American Woolen’s Mission: Impossible?
- Theresa Cramer
- Jul 31
- 6 min read
In June, Stafford’s own American Woolen enjoyed some time in the limelight, with a spread in The New York Times (NYT) that referred to the company as owner Jacob Long’s life mission, “... and an unrelenting source of worry.” That, no doubt, struck a chord with a few locals, as the murmurs I’d heard picked up. You see, American Woolen owes the town a significant amount of property taxes dating back to 2020. Delinquent tax information is publicly available, and you can look it up on the town’s website. I've also encountered citizens walking around with printouts of this information.
If you don’t count the most recent year – which many businesses have yet to pay – American Woolen owes more than $670,000 as of my last calculations. During an especially tough budget year, that stings. Add to that Long’s recent appointment as the Chair of the recently reformed Economic Development Commission, and I decided it was time to gain a better understanding of why a company with such good public relations was struggling to keep up with its tax obligations in town.
Frankly, when you contact someone asking about their back taxes, you expect hostility, but Long was more than willing to answer my questions. And the story that emerged is familiar. He said via email, “American Woolen Company takes its tax obligations very seriously and intends to satisfy them. In the years surrounding COVID, American Woolen struggled to stay viable and was forced to briefly shut its operations as its business prospects collapsed. Two of American Woolen's largest clients filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy during COVID resulting in cancelled orders. That period is behind us, but there are tax obligations that resulted from that difficult period.”
No one takes on a textile mill in a tiny Connecticut town without expecting some challenges, but when Long bought the mill 11 years ago, a global pandemic probably wasn’t among the problems he envisioned. As The NYT reported, “For Mr. Long, the stakes are personal. His investors include his father, his in-laws and his Italian wife, whom he persuaded to sell everything they owned and relocate to the United States.” The State of Connecticut has also kicked in some funds. A 2014 Journal Inquirer story posted on Congressman Joe Courtney’s website says, “Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Friday said that to support the Warren Mill initiative, the DECD will provide American Woolen with a $300,000 ‘job creation incentive loan,’ as well as a $100,000 matching grant through the Small Business Express Program. Funds will be used to help cover building acquisition costs, Malloy said, as the company seeks to add up to 38 workers to its payroll.”
Today, according to Long, American Woolen employs 53 craftspeople, and he hopes to increase that number to 60 by the end of 2025. Still, it’s been a long, hard road. “Rebuilding American Woolen's business activity after COVID consumed a tremendous amount of financial resources,” he told me. “Rather than viewing the taxes that are owed, I believe that it is important to view the taxes that American Woolen has paid over the last 11 years. If American Woolen did not step forward and reopen Warren mill in 2014, the town would have struggled to fill the mill with business activity and Stafford's tax base would have shrunk. Although we have a long way to go, we are on the right path forward which will enable us to satisfy our tax obligations.”
For now, Long likes to focus on what American Woolen brings to Stafford: “Unlike many local businesses that absorb monies from Stafford's residents and distribute those monies outside of Stafford, American Woolen sells its fabrics outside of Stafford, absorbing monies in the process, and distributes those monies to its employees and local service providers.”
Man on a mission
If you’ve ever encountered Long, or even read about him, you might know that, to him, American Woolen is about a larger dream. “More than a wool textile operation, American Woolen is the lead protagonist in the restoration of a New England-based luxury textile/apparel manufacturing cluster that provides the finest in New England-sourced clothing to premium domestic and foreign apparel retailers,” Long told me. He’s a man on a mission, but to some, his mission might seem impossible.
Unlike many of the business owners I’ve spoken to recently, including the contractor who reroofed my house and friends who own their own manufacturing business, American Woolen could stand to benefit from the Trump Administration’s tariff, though that could still be a long way off. As The NYT wrote, “Now the man seems to have finally met the moment, as the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have renewed conversations about the reshoring of many U.S. industries, including apparel. But so far, the country’s textile manufacturers say they haven’t seen much benefit to their bottom lines or a change in public perception.”
Despite the challenges he has faced and the ones that still lie ahead, Long seems optimistic that his mission is not, in fact, impossible. “If you look at American Woolen's website, you can see the cluster/ecosystem in action. We see a global consumer that wants to consume more of what New England offers, and American Woolen can satisfy that desire,” he said.
My high school English teacher used to talk about working in mills as a kid in Lawrence, Mass. So, it wasn’t that long ago that places like American Woolen were still the norm. According to Long, “When the parent organization of Warren Corporation (Warren Corp.), which was the previous owner of the Stafford mill complex, was sold to a French luxury goods conglomerate in 2013 and the Warren mill complex was not included in the sale, the writing was on the wall; Warren Corp. intended to vacate the mill and terminate its staff. That occurred in December of 2013. In effect, New England lost its last remaining wool textile mill.”
In a world of fast fashion and cheap, synthetic materials, it’s hard to imagine a revival of New England’s textile mills, but that has not stopped Long from trying. “After 40 years of globalized, extensive supply chains that commoditized all consumer product categories, including apparel, we are entering a new period in which local/regional manufacturing provides specialty products that represent local tradition. In fact, this cycle has repeated itself a few times over the last 100 years. The future is to develop Stafford into a destination for quality New England-crafted textiles and apparel.”
As we reported a few weeks back, Long is now the Chair of the Economic Development Commission, and his vision – no matter how hard it might be for some of us to see – could steer Stafford’s future. Of course, that requires the EDC to be effective.
“As Chair of the Stafford's Economic Development Commission, I intend to work with the town to chart a path forward that is commensurate with its unique demographic and social endowments and aspirations. It is critical to leverage the town's installed social and physical asset base,” Long said. “Every empty storefront and building and every single underemployed resident is a failure in entrepreneurial initiative. We need to correct that.”
There are many competing visions for Stafford – especially downtown, where real estate is limited – and these visions are bound to conflict in some ways. We all know that one side of a Main Street is thriving, in no small part due to property owners who are eager to support small businesses, or have their own. The other side still has more empty storefronts and closed doors than most of us would like to see.
“My hope is that we can build a consumer goods craft manufacturing cluster in town that lifts Stafford's (and Connecticut's) cultural relevance. After years of neglect, New England is experiencing a cultural renaissance,” Long says. “We can capitalize on this through the development of craft manufacturing initiatives. There are over 300k vehicles that travel through Connecticut's quiet corner on I-84 every week. We can provide a reason for them to stop off and experience our town.”
Though the new EDC has yet to have an official meeting, I'm told they had an unofficial meeting earlier this week. It will be integral for Staffordites to show up and have their voices heard when it comes to charting the right path for growth. Long isn’t the only Stafford business owner on the EDC, and whether his vision for the town matches that of his fellow commission members (or residents) remains to be seen.
