LAWRENCE — Joyce Cegelis had just graduated from the former Tenney High School in Methuen when she joined her mother who was going to the Malden Mills employment office for a job interview.
Fifty years later, she's glad she did.
Cegelis, of North Andover, was honored yesterday for five decades of service at the textile company, a place she considers her home and her coworkers as family.
"My mother lasted two days and I'm still here," said Cegelis, who was just a few days shy of her 18th birthday when she started, and who is now 68. Having started as a clerk, she is now head of the payroll department for the 900-person company, known since 2007 as Polartec.
"Back then, your job changed every two hours," she said of her start in 1959, when the company was just a few months old and very small. "I didn't even interview for a job."
Instead, the hiring manager saw her sitting in the lobby and asked what she had studied in high school.
"I said I had taken a business course, and he said, 'You want a job?'" Cegelis remembers.
She and 153 other longtime Polartec (formerly Malden Mills) employees who have worked at the plant for longer than 25 years are being feted this week by the company for their longevity in the workplace.
In a tent set up near the main entrance at the back of the building at 610 Broadway, about 100 employees gathered yesterday for a ceremony to honor 50 of those employees. A series of luncheons is being held all week to honor employees on different shifts.
Event coordinator Kathy Skala, director of human resources at Polartec, said that during one of the lunches she and others calculated that among just 50 of the longtime employees there was a combined 1,700 years of total service to the company.
Polartec President Andy Vecchione said the leadership team had discussed doing an event like this for the past two or three years, but this year, he said, "we finally got it done."
In addition to a certificate they were handed by Vecchione, the honorees also received gift bags, complete with a fleece jacket and a catalog from which they could order other Polartec products.
During an interview with The Eagle-Tribune, Vecchione praised the employees for their loyalty and devotion to the company, even as it's gone through so much turbulence and change in recent years.
While many of the employees mentioned the difficult course the company has taken in recent years, they said they remained undaunted.
In 1995, a fire destroyed several buildings, but the company was rebuilt. In 2001, Malden Mills declared bankruptcy, and beloved president and third-generation owner Aaron Feuerstein was relieved of his leadership role.
In 2007, the company ran into more financial woes and was purchased by a newly formed company called Polartec LLC, named for one of the defining products of the company.
As if the fire and financial issues weren't bad enough, the company's new offices and several of its manufacturing buildings were damaged in the Mother's Day flood of 2006, shutting down operations and requiring extensive cleanup of the facilities.
"This is an unbelievable family," Vecchione said. "They've been through a lot of ups and downs."
Several employees honored at yesterday's ceremony echoed those words.
"We've seen floods, fires and bankruptcies," said Loretta Riordan, a 42-year employee from Salem, N.H., whose son, Dan, of Londonderry, N.H., has worked there 24 years.
"We're just waiting for the locusts," she joked.
Even though she's 68, Cegelis said she likes it so much she never wants to leave.
"I come in at 6 a.m. and work 10- to 12-hour days," said Cegelis. "They need me — I make the coffee."
Other than a niece and nephew, she has no close relatives, so going to work every day is like "coming home."
"I enjoy the work and I enjoy the people. This is my life. This is my family," she said.
Other longtime employees agreed.
"Everybody works together as a team," said Gregg Boie of Londonderry, N.H., who has worked at Malden Mills/Polartec for 33 years. "It's an enjoyable place to work."
And he clearly enjoyed the attention of the day.
"This is overwhelming," said Boie, a facilities manager. "I never thought I'd be appreciated this much."
Two of those honored yesterday were twin brothers Mark and Mike Lavallee, who started working together at the company when they were 20. They are now 58.
"This has always been a good company to work for," said Mark, of Haverhill, who, with his brother, attended Greater Lawrence Vocational Technical School and now work in the maintenance department.
"We thought we were going to Vietnam, but when I saw our lottery numbers I knew we weren't going — so we got jobs here," he said. Their coworkers sitting at the lunch table under the tent yesterday joked that it's hard to tell the two apart, except that one wears a gold chain, the other a silver chain.
Sitting with them at the table was North Andover resident Jihad Hajjar, 52, who works in the company's environmental, health and safety office and has been with the company 25 years.
He said the company feels like family, and treats its employees like family.
"I am so grateful to have worked here so long," he said. "This company has survived so many tough times. I just hope it's here for the next generation."
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