Terry Boisclair Reflects on 20 Years as a Worker-Owner

So, it’s been a journey.

I came to Equal Exchange back in September of 2002. It was just a small building in Canton, Massachusetts with about 40 people in total. Staff meetings were just a circle of chairs in a room and someone from each department giving a weekly update. There were meals that different people would cook for the entire company every week. There was even a little food share system that people would buy into.

The scene in the warehouse was gritty and rough. Imagine at the end of the day, an ocean of UPS boxes with names written in sharpie scattered all over the packaging area waiting for the customer service team to bring down packing slips in sticky window-envelopes. We would always be hoping that each packing slip found a box to go with. But we had a solid team of people and we always seemed to get it done no matter how chaotic it got. There were times in the slower summer months where the whole warehouse team would get done a little early on a Friday and all go out to lunch at a Chinese food buffet. Amazingly, most of that team is still right beside me in the building today.

EE staff pictured in 2002, the year that Terry (far right) got hired.

After a couple years the company kept growing and going in new directions and we outgrew the small building in Canton. At the time our entire co-op partook in finding the new building in West Bridgewater. Usually when a company is looking to buy a new building they might have a few reps show up to take a look, but we all showed up, probably 50 of us. So we took all that culture and relocated to the “mothership” which is our main headquarters and roastery today. Back then the building seemed infinitely gigantic but today it is one of the most organized state-of-the-art facilities imaginable. From roasting to packaging to distribution, everything is down to a science and it’s actually pretty impressive when I think about it. 

Building our roastery in West Bridgewater in 2005.

When I started in Distribution I was primarily working on UPS picking and packing. Over the years I merged into a hybrid of Distribution and Direct-Store-Delivery (DSD) for a long chunk of time. These days I am back to being full-time in Distribution. My job has expanded over the years and today I am operating all the forklifts and heavy machinery as well as handling freight orders, trucks on the dock, plus all kinds of other good stuff. For someone who likes a physical job this is a great fit. There has always been plenty of opportunity to learn as our systems evolve. I have never been very tech-savvy but I find myself doing some pretty advanced work on the virtual side, as well as physically. On the Co-op side, I have participated in many small ways over the years such as facilitating staff meetings, mentoring new employees on their journey to becoming worker-owners, participating on hiring committees, and representing Equal Exchange at events, just to name a few. I have a great team of coworkers that as I mentioned, I have been with for the past 20 years, including my supervisor Bernardo Fernandez. Our team has a camaraderie that I would imagine is hard to find in other companies.

In 2008 Equal Exchange sent me, my coworkers Rob Everts and Lilla Woodam, and nine other folks from organizations that sold Equal Exchange products on a delegation to Nicaragua. We spent eight days traveling around different primary and secondary cooperatives learning about fair trade and Equal Exchange’s impact in the shade-grown coffee farming regions. This was such an eye-opening memorable experience. We spent a few nights in the homes of some of the farmers, way up in the mountains with no electricity, running water or paved roads. Picture a stone house with a rustic old piece of wood for a window, yet beautifully decorated and warm inside. The others I was with did not speak Spanish and our hosts did not speak English, but they had a Bible and we were able to somehow begin to communicate. I literally slept in their child’s bed in my sleeping bag. In the morning, imagine walking out to a beautiful mountainous sunrise and seeing some chickens walking around and off in the distance, some children playing; flowers blooming on trees. It was heavenly. 

We picked coffee with the farmers and learned about their techniques. We met with groups of farmer co-op members at their offices and did coffee cuppings. We went to parties and celebrations at people’s homes in the evenings. We played a game of baseball. There were piñatas and dancing. There were emotional and intense meetings. Rob Everts is one of the most powerful speakers I have ever seen. Even as he would speak completely in Spanish, his message came through with raw passion. What a really incredible person that guy is.

I truly began to have a grasp of what this fair trade movement was all about. It is not something you can just read an article about or watch a video about on YouTube. We had one of our last meetings in a small building that had just recently been built using money from the fair trade premiums that these farmers in their community earned. When you know that and you look at that building and think about it, the impact is heavy. Lilla Woodam also was a champion in tirelessly keeping our group together and organized the entire trip. It was just a really special time and I am lucky I had the chance to experience it.

Lately, our company has grown to the point where we have gone multi-nodal. Even more recently we have had to weather some storms with the pandemic, and most recently, with inflation going through the roof. The entire time Equal Exchange has been a leader in innovation. When I joined we were known as the pioneers of fairly traded coffee. Literally, the first ones. Equally awe-inspiring to me is the Citizens-Consumer movement. It is such advanced thinking that I will just leave it at, wow, holy cow!

There are some extremely brilliant and thoughtful people in this organization. From OED to quality-control to procuring, to manufacturing, to food safety, to sales and community, this is just a super powerful group. I feel grateful and blessed to be under this umbrella and here on this odyssey. 

When I started at Equal Exchange I was 26 years old, and I’ll be 46 next month. Back then I had aspirations of becoming a full-time musician and it was my buddy Mike, our bass player that actually got me the job. Who knew 20 years later I would be here (in this zoom meeting) talking to you. So this has been quite a journey but at the same time I feel like we have only just begun.

Thanks, everyone! Adelante!