8
business
january10
2012
Dennis Nelson Retires as Local Electrician
Dennis Nelson, owner of Dennis
Electric, Inc. has retired from electrical
work after serving the Vernonia region
for over twenty-five years.
Nelson, who turned sixty years
old this past year, cites a very slow econ-
omy as one of the main reasons for his
retirement. “It has always been difficult
making a living as a small town electri-
cian,” says Nelson. “We have too many
miles between customers and not enough
people to service. And the collapse of
the economy has just made it that much
more difficult. We are just not getting
enough work.”
Nelson describes it another way:
“We have priced ourselves out of our
market-- no one can afford to hire us,
and we are not charging enough to cover
our costs, so it’s a double bind.”
He also notes that the lack of
any new home construction in the region
has really hampered his business.
Nelson recently attended a re-
tirement seminar that he was invited to
as a member of his electrical workers
union. At that seminar, Nelson learned
that he was eligible to begin drawing
from his union retirement which made
financial sense in these tough econom-
ic times, rather than continuing to fight
what Nelson describes as an “upstream
battle” to keep his business solvent.
Shutting down his business was
a hard decision for Nelson. “We felt like
we needed to continue to serve the com-
munity where we lived, working for the
people we know—our neighbors and our
friends. That’s why we did what we did
for as long as we did. I sort of feel like
I’m abandoning my post
in some sense.”
Nelson began
doing electrical work
during the summers as
a youth. He helped his
father who worked in
Clatskanie and Rainier
for another electri-
cian. When he gradu-
ated from high school,
Nelson enrolled in an
electrical apprentice-
ship program, which he
completed in four years.
He spent two of those
years gaining large project experience
working on the Trojan Nuclear power
plant, which he described as a great
opportunity to learn. “It was a radical
change going from a three man electri-
cal shop where we wired houses, to a
huge project that was probably one of
the largest construction projects in the
world,” explains Nelson. “It provided
quite an education and was a very inter-
esting experience.”
After graduating from the ap-
prenticeship program in 1974 Nelson
worked locally on some other large area
projects including work at the Longview
Weyerhaeuser mill and at the Beaver
Army Dump near Clatskanie. While
working at those projects, Nelson, says
he met what were called “tramps” or
“travelers” in the electrical field, work-
ers who moved around the country from
big job to big job. “As a member of the
Union, I found out you could call up any
Union Hall in the country and find out if
they had work and go there and be sent
out on jobs,” says Nelson. “At that time
there were nuclear plants and coal fired
power plants being built all around the
country and I had that experience, so I
worked on two or three of those and had
a chance to car-camp and see the country
that way.”
Nelson learned that he didn’t re-
ally like working on those types of re-
ally large electrical projects. He became
interested in logging and his ancestors
involvement in that industry and
he started visiting friends he knew
in Vernonia. He met up with John
Ragsdale, a local timber faller,
and Nelson spent the next seven
years working in the woods.
Nelson’s father, also named
Dennis, had started his own elec-
trician company, “Dennis Elec-
tric.” Dennis senior passed away
suddenly when Nelson was in
his mid-thirties, and realizing he
didn’t want to, and couldn’t work
in the timber industry all his life,
Nelson and his wife Schann took
over his father’s business.
Nelson has now run Dennis
Electric as a small town, family business
for the last twenty-five years. But it has
now come to an end
Nelson is currently living at the
Keasey Tree Farm outside of Vernonia
and acting as the caretaker. When asked
about his plans for his new retirement,
he says he is looking forward to spend-
ing more time managing the Keasey
property. “That is my plan right now, to
continue here in this capacity.”
KaptansKraft: Custom Garment Printing in Vernonia
Are you part of a group, club or team that
needs to get T-shirts printed? How about a special
event you’d like to commemorate? Or a special gift for
someone? Well, now there is a place right in Vernonia
where you can get those shirts and more made for you
or your group.
KaptansKraft is cus-
tom garment printer that
can create high quality silk
screen T-shirts, sweatshirts,
hoodies and more for your
group, at a reasonable price.
And now they have a store
front in Vernonia located at
711 Bridge Street, so they are
easy to find and convenient
to work with. They can also
do heat transfers at the shop
while you wait.
Kirk Avilla and his partner Linda Gomez
opened the shop in downtown Vernonia in early De-
cember just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
But Kirk has been creating silk screens in his garage
for over a year. This past year he decided it was time
to expand and become more visible. “The retail store
started as an afterthought and as a way to use leftover
shirts,” says Avilla.
Creating silk screen T-shirts
is not new to Avilla—he started back
in the 1980’s designing and selling
concert T-shirts in the parking lots of
rock music shows. He took up the
craft again after he moved to Verno-
nia in 2007. After the flood in 2007
he refurbished his garage, which was
flooded. In the last year he has been
taking on silk screen projects for local
groups and events and adding to his
Kirk Avilla in his workshop where he produces silk screen garments. Avilla
equipment.
recently opened a retail storefront in Vernonia called “KaptansKraft.”
The garage is where the bulk
of his business is conducted. Silk
“Vernonia has stepped up and supported us
Screen printing can be a slow and laborious process, beyond anything we expected,” says Avilla about the
especially in a mostly non-automated shop. “I give a growth of his business.
lot of attention to each job,” says Avilla.
One way that Avilla keeps costs down for his
Avilla has completed several large local proj- customers is by not charging set-up fees. “We’re a
ects including shirts for Birkfest this past summer, for small family business and that’s the way we want to
Vernonia EMS, the sophomore, junior, and senior class stay,” says Avilla. He does hope to grow the business
shirts for the Vernonia High School Homecoming this and take on some larger projects in the future, which
past year, the Vernonia Free Wheelers, All In Pub and could mean hiring a production crew.
Eatery, Vernonia Jamboree and more. They will also be
KaptansKraft is located at 711 Bridge Street
printing for Big Gun Logging, a new local outfit on the in Vernonia. You can reach them at 502-433-4278 or
television show Axmen.
kavilla@kaptanskraft.com.
Vernonia
Community Theater
is holding auditions for their
upcoming production of
Vaudeville’s My Home
All Ages Welcome
January 24th & 25th, 7:00 pm at Washington Grade School
For more information contact Kinnell Steward at 503-819-0143, mtskys@frontier.com
