Shuster still crusading for industry after 32 years with Cranston Print Works

George Shuster has studied alongside Bill and Hillary Clinton, lobbied Congress, and now, after 32 years with Cranston Print Works, he’s ready for a new challenge.

Shuster retired last week as the president and CEO of the company, where he will remain on as chairman. That means significantly fewer hours, though, and Shuster isn’t complaining.

“I’m here just enough to know what’s going on and to be helpful, but not run the show,” he said Thursday, a pile of papers mounting on his desk as he cleaned out 32 years worth of work.

Shuster came to Cranston Print Works, the oldest textile printing company in the country, in 1978 as in-house counsel, a role he hadn’t imaged while studying law at Yale. He graduated in the legendary class with the Clintons, and was immediately barraged with offers from New York City firms, attracted to his resume that featured a clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

For four years, Shuster worked at the law firm of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. And in an unusual turn of events, they offered him the role of partner – an uncommon feat just four years in. Shuster accepted, but six months later turned in his resignation.

“For the first time in my life I decided I wouldn’t put myself in the path of the next best thing,” he said.

Going back to his college days, Shuster said he realized even then that he was unsure of his chosen profession. His professors taught him to think like a criminal. When drafting contracts, for example, Shuster was told to think of every possible corruption that could be made.

That, he said, went against everything his own father taught him.

“Treat everybody in the world as if they’re honest,” he said of the family motto. “No one in my family was ever a lawyer so I didn’t really know what it was about.”

With the practice behind him, Shuster jumped at the opportunity at Cranston Print Works. Once again, he quickly moved up the ladder, taking over as vice president of operations in 1981, and a decade later ascending to the role of president and CEO. At the time, his promotion was the transition for then-president Fred Rockefeller, Sr., who stayed on as chairman until 2001.

With Shuster making the same step down today, Rockefeller’s son, Fred, Jr., will begin wearing the president and CEO hat.

That doesn’t mean Shuster’s work is complete.

During his tenure at Cranston Print Works, the tide of industry changed dramatically. Peak sales for CPW were in 1993, at the height of women’s apparel in America.

Slowly but surely, however, things began to change.

The computerization of production made their work faster and more efficient, but at a cost. CPW plants began to shut down, and Shuster had the unsavory job of visiting employees around the country to explain why they were losing their jobs. When he came into the company, there were 2,500 employees – 600 of whom were in Rhode Island.

Today, there are only 150 people working for Cranston Print Works.

More than the changes in technology, however, were the changes in trade that caused a loss of jobs.

“Most of our business was lost in that transition because of U.S trade policy,” Shuster said, shaking his head. “They’ve made it easy to import and hard to export.”

As the conversation shifts to policy, Shuster lights up. He begins ticking off statistics and scribbles a graph on a legal paid tossed to the side of his desk.

“How much of the clothing you’re wearing right now do you think was imported from another country?” he asks.

“On average, 96 percent,” he says, answering his own question.

For shoes, it’s even higher at 98 percent.

The reason is simple, Shuster explains. Tariffs for imports are quite low at 1.3 percent (down from 1.7 percent just a few years ago). The tax on exports, on the other hand, is at 40 percent.

What this translates to are jobs being shipped overseas.

“We’re hollowing out the soul and the good part of America,” Shuster said. “To deindustrialize America, to some people, is an actual goal. I’m just flabbergasted at how many people buy into it.”

As the co-chair of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, Shuster works tirelessly against the outsourcing of jobs and the obstacles placed in the path of American businesses.

When he hears politicians talk about job creation nowadays – such as the improvements to infrastructure included through the stimulus plan – he scoffs. Those, he points out, are government jobs, and are not sustainable. Forcing businesses to outsource work then, is taking jobs and money away from Americans who need it.

“We’re reaping the harvest of that right now,” he says, touching upon the economic downturn and rising unemployment.

Though supporters of the import-export tariff system call it “free trade,” Shuster calls them, “free traitors.”

He has completed a manuscript on a book that gets to the heart of trade regulations here and abroad. With more time on his hands post-retirement, he’s hoping to get it published.

Shuster also hopes to pursue some of his extra-curricular activities, such as collecting fossils and completing the boathouse near his Glocester home that he has been building by hand for the past six years. He will also continue to row competitively. Shuster was in the Olympic camp at one time, and last week was flying to Europe for the Henley Royal Regatta.

Now that he will work just two or three days a week, the 64-year-old will have more time for his three children and four grandchildren, as well as his work on the boards of directors for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Care New England and Kent County Memorial Hospital.

Don’t expect Shuster to call off his work with international trade just yet.

“It’s still possible for a U.S. company, despite all the obstacles the government puts in the way, to be a success,” he said, adding that he believes Cranston Print Works will continue to be a viable business in the future, especially because of the growing demand for the paper chemicals they produce. “It’s a long, uphill battle, but I love fights like this.”