Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Looks like the end for Harbor Crown Seafoods

I'd been hearing for months how a relatively new Dutch Harbor processing company, Harbor Crown Seafoods Inc., was really struggling financially.

Today, on a visit to the state courthouse in Anchorage, I found hard proof.

Five days ago, Superior Court Judge William Morse signed a final judgment against Harbor Crown awarding $203,252 to the owner of the crab boat Tempo Sea.

Tempo Sea sued on June 23 alleging that Harbor Crown failed to pay for 131,425 pounds of snow crab delivered to the plant on April 3.

Harbor Crown didn't answer the lawsuit in a timely fashion, resulting in the default or final judgment.

According to state and court records, Kenneth Dorris of Hayden, Idaho, is president and owns a third of the company. A unit of Toronto-based Hai Yang International Inc. is listed as the largest shareholder with 45 percent.

The court file contains some correspondence from a Spokane, Wash., lawyer who said he was "assisting Harbor Crown with its current financial difficulties."

In one letter the lawyer, John Munding, mentions the company's creditors and a fear of possible bankruptcy.

And in a July 26 e-mail to Tempo Sea's attorney, Munding wrote:

"Harbor Crown Seafoods, Inc. has been determined to be insolvent as a result of the recent economic recession and will be closing its doors. As such it is unable to hire Alaska counsel to defend the Tempo matter and will allow judgment."

The e-mail concludes: "This is truly an unfortunate situation for all involved."

According to its Web site, Harbor Crown opened in 2003 as "a modern, mid-sized processing plant" with a vision of providing fishermen and consumers an alternative to the "international processing conglomerates."

Harbor Crown touted Pacific cod as its primary product, along with Alaska octopus and crab.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I worked at the Harbor Crown plant, and was treated like garbage. The owners would yell and scream at the workers, threatning to fire people in the middle of the night, stranding them in Dutch Harbor...people who got hurt there were not taken care of either...I quit once I got my second check and was outta there quickly...I am not sorry to see them fail.

Brian Fales said...

To the sissy who posted this previous comment I also worked with Harbor Crown Seafoods form Aug 08- Apr09 and the work was tough, but what did you expect. I did everything from the cod line to crand operator and it all was tough. I was never treated the way you described nor was anyone else. I was really upset when I learned that they went under. I offfloaded the Tempo Sea and am sorry that they didnt get there check. I got mine though.

Anonymous said...

Yes sir i worked there at harbor crown seafoods and yes it was tuff work i worked 18 to 20 hrs a day!!! i was taught alot of things by the owner ken and john and james!! sure there was times i got yelled at!!! called every cuss word in the book!!! but i went from bottom to the top!!! what i mean is these guys took me in and showed me how to be a forklift driver, a truck driver, a lead, and then a dock foreman, then i was a dock slash plant foreman, and the 1 true thing this comp. showed me was this!! RESPECT!!!! if u wana make it this buss. u gota earn peoples respect!! and yes i too quite but not cuz of the comp. but cuz i missed my rezervation!! when i returned home i was a whole new man!! to this day i thank harbor crown for teaching me the ins and outs of bussiness cuz now I am a crew boss for a type 2 hand crew and i run my own private contractor bussiness for my tribe called tahkeal inc. and i thank ken doris, john, and james nordin for teaching me if u want people to listen to you. you must first gain there RESPECT, and TRUST, and ur crew well follow you into the depths of hell and back!!! to this day people look at me like im sum sort of kick ass boss that knows everything!!! like i went to college or sumthing!! i never went to college i went to harbor crown and learned to be a leader and a follower and a man that stands on his 2 feet!!! and i took care of my workers even if i meant me paying for all there bills!!! thank you harbor crown for everything u shown me!! if i had 1 more chance i would work for ken D., john and james N. any day!!! R.I.P. HARBOR CROWN this plant well always be in my heart and mind!!!

Anonymous said...

i worked at crown harbor February-April08..that place was bullshit...talk to my family like trash because we are Filipino..im glad Jon got his ass whooped by all them Samoans.talk to us like we are garbage...and for you kiss asses who wrote that bull..about how much they showed you and how to become a man or what not..ha ha...what a joke..go kiss someone else ass.im glad they whent down fucking punks..ray guarin aka (bunso)

Rachel said...

There is no place on earth like Dutch Harbor.. and Harbor Crown Seafoods was just part of the whole crazy experience. I was up there in the Fall/Winter of 2005 and learned a lot about myself and others while there. Yes, it was frightening sometimes and yeah, I was fearful of losing my job but I'm also very thankful for the life lessons and friends I made along the way.

Maxwell said...

I worked for harbor crown from Jan 09 to May 09. I have nothing but good things to say about Harbor Crown. They even placed meon a fishing boat before they went under. They did not treat Filippino different, they were the majority. We got more hours than the other plants andstartedat a higher wage. If youdid not like it you always had the option to go to unisea!
Maxwell

Anonymous said...

sooooo, if i worked for them in early 09 and i've moved quite a bit since then, how do ya think i can go about getting my w-2's the number i found online is of course disconnected :(
thanks in advance if anyone can help me with this...

Bernice said...

My name is Bernice Seminole-Helms. I met my husband at HarborCrown @ the begining of 2005. We are still together. We wanted to go back to the place where we met and it shocked us that the company is no longer in existence. Neither of us were ever yelled at, hollered at or threatened in any way shape or form. Its too bad because we wanted to go back and work there again for old times sake.
Thank You,
Bernice & Doug Helms
Coeur d'Alene, ID

Eric said...

I worked there in 2005 and eventually became a lead man.I see things like this...if you did your job and kept your mouth shut,for the most part things were ok.Was there yelling,screaming and people getting upset???sure.Whenever you put that many different kinds of people in stressful situations tensions can get high.Some people had it worse than others no doubt.At the end of the day it was a buisness and just like any other buisness the goal was to make money and if you were there to play games and goof off then they let you know where you stood.I can't be upset for that.I harbor no hard feelings toward anyone there and agree with Rachel(who I enjoyed working with)that the experience,lessons learned and people you met were the prizes gained in that situation.The Nordin's I'm sure are doing fine wherever they are.

Rachel said...

Finally, someone who remembers me! Eric, do you know what happened to Bev and Rick Spurlin? I often wonder about them.

Gordon said...

I worked there in Fall 2005, Most of the people i had to walk off the property were drunk or getting into fight. I was Night shift security. Thomas Tahkeal at the top was right it was easy to move up. Of course i remember my buddy eric and i remember Rachel, She was dating Bacha the starvin marvin security guard.