NAPLES – Dick Dyke, the longtime owner of Bushmaster Firearms

who made millions when he finally sold the successful company in

2006, is once again making news here and abroad with his

announcement two weeks ago that he is reviving weapons

manufacturing in Windham. In the first of a two-part series, the

Lakes Region Weekly sat down with Dyke to talk about his ventures,

old and new.

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series.

Dick Dyke, the longtime owner of Bushmaster Firearms who made millions when he finally sold the successful company in 2006, is once again making news here and abroad with his announcement two weeks ago that he is reviving weapons manufacturing in Windham.

The 77-year-old Dyke, who could be safely described as the very definition of a self-made millionaire entrepreneur, bought an ailing Bushmaster Firearms in 1976, managed to bring it back from the brink and eventually turned the brand into one of the best-selling AR-15 and M-16 rifles used by military and law enforcement around the world.

In addition to being one of the Lakes Region’s most successful businessmen, Dyke, who lived in Windham before moving to Naples several years ago, is also as close to Hollywood glitz as the Lakes Region of Maine gets. He wears silk shirts, drives a Rolls Royce, and owns a helicopter and a lakeside golf course (and he doesn’t even play golf). Not to mention his list of contacts; Dyke counts among his friends Maine’s two senators, well-known athletes, musicians and actors.

Dyke isn’t afraid of the limelight, either. He lives smack dab in the center of the heart of the Lakes Region, in a huge and beautiful home adjacent to the Naples Causeway complete with a helipad. He has owned 63 businesses, ranging from a frozen custard stand he bought last year in his winter home just outside of Las Vegas, to his newest creation, Windham Weaponry, which is set to open in July in Bushmaster’s vacated space at the Dyke-owned Windham Business Park off Route 302 in North Windham.

In an attempt to find out a little more about his rags-to-riches story and what keeps him motivated to start new ventures, the Lakes Region Weekly recently sat down with Dyke at his home in Naples, half of which overlooks the bustling Causeway and Long Lake, while the other side features views stretching across Brandy Pond and the boat-filled Naples Marina:

Q: What was the first business you owned?

A: The very first one was a very small deal because I was very poor. I bought four cottage lots on a pond called Snake Pond in Chesterville, Maine, for $200 and I had to borrow $100 from my dad, which was the last $100 he had. And then I went to the Legislature and got the name changed to Pleasant Pond and advertised them for $500 apiece and sold all four lots to a stockbroker who thought he found an old farmer who didn’t know what he was selling.

So I got $2,000, gave my dad back his $100 and gave my wife $500 and took the other $500 and said, let’s do something crazy and took the rest and put it in an investment kitty. That was when I was a treasury agent (for the Internal Revenue Service).

Q: So you had your day job and investing was a side gig to begin with? Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?

A: Oh yes. When I graduated from Husson with an accounting degree, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t know what the hell that meant. And I didn’t know how you went about doing it. I just knew I wanted to be my own guy.

Q: While a treasury agent, how did you get into investigating organized crime?

A: I had been in the service and had been a counter-intelligence agent in the Korean War, so my training chased me into the organized crime part of the IRS.

Q: Did chasing the Mafia help thicken your skin when it came to making business deals later in life?

A: I think you have to be tough with yourself, more than anyone else. You have to establish certain standards you’re going to operate by. And you’ve got to develop what you think is a fair price for a deal and you’ve got to stay there. You don’t want to be wandering all over the lot and want it so bad you keep upping the offer. If you don’t buy a company right, you start making mistakes.

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’ve got to get up in front of the mirror in the morning and what you see you’ve got to be satisfied with, because the rest of the day it’s either going to be the greatest day in the world or it’s going to be a crapper. And if it’s a crapper, you’ve got to be able to dig your way out of the hole, nobody’s going to save you, you’ve got to save yourself.

Q: Did you come from money?

A: I give talks from time to time, and a couple weeks ago I was talking to a group of kids and I kind of shocked them because they said, oh, you drive a Rolls Royce convertible, all these sorts of things, and I said to them, would you believe I never had an indoor bathroom until I went to college? And the only reason I played sports in high school was so I could use the showers? And the kids didn’t know what to make of that. But we always had food on the table, clean clothes, and there was never any discussion in my family that we were poor. We didn’t feel poor.

Q: So, your latest entrepreneurial move is Windham Weaponry. What does it mean to you personally to relaunch weapons manufacturing in Windham?

A: I sold out five years ago and I just have the one son, Jeff. And we made a lot of money on the deal. And when Cerberus (International, a hedge fund) bought us, they were just getting into the gun business and it was my hope and my understanding they liked Windham, they liked the people, they liked walking into a plant where the people were smiling and built one of the best weapons systems in the world. We were known all over the world. Bushmaster is a very famous name. I bought it in 1976 out of bankruptcy in Bangor and really struggled like hell the first five years.

But I got a certified letter in January that Bushmaster Firearms would not be renewing its lease in the (Windham) Business Park, which I still owned. And that they would be moving out July 1.

So I asked what that would mean for all the people that were working (there). And they said they felt it was in their best interest to consolidate it with their Remington facility in New York and we’re sorry but we’re going to have to lay off all your people. If they want to come to New York and apply for a job, they can. And I said to myself, they’re Maine people, they’re not going to uproot their families and go in at the back end of the list as an employee. So I said, I’m really sorry to hear that because there are a lot of good people but I had a non-compete, which ran out April 5. So I called my son and I said look, I know I promised you that at 77 I wouldn’t go back into a big business. I would do these little ones and I’d go back to Vegas and behave myself. But I said, Jeff, I’m really troubled by this. We did very, very well, the two of us, and now all our people are unemployed, so I said, how would you feel if Dad went back into the business? And he said, Dad, I’ve been expecting the phone call and if that’s what you want to do, I’m all for it.

So, on April 8, I was traveling on the Orient Express in Europe going down through the Alps and we pulled over to let a train go by and I had a good signal with my computer so I wrote an email to my employees, because I had kept in contact with them over the years, and said would you be crazy enough to go back into the game with the old man if I decided to create a new gun company?

I had to shut down the computer because we were moving on, and when we got to Venice I turned on the computer and (had a lot of messages with) everybody saying they’d love to get back in the game. So I came back, called six guys and said I need to raise $2 million. I don’t want the Dyke family to be the major shareholder. I want to be a substantial shareholder and my son does, but I want to keep it in proportion. But myself, my son and my two grandchildren, we’d be comfortable owning a third of the company. And within 24 hours we had the $2 million raised. It was that easy. And they’re all Maine people, every one of them except Yung Edwards, who’s originally from Taiwan and an electrical engineer by trade.

So I came back and Bushmaster told me they would lay off the last of the people by the end of March and that if I wanted to get the business back earlier, that if I’d take over the utilities June 1 they’d turn the facility over and still pay me the rent for June. So I brought back 25 of my people. We’ve been scraping and scrubbing and painting because you’ve got to change the whole look to get that new flavor in everybody. And I’ve found that when you buy sick companies, that’s one of the tricks – to get everyone excited and to get everybody together.

And I’m in there as much as I can at 77, scrumming with the other guys. I go out and buy lunch and bring it back and we sit and eat lunch together. And this week, we finished, so we’re buying equipment and bringing in equipment and setting it up. So we plan to start operations in July and ship our first guns in September.

Q: Personally, are you proud to be able to do this for your former employees, many of whom have been there for a decade or some for much more than that?

A: You can’t walk in and see 25 smiling faces who say to you, hey, we’d do this for nothing just because it’s you, boss. That’s a real nice feeling. I’m really very touched. Some of the employees, the kids are sending me cards and saying, thank you, Mr. Dyke, for hiring my mom or dad back. I’m a tough, old guy in a lot of ways, but I look at this stuff and I’m just very touched.

Q: We always hear how manufacturing is dead in Maine. Why Windham?

A: In the gun industry, they know the gun that is made in Windham, Maine, is one of the best weapons systems in the world. And so by being able to go on our website and say we’re building the gun in Windham, Maine, is huge.

Q: Will these guns be any different from what you made at Bushmaster?

A: They’re going to be AR-15s and M-16s, but the basic design is going to be the same as Colt makes or Smith & Wesson or Bushmaster. There will be some cosmetic identifications that will look different, and obviously Windham Weaponry will be on the lower receiver and on the magazine and the barrel.

Q: Your Bushmaster guns used to feature “Windham, Maine” on the barrel, but now Windham will be emphasized even more since it is part of the name of the company. For a town whose business leaders are trying to brand it more successfully, that’s kind of a coup for Windham, isn’t it?

A: Absolutely, that’s right. And with Bushmaster, they have to say it’s made in New York. We hope within 12 months we’ll be up to 50-75 employees.

Q: Why gun manufacturing? What about it intrigues you?

A: It doesn’t, any more than any of the other companies I’ve been involved with. My philosophy is more built around the people. I think you can buy a toilet bowl and if you’ve got the right people to make it and you’ve got another right group of people to sell it, you’ll sell more toilet bowls than anyone else will.

Every company I’ve ever owned is different from every other company I’ve ever owned. I can’t think – other than real estate deals – that I’ve ever duplicated anything. I’ve been in the poker chip business, the perfume business, the lumber business. I had three car businesses. So, to me, I always buy sick companies. I’ve never bought a healthy company in my life, never could afford to.

Q: So is it the challenge of turning around a business that intrigues you?

A: Oh, absolutely. What are they doing wrong that I could change that would make that thing profitable. And quite often, it’s people. You either have to change people because they won’t change. And I was fortunate early in my career, when I didn’t have a lot of money, to associate myself with good people.

Dick Dyke, past owner of Bushmaster Firearms, is having another
go at the rifle manufacturing business, announcing last month that
he is opening Windham Weaponry and expects to be selling AR-15s and
M-16s by September. His Naples Causeway home, which used to be the
Charlie’s on the Causeway restaurant, is in the background. (Staff
photo by John Balentine)

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