Grays Harbor Paper: 1993–2011

Grays Har­bor Paper, which has for years sup­plied the Harbor/100 paper that we at NPI use for our every­day print­ing needs, announced yes­ter­day that it is shut­ting its doors per­ma­nent­ly and lay­ing off two hun­dred and forty peo­ple in the process.

GHP’s pres­i­dent, Patrick Quigg, released a state­ment attribut­ing the shut­down to the fol­low­ing major factors:

• The con­tin­ued high price of raw materials;
• Low­er than expect­ed sales of high-val­ue products,
• Accom­pa­ny­ing cash flow considerations

“A recent major refi­nanc­ing effort under­tak­en by GHP did not mate­ri­al­ize,” the state­ment adds, lament­ing the deci­sion to shut down.

“I want to acknowl­edge the con­tin­ued sup­port of the stake­hold­ers in our com­mu­ni­ty and the indus­try, espe­cial­ly our loy­al employ­ees, with­out whom we would not have made it this far,” said Quigg.

GHP’s shut­down will be adverse­ly felt in Grays Har­bor and Hoquaim, where it was based. The mill con­tributed to an esti­mat­ed eight per­cent of the City of Hoquiam’s gen­er­al fund, and was one of the area’s most impor­tant employers.

GHP’s sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices won it numer­ous acco­lades over the years, as well as a loy­al fol­low­ing. The com­pa­ny sum­ma­rized the way it did busi­ness on its web­sites and its car­tons with a sim­ple, catchy allit­er­a­tion: Peo­ple, paper, plan­et.

As the Asso­ci­at­ed Press not­ed in its sto­ry about the clo­sure:

Grays Har­bor Paper was fre­quent­ly cit­ed in doc­u­men­taries, tele­vi­sion shows and nation­al con­fer­ences about “green” indus­tries that worked. It pro­vid­ed recy­cled paper to Nike, the City of Seat­tle, Microsoft, REI, the World Bank and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions. In 2009, the Leg­is­la­ture passed a bill requir­ing sev­er­al state agen­cies to use at least 30 per­cent recy­cled papers; Grays Har­bor Paper won most of those contracts.

Quigg says he is will­ing to sell GHP’s assets, includ­ing the entire plant, to an investor who would be will­ing to restart operations.

We hope some­body steps for­ward to revive the com­pa­ny. We’d like to see Grays Har­bor Paper endure, and be able to look back at yes­ter­day’s news and say it was only a set­back, rather the end, for a great envi­ron­men­tal­ly-focused Wash­ing­ton com­pa­ny and its ded­i­cat­ed employees.