PARIS — Ted and Tom Morton had worked in the family business as teens and got accounting jobs out of college in Portland after a firm-but-polite “no thanks” to joining their father’s company.
In their mid-twenties, however, both of them changed their minds.
The brothers became fifth-generation sled makers.
Out of a stately home off Route 26 that’s been in the family for more than 100 years, without a company sign in sight, they run Paricon Inc., one of a half-dozen or so sled companies in the country.
Paricon has accounts with Hannaford, Olympia Sports, Tractor Supply Co., Renys, L.L.Bean and Paris Farmers Union. In a warehouse down the street, sleds were packed this week and labeled to ship out to TrueValue hardware stores and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“It was sort of like the George Bailey syndrome, where you can’t wait to leave town and make it big,” said Ted Morton, 47. “You get old enough, you start to think about family and stuff and a small town doesn’t look so bad.”
Their great-great-grandfather, Henry F. Morton, founded his sled company in Sumner in 1861 before moving to the then less-than- ideal slope of Paris Hill in 1869.
“Everything they bought had to be hauled up the hill by oxen; everything they shipped had to be hauled down the hill by oxen to be put on the railroad,” said Hank Morton, Ted and Tom’s father.
Before too long, the company settled in South Paris.
It’s had different iterations and owners over the years, and even closed in the 1980s. Hank founded present-day Paricon in 1991. He’s still president, though retired.
Paricon produces more than 40 different sleds: old-fashioned steel runners, zippy plastic toboggans, laminated foam sleds and inflatable inner tubes with names like Snow Screamer, Snow Boat and Fireball.
Winter Lightning, a 4-foot plastic toboggan that retails for $10 to $15, is its top seller.
New this year is a small, one-person sled with a padded seat called the Spitfire and a 66-inch utility sled for hauling people, fishing gear or even deer for hunters.
The biggest jump forward for the company, Hank Morton said, besides his two sons joining him, came in acquiring the iconic Flexible Flyer trademark in 2005. That sled brand also dates back more than a hundred years, and now every sled is marked with the Flexible Flyer eagle and shield.
“Sleds are a fun thing to sell,” said Tom Morton, 43. “It’s a good product, gets kids active outside. As a kid, I loved every snow day.”
In their business, snow matters. Fortunately, in the winter, it’s usually snowing somewhere.
“Our volumes can fluctuate 20 to 25 percent based on snow or no snow alone, but the nice thing is, our market is all around the country,” Tom Morton said. “In a year like we’re experiencing right now, the western third of the country has snow everywhere.”
Sleds were historically made in a nearby factory until the late 1980s when Paris Manufacturing, Paricon’s predecessor, liquidated in bankruptcy.
“All the machinery and stuff scattered throughout New England and Canada,” said Ted Morton. When Hank started Paricon, “He was chasing where the equipment went to see who could produce.”
Most of their sleds now are made in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
To round out the seasonality of the business, Paricon, which has 12 employees, also has a line of outdoor summertime games.
The family’s at work now on next winter’s catalog, “a combination of talking to our customers and knowing our line and finding the gaps,” Ted Morton said.
Both he and Tom have teenagers. It’s unclear whether there will be a sixth generation in sleds.
“Who knows where they’re going?” said Tom Morton. “I’m sure they all have grand plans of doing their own thing.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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