PORT ANGELES — The historical success and continued survival of the 90-year-old paper mill now owned by Nippon Paper Industries goes hand in hand with the support of the community in which the mill calls home, company manager Harold Norlund said Tuesday.

The Port Angeles Business Association returned the praise at its weekly breakfast meeting, honoring — with a birthday cake and sips of champagne — a company that employs about 200 in a manufacturing facility that will celebrate nine decades of existence Dec. 14.

Norlund, the guest speaker, recalled how Canadian lumbermen George and James Whalen bought property for a paper mill at the base of Ediz Hook shortly after World War I.

Before one log was processed, the Whalens’ Olympic Power and Paper Co. went bankrupt, and San Francisco paper merchants and distributors Isidore Zellerbach and his son, Harold, purchased the assets, bought the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams and built the mill, naming it Washington Pulp and Paper Co.

“Everything clicked for them,” Norlund the told meeting participants.

“They had the support of the city, power, water, employees, everyone was pulling together to try to make it a business success,” he said.

The Zellerbachs produced their first paper product on Dec. 14, 1920 — newsprint, which the plant still produces, that they shipped to San Francisco.

The mill, which later fell under the Zellerbachs’ corporate name of Crown Zellerbach, was sold to James River Corp. in 1986, to Daishowa America Co. in 1988 and merged with Nippon Paper of Japan in 2003.

The economics of paper-making has changed, as has the economy, Norlund said.

Norlund told the group about 215 people work at the plant, but in a later interview downsized that number to 198, adding that Nippon plans to fill about 10 of 35 vacancies.

He told the group that the current work force produces more paper than when 450 worked there and does so without the plant’s paper machine No. 1, which was shut down in 1986.

“We’re selling paper for less than we did in 1995, so that’s the tough part,” Norlund said.

“We haven’t been laying employees off, and through attrition is how we’ve reduced our costs.”

Still, in the past 10 years, Nippon’s employee-related medical costs have more than doubled, from $500 a family to $1,300, he said.

At the same time, the company is paying medical benefits for 276 families, for workers both actively employed and retired.

“We’re still competitive on the benefits side,” he said.

“You have to be able to attract people to a community,” Norlund continued.

“It takes schools, you have to have employment support for the spouse, you’ve got to be in a town you want to live in, you’ve got to have the facilities that all make a town into a community,” he said.

“That’s why people want to come and live here, that’s why we do it and try and be there through the long haul.”

Breakfast meeting participants also ate cake that was frosting-inscribed with the birthday greeting, “Congratulations and Thank You! 90 years in our community.”

“We are just part of this story,” Norlund said. “This is a success story of Port Angeles.”

Norlund noted that a person can’t live in Port Angeles very long without working at the mill or knowing someone who does or did.

Many at the celebration, organized by PABA member and downtown merchant Edna Petersen, reminisced over how their own personal histories were connected to the mill.

Port of Port Angeles Executive Director Jeff Robb recalled getting paid by Crown Zellerbach $20 a ton for pulp wood in the early 1970s as a side job.

He would make two trips in his 2 ½-ton 1950 Chevy truck, hauling 5 tons every work period to make the effort worthwhile, but had to time himself just right through downtown Port Angeles so he wouldn’t have to stop at the light at Lincoln Street.

“There was no way I was going to be able to stop that truck,” he recalled.

Bill Hermann of Hermann Bros. Log & Construction of Port Angeles said he began cutting pulp wood for the mill 50 years ago.

“They are really key to the economy, with all the jobs and new projects,” he said.

“They really have a really bright future in staying here a long time.”

The mill’s next big step is the planned investment of $71 million in construction of a biomass boiler that will replace outdated equipment, add jobs and produce 20 megawatts of electricity.

That’s close to the 25 megawatts produced by the two Elwha dams that Isidore and Harold Zellerbach purchased almost 90 years ago when they built the mill that still stands today, Norlund said.

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Senior staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladaily news.com.