories.

But back at home, Barker has equally pressing responsibilities – there are 50 acres of apple orchard to manage with his wife, Jan, a tree service he owns as a licenses arborist and a massive barn to finish building.

It's a wealth of activity that might overwhelm other people, but Barker seems to take it in stride.

On a recent morning at his home in Hebron, Barker explained he and Jan moved back to Maine in 2006 after working as a Exxon-Mobile lubrication engineer for six years.

The job required that he travel to different factories across New York that had machinery failure related to lubrication.

"Usually when I got called in, things would be in pieces," he laughs –  it was his job to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

He was recruited by Exxon-Mobile after installing a centralized oil system – the first sold outside of Finland – in 1999 at the Vermont paper mill where he was working.

"No one had ever seen one," he says.

"They were going to unveil it at a pulp and paper show in Atlanta ... I found out about before ... and had it all installed and running a month before it was unveiled."

In 2006, he and Jan sold their other properties and bought the apple orchard.

Barker says no one had maintained the orchard for six years – when a fruit tree expert from the state visited the orchard, she recommended cutting the trees down and starting over.

Dennis and Jan decided to do what they could, despite the fact they didn't even own a tractor. Their persistence paid off that year and every year since.

"We had a great crop the first year, this year is probably going to be the best crop we've ever had," Barker says.

Luckily, the couple now have no shortage of tractors – there are at least five Kubotas sitting in the enormous barn they are building at the orchard.

At GLV, Barker manages equipment orders from pulp and paper manufacturers. He manages manufacturing and procurement across the globe, from Canada to Spain to China. 

Sometimes, that requires international travel to inspect progress, effectiveness and quality.

Luckily, international travel is nothing new to Barker.

He says that when he spent time in the Merchant Marines, he traveled across the world, from South America to Africa, Europe and Asia.

Still, that was more than 30 years ago – he acknowledges things have changed quite a bit.

"Since I've been to India, they've changed all the [city] names back to Indian names," he says. "I've been to Bombay, now it's Mumbai."

Despite his apparently hectic schedule, Barker says he doesn't have any plans to slow down – after all, he's not even 50.

"It's difficult to shut things down," he admits.