Ken St. Jacques recalled as 'one of the good guys'

It takes a celebration of the life of a special person to bring hundreds of people — family members, friends and former colleagues — out in snowstorm for a memorial service. But that’s exactly what happened last night.

People from all over the area gathered to pay their last respects to Kenneth “Ken” R. St. Jacques of Gilford, one of the former owners of Aavid Engineering (now Aavid Thermolloy); he passed away Wednesday after a short battle with cancer.

For three hours, people came in and out of the top floor of the Belknap Mill for the memorial “service.” But rather than the somber attitude that’s typically part of such events, the crowd had the joyful feel of a family reunion. People were laughing, embracing, swapping stories, enjoying each other’s company…

“Ken would have liked this,” someone said.

Even Ken’s wife, Carole St. Jacques of Gilford, was smiling widely when she talked about her recently departed husband.

“He was a superman,” she said, without a hint of hyperbole. “He was loved by his employees, by his family… He was very generous. It was just his make-up. He always wanted to help people. Even on his deathbed, he was helping the nurses. He’d tell us, get this one some candy. Or this one needs a new microwave, her’s doesn’t work.”

Ken St. Jacques was able to bless the community principally because he was plant manager at Aavid. For many years, it was on the the regions largest manufacturing employer so hundreds of people benefited from his gregarious, fun-loving nature, his great respect and affection of his employees, and his sharp business acumen.

Police Commissioner Armand Maheux recalled going to work for St. Jacques and his partner, Phil Johnson, on Jan. 1, 1978. “And I left on January 19, 1995… You couldn’t have asked to work for two nicer people. They were caring, a caring family. And it was like working for a big family.”

“Ken was a fun guy,” Johnson said. “He worked hard. But you couldn’t have asked for a better friend.

“I loved him, and I don’t think that a lot of the guys in this room who worked for him didn’t love him.”

One reason why St. Jacques was so appreciated was that while Johnson was largely outside the area developing business for Aavid, St. Jacques operated the plant in his own unique style.

For instance, James “Olie” Anderson, who was the company’s chief financial officer from 1977 up until several years after the company was sold in 1985, said St. Jacques made sure his workers knew they would prosper as the company prospered by keeping a chart of profits hung up indicating what percentage of profits would go into the employee’s bonus pool.

“I think in a year’s time we’d give out the equivalent of four-to-six weeks salary,” Anderson said.

And when St. Jacques gave out his bonuses, he often did it with flair.

Anderson recalled at least once paying out the extra money in silver dollars — which were weighed out rather than counted. “You’d say to the guys, here’s your bonus. And they’d say, can I have a bag? No, no bags. They’d just tear off their shirts and dump the money in there.”

Another time, St. Jacques paid everyone in two-dollar bills. And other times he’d simply hand out money for no apparent reason.

For instance, Anderson said, if St. Jacques got angry with someone one day, he’d pass out five-dollar bills indiscriminately to workers the next day.

“On St. Patrick’s Day he’d give everybody 25 one-dollar bills because he said you have to have some green on St. Patrick’s Day,” recalled Mike Laramie, who worked at Aavid for almost 35 years, starting out on the manufacturing floor before working himself into sales and eventually earning an engineering degree.

“If you get a $500 bonus in a check, it’s no big deal,” Anderson said, explaining St. Jacques unique pay system. “You deposit it in the bank and you don’t think any more about it. But if you’re a guy on the night shift and you went home with pockets full of money, that was Christmas. You woke up the entire family and said, look what I got! If you get four weeks of extra pay, it made a big difference.”

It was all part of St. Jacque’s understanding of how to motivate people — and how to keep them happy working for Aavid.

He and Johnson regularly sponsored company summer picnics, Christmas parties — one year they gave a car to an employee — and other special events.

Ronan Houle, who worked as Aavid's bookkeeper for about the frist 20 years, says St. Jacques would help out for no other reason than just to let his employees know he appreciated and respected them.

“My husband would drop me off in the mornings on his way to work so sometime I’d be there first. I’d unlock the door and set up my books, getting ready for work,” she recalled. “But when Ken came in, he’d say, I’m hungry, let’s get something to eat. So we’d go to grocery store and he’d buy eggs, bread, bacon... And he made breakfast for us. Then he’d say, okay, let’s go to work.”

Often St. Jacques would meet with his factory employees at the end of their shifts, just to let them know he cared about them. Sometimes he’d spice things up a bit by putting a single beer can into the coin-operated soda machine near the shift’s end so one of the last employees on that shift would get an unexpected surprise.

“The unique thing was we had three shifts, so some guys were getting off at seven o’clock in the morning,” Anderson said. “And he’d come back and have a beer with them. You know, you’ve got to be dedicated to drink beer at seven o’clock in the morning.”

But St. Jacques was also a smart businessman — without any formal business education but with enough “street-smarts” to know the difference between a good deal and a bad one.

And his exuberant, down-to-earth demeanor sometimes fooled people, said Attorney Robert Dietz.

Dietz, who worked with attorney Paul Normandin for Aavid on several projects, recalls the time St. Jacques and Johnson were in the process of selling the business in the 1980s.

The group chartered a small plane out of Laconia Airport and flew to New York City for a night meeting with some of the financiers, who indicated they would only consider the deal if some condition was met.

“Ken made it plain, in his own way, that it wasn’t going to happen,” Dietz said.

So the Lake City quartet left the building and found themselves in the Big Apple at 10 o’clock at night, tired and hungry after a long day.

They wound up at the famous Plaza Hotel’s dining room and started to order. Ken asked for chateau briand — that is, a thick cut of tenderloin prepared for two.

“The waiter leans over and says very softly, ‘Sir, that is steak for two people.’ He thought he didn’t understand,” Dietz recalled.

“And Ken turns around and says to him, ‘I know,” he laughed. “It was classic Ken.”

A smart businessman who knew how to make his workers feel appreciated — and who gained the love and respect of his community. That’s the legacy that brings people out in a snowstorm, the kind Ken St. Jacques leaves behind.