Transcription of Father’s Day #144
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show #144, “Father’s Day,” airing for the first time on Sunday, June 15th, 2014. What does it mean to be a father? There as many answers to this question as there are men who have taken on this role. Today we speak with Chris Kast, brand strategist with Brand Co. and Christian Townsend of CT Marine about the influences their fathers have had upon their professional lives and upon their own fatherhood. Our interview with Chris touches upon some deeply personal issues. We were moved by his willingness to share his story. You won’t want to miss it. Thank you for joining us.
It is one of my great joys to be able to have conversations in this space, in the studio space, with dear friends of mine. I have no dearer friend than Chris Kast, who is the brand strategist at the Brand Company, which is a part of the Maine Media Collective where we tape our show. Chris and his husband Byron live in Portland and between them have four daughters. Chris and I have intersected so many times in so many different ways that I can’t even begin to say, but it is such a joy to have you here, so thank you.
Chris: Thank you.
Lisa: Chris, I think that if it weren’t for you we wouldn’t have the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. In so many ways you’ve been a big part of what we’ve done. You have been here since before the beginning. You helped us set up our studio space. You’ve helped us really be so much of what we were.
Chris: It’s been a joy. I can’t take any credit for that except it’s part of a team and it’s part of what we do when something comes together. It just feels right. We just tend to do stuff here, and it’s great. Along the way we stumble and fall and go whoops, brush off and keep going. That’s one of the joys of being a part of this whole collective, this part of this journey, both personally and professionally.
Lisa: You are a big part of the Maine Media Collective. Maine Media Collective, for people who are listening who many not know, is Maine Magazine, Maine Home Design, Old Port Magazine, Art Collector Maine, all the guides, Eat Maine …
Chris: The Gallery at the Grand.
Lisa: The Gallery at the Grand. The upcoming gallery here in Portland.
Chris: Of course the Brand Company.
Lisa: Well, we already talked about that. I don’t want to slight them but part of what you do is so much bigger than just helping create ads. Your team does the ads for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour, but really how I came to know you professionally was you helping me understand as a physician what kind of physician I was, and helping to understand as a radio show what kind of radio show we are. You really help people dig into who their authentic selves are. I think that part of why you’re so good at this is because you’ve had to work very hard to get to your own authentic self.
Chris: Yeah, I have. A lot of hard work.
Lisa: You’ve been on the show before so I know we’ve talked about you doing the … I think you were doing, it wasn’t a Tough Mudder, it was …
Chris: It was the Dynamic Dirt Challenge last year.
Lisa: The Dynamic Dirt Challenge about a year ago somewhere. Today as this airs you’re going to be going out doing the Trek Across Maine with another group of people, so you’re very active in that sort of way. You have a lot of friends in the community. Your life has changed pretty dramatically. The person that you were when you first came to Maine and the life that you had when you first came to Maine looks very different than the one that you have now.
Chris: It looks very different and it feels very different. It feels very different because it feels more real. I feel more connected to it. When I came to Maine I was married to a woman and I had a young baby. She was sixth months old; she’s 26 now. People do the math. I was living what appeared to be a great life. We had a house in Cape Elizabeth; I had a great wife; I had a kid; I had a growing career. But something wasn’t right. I always knew it, but something wasn’t right. The more I tried to make it right, the more it felt not right. That not right was being gay in a very heterosexual world, and the world that I lived in.
It took me a very long time and I was married 16 years when I came out. Outside of losing my parents and my ex’s parents, even more that was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I had to do it for my own self and to find out who I was. Not to find out who I was because I knew who I was, but to really be who I was. It was difficult on so many levels. It was hard because I first had to really admit what I’d always known to myself. Then I had to actually say the words out loud to someone whom I cared deeply for and loved. In the course of a 15-minute conversation on a night in August in 1999, I shattered a world and it was horrible. That’s the word for it.
Ellen, who is now one of my dear friends – her world flipped over. At that point I had two kids and they didn’t know it, but their world was about to flip over, and my world flipped over. I didn’t know where up was; I had no clue. In an odd sense that next day, it was a Sunday, we had gone through the paces. My daughter Blake had a friend over and we took her for a bike ride and went through the motions, went out and had a barbeque. I went out and just laid on the hammock after the dishes were done, just stared up into the sky feeling numb, having no clue what was to come next.
Ellen came out, she sat down on the hammock next me. She said “Can I sit here?” I said “Please.” The question was what next and neither one of us knew. But at that moment things started to settle. I’m not going to lie to say that the years, the journey to get where we are, where I am right now these years later wasn’t difficult – it was worth it. As far as when I think back, the only real sorrow that I carry with me is the hurt that I caused. It’s sorrow, and I choose that word carefully because there’s this thing about people thinking you have regrets. If I regretted it I wouldn’t be who I am today, so I don’t regret who I am today. I just have sorrow for the sadness that I have caused – but that sadness has healed. We’re able to laugh about it.
Something very powerful happened to me. Blake, who’s now going on to her second master’s degree … It was interesting. Two things: We lived in a small town. We lived in Cape Elizabeth and things have a tendency to swirl around small towns. Ellen and I had an agreement that when the gossip started to flow up to her, one of us would tell the kids. Ellen called me one November afternoon and she said “I’m sorry but I had to tell them because I started to hear things.” I wasn’t great with it but I was like “Well, okay.” I got them on the phone and I said “Do you know the show Will and Grace? Well, I’m like Will.” That made it okay for them because Ellen and I had separated, but it made them realize that it wasn’t because mom and dad didn’t like each other anymore. It was because it just didn’t work.
Fast forward a few years when Blake was applying for colleges. People kept asking me, friends and her college counselor, “Did you read Blake’s essay? Did you read Blake’s essay?” I said “no,” and I asked her and she said “You can’t read it. You can’t read it until I get excepted into a college, and then accept where I’m going to go to college.” I said “Okay, this is going to be good.” She got accepted to Grinnell, decided she was going to go to Grinnell, and she sent me her essay. It was a one page essay and I’m going to paraphrase it, but it was the story of when her mom told her and her sister that I was gay – that I am gay.
“It starts off it was a gray November day in Maine and my sister and I were at home after school having a snack. My mom said ‘Kids, there’s something I have to tell you about your father.'” In her essay she said “I immediately thought that she was going to tell me he had cancer. She said ‘Your dad is gay.'” Essentially she was waiting for the bad news. She said during that time, people in Cape kept asking her “Are you okay? Are you okay with this?” Her essay went on to say “I don’t know what they were talking about. My dad was still the loud obnoxious jerk at the sidelines screaming for me. He was wearing Converse high tops where everybody else was wearing their best Weejuns. He was there with a big smile on his face. He was always there and still is always there. Ten years ago, would I have wanted my family to be anything but what it was? No. But today would I want my family to be anything other than it is? Absolutely not.”
It’s hard for me not to tear up right now, and that really made it okay for me. It made me realize that the journey that I went on was worth it because she and her sister Emma are probably two of the strongest, most self-directed, most self-assured human beings in my world. I know this played a part in it. Was it the perfect childhood? Absolutely not. Did I miss a lot of time with them? Yeah, but it’s paying itself back right now on so many levels.
Lisa: I know that one of the things that you had to struggle with before you came out was your relationship with your father. You’ve been talking about, as a father, your relationship with your children, and you talked about the sorrow that you felt that somehow you had kind of rent a wound in their world. This was a sorrow that came pre-packaged. This was a sorrow that was already yours. You were an altar boy; you grew up in New York. It was always very difficult for you to talk to your dad.
Chris: Yeah. I can’t ever really remember having a heart-to-heart heartfelt conversation with him. I think that’s really sad. I have an older brother who’s an awesome human being, I have an older sister who’s an awesome human being, and I have a younger brother who’s an awesome being. Being the third of four and being the middle son, I know in my heart by the time I came along … I was different. I was not interested in sports. I was no interested in normal boy stuff. I tried to fake it and I think there’s a saying in the gay community that mom knows. I think somehow mom knew and I think somehow my dad knew I was different. I didn’t know what that meant but … There was no time for me. The things I remember is “Christopher, don’t you know when to stop?” He’d introduce me to his friends as a joke as a CPA: a constant pain the ass.
I loved my father. I can say that truthfully. I don’t think I liked him very much, and I don’t think I liked him very much because of the way I was treated. There’s specific incidences that happened that shocked me. It was because I think to a lot of degrees he didn’t take the time to understand me. Nor did I really, I don’t think, take the time to understand him. That is rough but I’ve come to terms with it and I know that in my heart he did the best that he could do. Just as I’m doing the best he could do, but what I’ve learned is to work harder at the connection – to read the clues.
Blake wrote me a letter on my 50th birthday that basically ended “Sometimes people use daddy’s little girl as a pejorative. I wear it as a badge.” She’s a teacher in New York City. She calls me every morning on the way to school and we talk. Her sister Emma is always snapchatting me, texting me, we chat. It’s the way we communicate; we stay in touch. It’s really pretty special. My husband Byron, I know he went through a similar journey and his two daughters, my step-daughters Emily and Olivia, they’re both connected. The four girls, they kind of are cut from the same bolt of cloth. You put them on a blender, you pour them out. They’re going to be the same person except for of course Olivia, who is quite the girly girl and the ballerina.
They call each other sisters. That’s a special connection, too. It’s one of the things, again, that sorrow that I feel is that I never really had that connection with my dad. To a certain degree it’s a gift that I’m able to be the dad I want to be. As a little kid dad, I’m a horrible human being. Babies scare the daylights out of me; I am not going to lie about that. I’m going to break it! Sorry, my bad. But as a father for growing and grown children, that’s the biggest gift ever and I take great joy and I take great pride in it.
Lisa: Here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast we’ve long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial.
Tom: My sister-in-law just back from sailing across the Atlantic. Calm seas and smooth sailing is something I can confidently say we all want in our lives, especially our financial lives. That concept of smooth sailing is very close to what I refer to as the fifth stage of financial evolution. When we reach that stage you feel more secure and confident. You’ve successfully leveraged your resources to improve your life and feel more energized and have a good relationship with your money. Your investments generate income and you’ve got more time to spend freely. You’ve learned how to enjoy your money and life is flowing smoothly. Because evolution is a constant, you keep sailing forward and growing toward the next stage, and you feel good about it.
What stage are you in? To learn more about the stages go to www.shepardfinancialmaine.com.
Speaker 1: Security is offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA-SIPC. Investment advice offered through Flagship Harbor Advisors, a registered investment advisor. Flagship Harbor Advisors and Shepherd Financial are separate entities from LPL Financial.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by Dream Kitchen Studio by Matthew Brothers. Whether your style is contemporary, traditional, or eclectic, their team of talented designers are available to assist you in designing the kitchen or bath of your dreams. For more information, visit www.dreamkitchenstudio.com.
Lisa: I actually have no concerns about you as a future probable grandfather. I know it’s not going to happen any time soon …
Chris: Thank you for that.
Lisa: I’m pretty sure you’ll figure out the baby thing at some point in the not too distant future. Be that as it may, I also think that shame for you … There is the shame over being gay and being gay in a Catholic family. The alter boy trying to be the child that’s already considered to be a pain in the ass, I guess. But you had a deeper shame. This is one that was incredibly difficult for you to carry and one that I don’t think many people who know you know about.
Chris: No, very few people know. I’m not even certain I’ve told my brothers and sister. I know I haven’t told … well I will have by the time the show airs have told my kids. I was molested as a child. I was 13 years old and I was taken. It was a man and it was one of those situations where I know where you live so if you don’t meet me at this place this time of the evening I will tell your parents. He would drive by the house when I’d be outside raking with my father or something and beep and wave, slow down. My father would say “Who is that?” “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
The thing was I wanted to be able to say something but I couldn’t because I felt the shame. I felt scared. I felt all these things going by. Knowing when you’re that age that you … I didn’t know what gay was but knowing that I was different. All those things rolled up and I had to carry that with me. He would send postcards to the house. One day when I was supposed to meet him, out of fear, he never showed up. That caused a lot more “What? What’s going to happen now?” I lived with that for a lot of years. I lived with it thinking that it was my fault. I was a target; I brought it on myself; it was all me; it had nothing to do with this human being who was an absolute predator.
It took me until my 20s to actually admit to someone out loud that this happened. I told my ex-wife that it happened and I went to therapy. I had a quite a lot of years of therapy trying to understand what it was. What I know – not what I think – what I know is there are two types of people as I understand it that come through childhood sexual molestation. There are victims and there are survivors. The victims let it inform the way they live. I’m a survivor of it. I have a scar and it’s well, well-healed and well, well-covered. The biggest thing that I think about, the only thing that I really think about when I think back to those days, it’s not the shame, it’s not the fear: it’s the anger.
The anger that something was taken from me. The anger that I was able to survive it, but what about the other boys that this guy might have gone after who couldn’t handle it, and may or may not be alive today? That is something that I think about. That said, when I look back on it, and we had this great, great meeting not too long ago – our download day. Which for people out there, after we upload the magazines we get together as a group and do a download day where it’s basically a big conversation we had. One of the questions that Kevin put out there was “What do you expect? What do you want out of life?” Silence in the room, and me being me, I said what I said. I said “I just want to live an authentic life and be able to look the guy in the mirror that’s looking at me in the eyes and absolutely and genuinely say ‘You know? I like you. You’re a pretty good guy.'”
And I do: good, bad, or indifferent. I know what my faults are. I know what my foibles are. I know that I make mistakes everyday but I know that deep down I like me, and I like who I am, and I like the life I’ve got. I love my husband; I love your four kids; I love my ex-wife; I love my brothers and my sisters; I love my friends – and I have a great network of friends. I have a lot of friends but I have a handful of friends where I can just drop every guard. I count you one of those, Kevin, some of the people here. The people that are listening to this, who you know who you are if you’re listening. That’s a joy.
The most ultimate joy is being able to sit back as a father and watch these four girls go on their merry ways. One’s going on to her second master’s degree at Brown University. Another one is off to Chiwaukee and is hoping to get posted to the Peace Corps in Panama. Emily is in Nepal teaching English to monks. She’s helping track elephant migration. Olivia has got a goal board on the room in her bedroom about how she wants to dance with the American Ballet Theater in New York and how she wanted to make the corps de ballet for Portland Ballet. Check, check, check; she’s in the corps. Being able to just play a part in this – it’s what it’s about for me.
Lisa: Over the course of your life you’ve had to completely reexamine and redefine what it means to be a man. What you were offered when you were growing up is very different from what you’ve chosen to accept for yourself. Not many people do that. It’s a very interesting society in which we live, the way that gender roles are defined.
Chris: It’s interesting. I’ve had conversations over the years with Blake, who her minor was gender and women’s studies, which apparently is all the rage. At one point she said she didn’t believe in gender. I had to ponder what that meant, meaning that yeah I’m a man, but I’m just a human being. I’m living this life and there are certain things that I like to do that Byron doesn’t like to do, that he does better than I do. In fact, when we got married legally (yay Maine) we were interviewed by the Atlantic Monthly. There was a story that’s out there, it’s online, it’s about what heterosexual couples can learn about gender roles from same sex marriages.
The writer asked us “What’s it like in your home? Did you divide chores?” We didn’t really; we just gravitated to what we did more naturally. I’m slightly neurotic, a bit of fiend of the Felix Unger. I can’t really relax until everything’s in its place. I’m the one that likes to initiate cleaning the house and doing this. That’s just me. Byron grew up in Maine and can swing a hammer and loves to be outside and do the gardening, so just “I’ll mow the grass. I’ll do the gardening. I’ll fix that.” Okay. We both like to cook. We both do the wash but I’m the first one that’s going to be getting it in there and folding clothes. That’s just living life. That’s not a gender thing; that’s just living who we are.
We both like sports. He likes show tunes more than I do but I’ve been known to sing along. It’s paraphrasing a positioning line for one of our clients: Live your life, be who you are. I’ll drink good wine along the way and every now and then I’ll toss in a martini and be good with it because, as far as I know, we only get one go round under this sun. We have one opportunity to be happy, and that’s all I want and all I wish for all my friends, and that’s what I see and I want for all my kids.
Lisa: You figured it out. What you’ve needed to figure out you figured out as far as being a father and a human being.
Chris: Yeah, and I’m still figuring it out. It’s not a stagnation; it’s an evolution. Everyday I see something; everyday I learn something new about myself; everyday I discover something. I believe that to a lot of degrees that’s what keeps me so vital. I don’t mean it in an egotistical way: so vital, so young at heart. I have an incredible curiosity about a lot of things and I want to be able to feed that curiosity. There are things about me that I’m not so happy … I don’t read as much as I should anymore. I need to start reading more. I don’t need to; I would like to. I would like to start writing more, but it will get there because it will get there, and it will happen when it’s supposed to happen.
It’s funny, every now and then I’ll be having a bad day and that phrase “out of the mouths of babes often times comes gems.” My Emma is always right there when I’m saying, she goes “Dad, everything just works out the way it’s supposed to. You got to remember that.” She’s right, because it does. I remind her of that as well. We remind each other and it’s a got your back kind of thing.
Lisa: Chris, I know that the people that have worked with you as a brand strategist and people who are your friend, people who will be biking with you today on the Trek Across Maine, your children – I think that we can universally agree that you are really a gift to all of us. You’re a gift to me and I thank you for sharing your story and for being a part of my life, and for being a part of so many people’s lives. Happy Father’s Day.
Chris: Thank you. Thank you.
Lisa: As a physician and small business owner I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marci.
Marci: I feel very fortunate to be a business owner in Maine. Unlike any other place I can think of, Maine is truly a community of connected people in businesses who really want to see each other succeed. If my company can play even the smallest part in creating success for my clients, I am very grateful. That’s what gets us excited at Booth: helping people see their vision become a reality. I’m Marci Booth; let’s talk about the changes you need. Boothmaine.com.
Speaker 1: This segment of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is brought to you by the following generous sponsors: Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage in Yarmouth, Maine. Honesty and integrity can take you home. With RE/MAX Heritage, it’s your move. Learn more at rheritage.com.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is brought to you by Bangor Savings Bank. For over 150 years Bangor Savings has believed in the innate ability of the people of Maine to achieve their goals and dreams. Whether it’s personal finance, business banking, or wealth management assistance you’re looking for, at Bangor Savings Bank you matter more. For more information visit www.bangor.com.
Lisa: It is very interesting to me to have this individual in the studio because I’ve actually been on a tugboat before believe it or not. This individual is one of not that many people in the United States who designs tugboats. This is Christian Townsend who runs CT Marine, a tugboat design business, with his dad. Christian is also a devoted father to two sons. He and his wife Cathy live near Willard Beach. It’s really great to have you in here.
Christian: Thank you for inviting me.
Lisa: How many tugboat designers are there in the United States?
Christian: A small handful. We develop towboats which push barges up the Mississippi River. A little different than a tugboat. My father is kind of the grandfather of towboats. As far as towboats, there might be one other designer in the country, but he and I do most of them in the country.
Lisa: It’s a pretty specialized job.
Christian: Very.
Lisa: How is that he came to be doing this sort of business. He’s been doing this for 55 years?
Christian: Yes, CT Marine is about 55 years old. He started before college. What happened was he was playing soccer as a young kid. He was hit in the eye and became blind in the eye. His parents didn’t send him back to school for that year so he sailed I think for about a year as a young kid, then eventually became first mate of the Shenandoah, which is the Black Dog Tavern’s boat on Martha’s Vineyard. He went back to University of Michigan and helped with their model basin, then went to the Netherlands for a few years to concentrate more on towboats. The rest of the story just kind of evolved, so we might have five or six really big clients that we deal with. They probably operate 95% of the machinery on the Mississippi River. We’ve got our fingers in a fair amount of boats on the Mississippi.
Lisa: That must have taken some real vision and also perseverance on your father’s part to find something that he really loved doing and have it not be something that many other people were doing, and just dive in there and stick with it and keep going.
Christian: Yeah, he’s very persistent and very dedicated to naval architecture, and to producing boats that are very safe. That’s his striving goal. Probably for the first 30 years he made barely enough money to get us to college and through life. My mother is a psychiatrist; she helped a lot in putting food on the table. It took a very long time for dad to become successful enough to hire people and continue for so long.
Lisa: Yet, he’s still doing this and he’s in his 70s now.
Christian: Yeah.
Lisa: When you and I were talking you said that he works probably 70 plus hours a week?
Christian: He probably does. Many more than I am working. It’s really his ultimate love in life is to design these boats. He would certainly do it without any money and it’s probably the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing when he goes to sleep – is towboats, and how to improve them. We’re working on a lot of innovate technologies to further the design like introducing liquid natural gas to towboats and developing more efficient transportation systems for the Mississippi, which is generally what we just work on: the Mississippi River and all its tributaries.
Lisa: You grew up in Connecticut.
Christian: Yes.
Lisa: Did you think you were going to be a towboat designer?
Christian: Not at all. This was probably the last thing I thought I was going to do. I went to Purdue University and my parents got a divorce when I was a sophomore. I kind of used it as an excuse to deviate from working hard at school. My grades plummeted and my father asked or told me that if I was going to go to school next year I had to work for him. I just fell into it and it never stopped. Now I couldn’t think of doing anything else but I certainly didn’t have it on my horizon while attending Purdue.
Lisa: How long have you been doing this now?
Christian: About 25 years. I was in shipyards with my dad when I was 8, usually sitting in the car because the yard wouldn’t let me in because I was too young. I’ve been around these boats for 40 years or nearly. But it really wasn’t a desire of mine to become a naval architect.
Lisa: And you’re still doing it.
Christian: And I’m still doing it. I’ll do it until I’m retired, if that ever happens. I hope to have my kids take over. My youngest is a real mathematician so I think he would be great at it. My oldest son Ryder would probably be great at the design aspect. I might have one engineer and one designer in the family, or hoping.
Lisa: What is it that has drawn your family – specially it sounds like the male members of your family – into designing boats, into naval architecture? What’s the siren song?
Christian: I think it’s just what we’ve been around. I grew up on Boston whalers and was running around the Connecticut shores when I was 9 by myself on it. We’ve always been attached to the water. Both my parents have been self-employed since day one and I’ve always looked at that with some admiration and enjoy the flexibility. I think that I just fell into my dad’s business, one because it provides flexibility, and just the love of the water that we’ve been around our whole lives. I just kind of fell into it. It really isn’t something that desired at all; it just happened. I don’t know; I think it really just evolved.
My kids are the same way. They love the water; my wife does, too. It’s just the direction we’ve headed towards. We actually bought a large sailboat a couple years ago to sail down to The Bahamas. It was going to be our plan to pull the kids out of school for a year or two. Then on a whim we actually bought some camps up in Moosehead Lake, so the boat’s on the market and we’ve changed gears drastically, but we’re still shooting for water if we can get to it.
Lisa: We’ve had a lot of people on the show now. We’re going into our fourth year doing this. I don’t think we’ve ever had any group of people who are so consistently passionate about what they do as the people who work on the water: people who are sailors, people who are boaters. We had a woman who runs a tugboat operation. It’s very interesting because it’s so consistent. It’s not in an airy fairy way; it’s to their core. People are so connected to the water.
Christian: I think it is something to the core where you just feel it. One thing I like about the towboat industry is it’s very, very small. There are 6,000 towboats on the Mississippi River but they are owned primarily by five or six companies. There are very few naval architects; there’s few engineers in the industry. It’s a tight group and a small group with everybody very passionate about it. I don’t know why people are so passionate about the water. Maybe it is something with your core. I don’t know if I could really answer it, but it’s just there.
Lisa: There is also this feeling of family that goes beyond I think just a father-son thing, that people do feel very connected to one another. The sailing community seems very tightly knight. You might be far flung but you still will know the person that you met when you were sailing down to the Bahamas. That’s something that I think a lot of people are yearning for these days.
Christian: Deep connection. My father has sailed to The Bahamas for the last 14 years. His best friends for sure are the people that he’s met on those journeys. Some of them he might not have seen for 12 years but he talks to them constantly on his HAM radio, and is a huge part of his life – the connection to the people he’s met on the water, both commercially and sailing, which is his real passion.
Lisa: It also seems to keep families connected. What you’re describing is being able to work with your father for 25 years and that’s not usual in this day and age. In this day and age you don’t see a lot of family businesses that not only survive but thrive. You’re so excited about it that you’re talking about the next generation.
Christian: It’s been very rewarding to work with dad and it’s difficult at the same time. He and I have very different approaches to completing projects. He’ll work consistently for 90 days to get it ready and I’ll hang out on Willard Beach for 45 days until I’m very pressured and then hit it. That has caused quite a few rifts in the last 25 years. At the end of the day we get the project done when it’s due, but we have very different approaches to getting the project done. It’s really helped in our overall relationship to blend professional life and Christmas parties and stuff at the same time.
Lisa: That’s another thing that I think we don’t necessarily encourage in this society. It’s very much a “If you don’t get along, onto the next person,” kind of society. What you’re talking about is you got this guy in your life; he’s your dad; you work with him, and you’re going to keep showing up and keep engaging, and keep figuring it out. Your way’s not the right way; his way is not the right way. Between the two of you you come up with a right way but it requires constant reevaluation and re-engagement.
Christian: Yes. We’ve also worked in separate offices since day one, which I think has helped. I’m not sure if I’d want to be in an office with my dad 60 hours a week, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to be with me 60 hours a week. We both work in our own offices; it’s been like that since the first day. A little separation I think has helped us get through the 25 years.
Lisa: How did you end up in Maine?
Christian: My wife Catherine and I read an article in a magazine while we were on vacation about Portland as one of the top ten places to raise a family or something. We immediately came up in a blinding snow storm in December and drove back to Connecticut and basically packed our bags and turned around. My wife, she started a real estate company up here which she’s run for about 10 years. It seemed that every family member that came to visit eventually moved here. My step-brother, my sister, both sets of my parents: everybody has moved to Maine in the last 10 years.
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Lisa: It’s not that many people that I hear about driving into a snow storm and then coming back to the snow storm.
Christian: My wife wouldn’t have done it I don’t think again. She can’t stand the winter. Maine is such an amazing place with everything it has to offer with the physical environment and the people and art and food. I just can’t imagine living anywhere else besides Maine, and specifically Portland. I think that just rubbed off on all my siblings and parents as they came up here. The snow is an issue with my wife, though, so I don’t know if she’d come up again. Spur of the moment like that.
Lisa: But you and Cathy bring the boys up to Sugarloaf. Your 12 and 10 year old, and you’ve been avid skiers.
Christian: Yeah, we make the weekend pilgrimage every weekend for the last couple years now. I’m very prideful to be a Sugarloafer; it’s a big part of my life. Cathy doesn’t ski every weekend but she’s there; she’s a pretty big trooper and she skis as often as she can. She would much rather be in Antigua on the beach than in Sugarloaf with 20 below zero wind, but we go up all the time. We absolutely love it; if I could ski year round we would.
Lisa: Somehow, again, just like you and your father, you and Cathy are somehow figuring it out. You’re making it work.
Christian: Yep.
Lisa: What is it about Maine that inspires you? You’re a designer; you’re a very visual person. You walked into our office space, you were admiring the table. You looked at the stools and the one you’re sitting on right now. You must gain some inspiration from the landscape and from the buildings and the architecture.
Christian: I like how Maine is preserved for starters. I don’t use any of the environment of Maine in my business but my wife taps into it immensely for real estate, and really showcases why Maine is the place to be. There are so many features of Maine that I wouldn’t want to live without today but I don’t think much of it transcends into my business. But as far as life, I just can’t imagine being anywhere else. The people here are so fantastic, the ocean, the mountains. What you guys do here to showcase Maine gives us a really good sense of pride I think. When I read your magazine, it does such a great job in presenting what Maine is that it makes us even more proud to be Mainers – although technically I guess I’m not a Mainer. I don’t think my kids are either. Do you have to be two generations?
Lisa: From what I understand you have to be born here.
Christian: Yeah, my kids were born here but I think there’s still some …
Lisa: Some discrepancy there?
Christian: Yeah, I’m not sure if they’re really Mainers.
Lisa: It’s always interesting for me to talk with people who, say, come from the design field because I know that my brain does not … I like to take photographs but mostly I’m a … Actually, I like to take photographs, I like to sing, I like to write, I’m a doctor. I guess my brain works in very different ways but I know that I’m probably not a designer. It’s always interesting to have conversations with peoples whose brains work differently and try to tease out what it is that helps keep their brains moving in the right direction.
Christian: My “designer” brain is sometimes a curse because I look to improve everything. It just happens innately so that curtain rod, or anything I look at I try to improve. Drives my wife crazy because I probably have a much better way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than she does. It presents some problems. She’s great about not listening to me and I’m getting slightly better at not offering solutions to everything. My design and engineer background shows up in everything I do, whether it’s painting a door or building a ship, or literally anything – cooking an egg. I’m always trying to improve the process and the outcome. Slight curse.
Lisa: It sounds like it’s on a continuum.
Christian: Yeah.
Lisa: It’s what makes you very good at what you do and also it’s hard to turn off.
Christian: Yes.
Lisa: Is there something about the spaciousness of the sky, the ocean, Maine, the breathing space, that enables you to somehow loosen that up a little bit so that you don’t always feel like you have to fix the door?
Christian: Well, I’m not very good at fixing things. I can start the process; I’m really horrible at ending it. Consequently, we have many projects at the house that started years ago.
Lisa: Maybe redesign the door.
Christian: I can redesign the door really well; I just can’t implement the change. My space is very important for being creative so I’ve got a fantastic office on India Street, which is a converted warehouse. Not really warehouse, converted carriage house. It’s tucked in between multiple buildings so that the postmaster can’t even deliver mail to it it’s so hidden. That space really helps me in designing tugboats. We have designed so many boats though at this point that it’s fairly routine. I couldn’t do it at Sugarloaf; I can do it up at Moosehead. I wouldn’t want to work in some tight office with typical office building, I couldn’t do it. I need something to maintain my creativity, I guess, or help with it.
Lisa: It sounds like your father’s dedication to what he is doing has in some ways informed your dedication to what you’re doing and the career path that you chose. How are you doing the same thing or not doing the same thing with your own sons?
Christian: I look up to my dad with so much admiration. He is the hardest worker I know. Unbelievably smart and dedicated to me, to succeed. He absolutely loves what he’s doing but he may be retired at this point if I weren’t in the picture. Sure he’d be still in the Bahamas or somewhere with my step-mother. I am trying to instill as much in my children that I can from what I’ve learned from my dad.
I’m not as patient as my father for sure, and probably not as capable of teaching as my dad is, to my children. But I’m doing what I can and consequently my kids, because of my wife and self and my parents, are really great, well-rounded children. Responsibility and punctuality are really important to me because of this business that I’m in, so those are two things that I drill my kids with. They probably don’t like it very much but I’m taking as much from my dad and trying to get it to my children as possible.
Lisa:Given that this is a Father’s Day show and it’s airing on Father’s Day and we’ve been talking about you and your father, what are your dreams for your children as a father?
Christian:Mostly I hope they’re healthy for the balance of their life physically and mentally. I hope that they can do what they really want to do in life. I would hate to see them trapped in a job or career where they don’t’ want to do that. I’m not teaching them that money is very important and I hope that they do something and not use that as any kind of decision what they would make. If they want to be a sous chef at 555 for the rest of their life then that’d be great. If they want to take over mycompany that’d be great. But if they can just do what they really dream to aspire to do and be healthy that’s all I really want.
Lisa: Christian, I really appreciate your coming in and talking to us about the work that you do, and now I can say that I’ve met a tugboat/towboat designer
Christian: Towboat designer.
Lisa: I don’t think that many people can say that since there aren’t that many of them in the world.
Christian: Probably not.
Lisa: I really appreciate that you and Cathy have chosen to raise your boys here and that you and your father are continuing to bring safe towboats into the world. Thanks for coming in and being with us on Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day to you and to your dad.
Christian:Thank you. Thank you very much. A big thanks to your magazine and all its affiliates for portraying Maine the way it should be portrayed. We feel proud to have you guys portray Maine and tell its stories. Thanks for having me.
Lisa:You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast show #144: “Father’s Day.” Our guests have included Chris Kast and Christian Townsend. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter, and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and as “Bountiful One” on Instagram.
We love to hear from you so please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you’ve heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Father’s Day show. Happy Father’s Day to my own father Dr. Charlie Belisle and all the father figures in my life. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. Now you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1:The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine; Marci Booth of Booth Maine; Apothecary by Design; Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage; Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial; Dream Kitchen Studios; Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms; and Bangor Savings Bank.
Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture, and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street Portland, Maine. Our executive producers are Kevin Thomas, Susan Grisanti, and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Our assistant producer is Leanne Ouimet. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our online producer is Kelly Clinton. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is available for download free on iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.