BAR HARBOR — The Jackson Laboratory is not only Hancock County’s single largest employer, but an enduring source of high-paying, full-time jobs that has maintained some local families on the payroll for generations.

Top wages, extensive benefits and workplace amenities that include an elaborately equipped fitness center are among the factors that attract workers from eight counties and 57 communities to The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. Employees who make use of the fitness center, such as research assistant Aleksandra “Sasha” Aljanka (foreground) and grants coordinator Pier Carros, receive cash bonuses.—STAFF PHOTO BY EARL BRECHLIN

Merrill’s son, Gary, is 44. Now living in Seal Harbor, he’s been on the clock at The Jackson Laboratory for nearly 22 years, having signed on at age 22. Gary’s wife, Ginger, is employed here, too, now in her 10th year and working as a quality assurance manager.

As the materials manager for JAX Mice & Services (JMS), Gary now oversees on-site and off-site warehousing and the shipping operation through which JMS annually sends 2.5 million mice to biomedical, pharmaceutical and industrial research laboratories throughout the world.

As a boy, Gary used to tag along when his father’s duties required him to work weekends.

“I also remember, as a little kid, coming with my grandfather to pick my grandmother up from work,” he said. “She didn’t drive.

“My first job here was in the ‘clean area’ of JMS, using machines that clean cages that you would offload and put bedding into them. We prepared the water bottles and got them into the rooms where they kept the animals.”

Over the years, Gary has had a variety of job assignments but has never considered working anywhere else.

“What the lab does, to some extent even today, is to provide a chance for those who want to stay in the area to do so, to continue to live in this kind of setting,” he said.

“When I graduated from MDI High School in 1981, I never thought I’d work at the Lab. I thought I would go on and do something different. The pay has always been good and the benefits are awesome. It’s a magnet, and, particularly if you’ve grown up here, it draws you back.

“We have a lot of long-time employees here. In my department alone, I have five or six guys who have been here long enough to earn six weeks of vacation a year, which means they’ve been here for at least 25 years.”

That longevity, he said, contributes to a workplace family atmosphere in which there are very few strangers.

“We’re growing now to the point where I’ll see a new face almost every day, but there’s a sense of closeness with everyone you work with,” he said. “Everybody I work with I somehow knew previously, and that relationship carries on. My boss is a guy who was in high school when I was. The pay’s good and the benefits are good, but, at least when you go to work every day, you’ve had some history with the people around you, which makes it more pleasant to come to work.

“To me, the benefits and the pay are a very close second to having an established relationship with the people you work with every day.”

Gary Seavey said workers at The Jackson Laboratory also share a collective pride in the facility’s long history of supporting global efforts to improve human health.

“I think that’s very significant,” he said. “These people realize what the bigger picture is in terms of working here, which is trying to knock down diseases and to find cures. I think a good many of the technicians like working here because of the fact of what the end product might be someday.”