From Professional Skateboarding to Cushnoc Brewing: Tobias Parkhurst’s Journey Back to Maine

Summary:

Tobias Parkhurst, Head of Business Development for Cushnoc Brewing Company and a longtime Maine entrepreneur, joins Dr. Lisa Belisle on Radio Maine to share an unconventional journey from professional skateboarding to revitalizing community life in central Maine. Growing up in rural Maine, Parkhurst found identity and resilience through skateboarding, eventually traveling widely before returning home to help run his family’s glass business. After years in construction, he shifted toward ventures that reflected his passions—helping launch Cushnoc Brewing Company in Augusta and contributing to other local businesses like State Lunch, Sand Hill Bagel, and Cushnoc Cantina.

In this thoughtful conversation, Parkhurst reflects on lessons learned from skateboarding, entrepreneurship, and travel—especially the importance of persistence, community connection, and bringing new ideas back to Maine. From building breweries and skate parks to fostering spaces where people gather over beer, pizza, and conversation, his work highlights how small businesses can shape the identity of a place.

Join our conversation with Tobias Parkhurst today on Radio Maine—and be sure to subscribe to the channel.

From Professional Skateboarding to Cushnoc Brewing: Tobias Parkhurst’s Journey Back to Maine

Building Places People Want to Gather: A Conversation with Tobias Parkhurst

How Travel, Skateboarding, and Curiosity Shaped Maine Entrepreneur Tobias Parkhurst

Social Media Caption:

From professional skateboarding to building breweries and restaurants in Maine’s capital city, Tobias Parkhurst has taken an unconventional path shaped by creativity, resilience, and community.

In this episode of Radio Maine, Tobias joins Dr. Lisa Belisle to share how lessons from skateboarding, travel, and entrepreneurship led him to help revitalize Augusta through ventures like Cushnoc Brewing Company, Sand Hill Bagel, and more.

🎧 Watch now. Join our conversation with Tobias Parkhurst today on Radio Maine—and be sure to subscribe to the channel.

\#radiomaine \#mainepodcast \#mainebusiness \#cushnoc \#augustamaine \#entrepreneurship \#community \#craftbeer

Dr. Lisa Belisle (00:10):

Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. We are sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Today I have with me Tobias Parkhurst, who is the Head of Business Development for Cushnoc Brewing Company. And also many other things from reading through all of your credentials. You've done a lot Tobias, so I'm really interested in having a conversation with you today. Thanks for coming in.

Tobias Parkhurst (00:41):

Well, thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (00:44):

I think the first thing I want to talk about is skateboarding. How did you get into ... I mean, what you're doing now has probably very little to do with the skateboarding that you did for a very long time. How did you get into skateboarding and then how did you transition out of skateboarding?

Tobias Parkhurst (01:00):

Geez, that might be the first and last question because I could probably talk for an hour and a half about that. But I started skateboarding. My first interaction with it was we'd gotten skateboards for Christmas. We had one just rolling around in the garage and it was something that was interesting. It's the 80s, right? So Back to the Future and Police Academy, and it was featured in the media as sort of an outlier type of an activity. And my parents were in the glass business and we went to Manchester, New Hampshire for a glass show. My dad is an avid traveler and likes to kind of get out and explore. So it was nine o'clock at night or something like that. And he's going stir crazy in the hotel and wants to go for a walk. So we go for a walk and into my first city experience, you know what I mean?

(01:51):

And there's kids on scooters. Remember the scooters with the BMX tires on them? It's the 80s. Everything's hot pink. And I saw skateboarding for the first time. And I was just like, these kids own the night. These kids, they just had their own thing going. And I was really, really interested in it. Team sports was not a really positive experience for me as a kid.

(02:16):

I tried them all, but I didn't come from a really sports oriented family. So yeah, my dad would play catch with me or whatever if I asked him to, but he was. It's not like we were circled around the TV watching Major League Baseball or something like that. So that's what drew me to skateboarding. And I think as a kid with an older brother, four years older, that's tough to play physical sports with. You get somebody that's two feet taller and stronger and all that stuff. And living in a pretty rural area, there was some kids around my age, but nobody really like exactly. So that was something I could do at my own pace and by myself and in the driveway. And it just kind of stuck on. And it started early enough for me that I don't think of skateboarding as something I do.

(03:06):

I think of skateboarding as kind of like who I am, which as a 47 year old man is like kind of absurd, but it hasn't been 24 hours since I was on my skateboard and it's not going to be 24 hours until I'm on it again. You know what I mean? So it's something that I really enjoy doing now with my 11 year old son, which is a different and cool experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (03:26):

Well, then I guess the other question is, how did you get back out of it? Come back to Maine and start this next part of your life, which was multiple businesses, first working with your family's business, but then businesses in downtown Augusta.

Tobias Parkhurst (03:44):

I was a working pro, meaning I wasn't famous for just being me. I was out there a lot of like demos and hot parking lots and traveling to contests and things like that. So I was working very hard, probably traveling like eight or nine months out of the year for a reasonable though modest amount of money. It felt like I was rich at the time because I didn't have anything I wanted to do other than travel and skateboard. So it was fantastic. But around 29, I had a series of pretty serious injuries. And when you're off on the next trip, that like little one bedroom apartment or whatever is great. It's easy to clean when you get back. There's no maintenance or anything like that. But when you're locked up in that little apartment for six months recovering from an injury, it's like, what am I doing with my life here?

(04:39):

You know what I mean? So I was 29. My dad gave me a call randomly and just said, "Hey, I know you're doing the skateboard thing. I don't know if you think you're going to do that forever." In the back of my mind, I'm going, "No, I'm not. " Turns out I am. But he said, "If you're not going to do that forever, I'm going to wind the glass company down. If you wanted anything to do with it, now would be the time. And I think you could make reasonable money." And I was kind of in one of those moments where, I don't know, maybe it was the pain medication, but I was like, "Yeah, it's time to grow up and do some real stuff." So moved back to Maine in 2008, went to work at my dad's glass company. Very difficult transition for me.

(05:16):

I went from traveling around signing autographs and writing my own schedule. I'd set an alarm unless I had a flight to catch, to being like the boss' son in a construction company and known that I was there to take over at some point, not the best way to get into a business. "Oh, this kid thinks he's going to run the show at some point. "Not easy, but it was cool. What I value most about that experience was really getting to know my dad as an adult. Dad's always like an intimidating figure when you're a kid and you might love him and get along and fine, but really getting to know as like a coworker and a role model and an individual was a really good experience. So I did that for about 15 years and just sold that business three years ago. My journey in construction, somebody said to me one time, "The worst thing that can happen to you is to be good at something you don't like."

(06:14):

And I was pretty good at construction in the sense that the company grew well under my leadership. I didn't make any friends in construction. It never became part of my life. It never became who I was. It was a little bit of an identity crisis going to a job that I didn't feel like I related to the people or the work or anything like that. But reasonable problem solver and hard worker and I have that capacity I can put in hours. So it was stressful for me and growing a business beyond the size you are capable of managing is an interesting place to be. Taking it over with the goal of making a certain amount of money and being able to go on two vacations a year and then getting there and go, "Oh geez, I don't know what else to do."

(07:05):

So I think it's a rare type of a person that can set a goal, accomplish it, and then set a new goal further away. And you see that in small business all the time, right? Somebody goes," Man, if we do a great job, we can get to here. "And then they get there and the business almost immediately starts to pull back and get stale. And you've seen it a million times. It's the mechanic shop with more rusted cars out front than ones they're actually working on. It's the restaurant that hasn't done a new special in three months. You know what I mean? You can see those when that happens, success is sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a business. So I kind of reached that point and started looking for a way out. During that time, making reasonable money and not knowing what to do with it and feeling a little miserable, I started doing things that made me happy with the money that I had previously not had.

(08:04):

So went to work on raising money for skate parks and opening breweries and restaurants and buying old buildings and renovating those and trying to keep productive and happy because the job was not necessarily really firing me up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (08:24):

When you say the job wasn't firing you up, you mean the job with-

Tobias Parkhurst (08:27):

the glass company.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (08:28):

The glass company.

Tobias Parkhurst (08:29):

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (08:29):

Okay.

Tobias Parkhurst (08:29):

Construction's tough. I mean, respect to anybody who enjoys it. People do. There's people that like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (08:36):

So tell me about that. What about construction is tough?

Tobias Parkhurst (08:41):

My metaphor for construction is you're standing on the train tracks and you're tied to your customer and the train's coming and you're trying to explain to the customer, really got to take a couple steps in this direction and they're telling you you're wrong and that's not what we're going to do and we're actually going to walk further down the tracks, not facing the train instead.That's the way construction felt for me. And I think it's interesting when you're in a business that goals as much as they should be aligned are often in competition with each other, right? So we're in the glass business. We put windows and holes. If your job is to make the hole ready, you got to do that before I can do my job. That somehow is confusing and complicated. And it's always difficult. You agree to make a whole one size, you make it another size.

(09:32):

So we all have the same goal here, right? The building's going to need a window. So we're trying to get there together. A lot of folks in construction, if you're a kid who played in a sandbox and made something you were really proud of and some kid came and kicked it over, there's a lot of those people in construction. There's probably a lot of those people in a lot of industries, but that's how I felt in that business. And that's probably more of a reflection on me being out of place than ... I don't want to paint the picture that if you work in construction, you're some terrible person, like some sandbox bully or something like that, but different mindsets.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (10:10):

I think that's really fair. I mean, I think what you're talking about is the idea of fit. And if it's your crowd, if you're a skateboarder and you're with the skateboarders and you feel like it's a great fit, then maybe there is a certain personality type that's associated with the skateboarder type, but you're going to be fine with it because maybe you were that person.

Tobias Parkhurst (10:32):

Well, and there's shared experiences, right? The shared experience that gets you to be running a construction company is different than the shared experience that gets you to be at a skateboarding contest, right? Never chose construction. Construction was, I was 30 years old and my resume read has been doing a lot of skateboarding and needed to kind of catch up in the real world. So I jumped into a world that I didn't really have any business in. And maybe because of my other experiences and being different, that was maybe helpful, but certainly never felt like my people for sure. The people that I got along great with in construction were people that I pulled in from outside of construction, people that I hired that my sister, for example, or a good project manager friend that I knew from skateboarding. And I know that coworkers do better when you like them.

(11:21):

You're better off having people around you that you like than having people around you that are good at their job, because you make sure that people you like are successful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (11:28):

When you sold your shares in O\&P Glass, you expanded Cushnoc, you opened Cushnoc, Cantina, in Waterville. You also have other businesses, State Lunch, Sandhill Bagel. I mean, you really expanded into a lot of non-construction, but seemingly more, seems like a more of a hospitality oriented focus generally.

Tobias Parkhurst (11:55):

Most of the things I've been involved in have been really kind of selfishly motivated. I started buying and developing historic buildings because I couldn't find an apartment I wanted to live in and saw a building and realized that a mortgage was pretty similar to what I was paying for rent when I was living out of state. And yeah, restaurants in Central Maine in 2008-10 were not anything to be very excited about. I had ideas and things that I thought would be good to do. And I wanted a brewery in my town. I was into craft beer and I spent a year looking for somebody to do it and nobody was interested. And so I put together some people, I found some people that could make it happen and we just did it ourselves. And we've been very fortunate at Cushnoc. We've grown intelligently.

(12:36):

We haven't overstepped. We're about two years from being completely debt free. We've been fiscally conservative. We've grown in a way that's made us profitable and not focused as much on volume. We've got good partnerships with our customers. We always say we want to be complimentary, not competitive. So we own restaurants, but the restaurant across the street also pours our beer. So how do we navigate that? But yeah, the beer business is fascinating and interesting and fun. I got into it because being interested in beer, liking the product, I realized that there's so many different ways that different businesses go to market. You've got the 100% taproom focused, you've got the old school pub style model, you've got guys who are all about distribution and the wide and shallow approach. And I just love that the individuality of that. It kind of reminded me a little bit about skateboarding of skateboarding in the sense that sort of identity marketing, right?

(13:37):

It's all about creating a brand and a product that resonates with people and they go, "Oh, I'm that kind of a person." So I like that about it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (13:44):

Recently, when I was talking with someone about the people that I was going to be talking to today for Radio Maine, I mentioned Cushnoc and it was just an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response, "Oh, I really like them. They're really good people. They make really good food." The experience is just generally positive. And for me, I thought, well, having worked in Augusta for many years, Augusta Waterville area, I mean, to have a business like that, I think is really important. It's really important to have that kind of positive association for Maine's Capital City, but also Maine's Capitol City that I think is rebuilding an identity. Would you agree?

Tobias Parkhurst (14:29):

100%. And I think timing wise, we opened at a time that there was a little bit of a tension downtown and I feel like there was a boom in breweries opening and we were the only capital city in the country that didn't have a brewery when we opened. That's interesting, right? And as somebody who has two little boys that I hope can see a future living close to me, why don't we have the same opportunities that other people do? Why don't we have a brewery? Why don't we have a skate park? Why don't we have good food? We're 45 miles from Bon Appetit Magazine's restaurant, city of the world, and I got to get pizza at the gas station. I was sitting in an interview yesterday and the guy said, "Well, you guys do kind of a lot in the community." And I didn't respond, but I was thinking in my mind, I'm like, "Community is literally the only thing that we have."

(15:20):

I mean, that's our entire business. And community as defined liberally, right? The beer community, the Maine community, the craft beer community, right? But I think our timing was right. I think we were terrified to fail. We sent out letters to breweries when I was looking to attract one. I bought a building and I was like, "It's big and empty and you don't need 3,000 square foot spaces in downtown Augusta. That's too big for a boutique. It's too big for a coffee shop. It's too big for a traditional downtown business." Those are all small storefronts. It's a thousand square feet and a thousand bucks a month.That's how downtowns work. I had 3,000 square feet. It was built as a department store. The building that we're in, 243 Water Street in downtown Augusta was a purpose built as a Kresge's department store, which is the precursor to Kmart.

(16:08):

And what I can tell you about historic buildings is that the square footage is the cheap part. Everything else is expensive. The development is expensive. And so who needs big empty space? It's a warehouse essentially, right? So a brewery turned out the floors were not capable of holding fermentation vessels of the size that we needed. So we wound up with 120 seat restaurant instead of a brewery with a 50 seat tap room, but a happy accident, I guess, in some ways. So I think our timing was good in the sense that the community felt really happy to have us. And I think we were just ... Our business plan this year, eight years in, we did something like 15 times the sales that our business plan had projected we would do. And that is not because we've had this phenomenal skyrocketing growth, though we've done well.

(17:04):

It's because we had phenomenally low expectations. At the time we were in a brewery and planting, you couldn't buy a craft beer. You had to drive to bootleggers in Topsham then. That was the closest place that you could get it. And somebody would be wheeling in a hand truck of beer and people would be taking the four packs off. It was hard to get. You had to go to the source at that time. So we're in Central Maine, you can't get a craft beer. They pour our beer at Applebee's on Western Avenue now. But at that time, it was a question whether or not anybody would be interested. We started using our own family and selves as sort of our true north. Is this a place you'd want to go? What's the decor? Would we be comfortable sitting here? Is this pizza we want to eat?

(17:46):

Is this beer we want to drink? We've always said accessible but nuanced. That's a little pillar of our business. Accessible in the sense that everybody knows what pizza is, right? And everybody knows what crab rangoon is. So Mondays are crab rangoon pizza day. And I think when you have really talented people around you, and I'm very, very lucky to have that, we do a damn good crab rangoon pizza and that could be bad as you can imagine. So we focus on beer flavored beer. We focus on familiar concepts, but prepared exceptionally well. And I think you can bring your bummer of an uncle and he can get a pepperoni pizza and a American style lager. Or you can bring your kid whose home from college in Berkeley and they can get a fully vegan gluten-free pie with a cider made from apples picked here in Maine.

(18:44):

So we try to ... If you're going to be in a rural community and you're going to do cool stuff, you need to find a way to make the cool stuff accessible to as many people as possible. And so we've always tried to be the place that you could be in a committee hearing at the state house and come afterwards, or you could be painting the lines on the street and stop in for lunch. We really want to be a welcoming place for everyone. We obviously have our own political views individually, but we vote beer and pizza at Cushnoc. We want to be welcoming to everyone. And I think the community appreciates that. And listen, you can get a lot of beer. You can get a lot of pizza. Why would somebody come to you? And if you're not asking yourself that question, you're probably cooked.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (19:25):

One of the things that I am struck by is that you graduated from Maranacook and back when you graduated from Maranacook, I can't imagine there were that many people who A, went into skateboarding and B, had the, were eventually going to go into this sort of travel and global experience because I know having lived in Maine a long time myself, there are a lot of people who, they're born in Maine, they're raised in Maine, they graduate from a Maine high school, they work in Maine, their grandchildren are in Maine. Nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's a very solid, very stable base. And also, that wasn't you. It certainly, it hasn't been my children. My children were here, but then they go away. We want them to come back. So it's an interesting kind of thing that you've been experiencing yourself and how do you bring your experience, your view of the world back to a place where the view of the world can be very different?

Tobias Parkhurst (20:35):

Yeah, I think that's pretty fair. Everyone taught me two things, how to fall down and get back up. And if you look around the world, what's the worst thing you can do in school? Fail. Right? What's the worst thing you can do at work? Fail. It's hard to get success without messing some stuff up and it takes a certain resolve. I could try a trick for two hours and land it one time. And to be able to call that progress and to consider that a success, it doesn't translate to the rest of the world very easily or evenly, right? And my son goes to school in Augusta and one of his first assignments this year was my son who skates. They had the hallway quotes written on the wall and they had to pick a quote and write why it was important, like why that quote resonated with them.

(21:32):

My son who's 11, not very interested in school, though he does fine. Pick the quote, all things are hard until they're easy. And the story that he wrote was about learning how to do a kickflip. A kickflip is when you ride on a skateboard, you jump in the air, it flips over and you land back on it. Looks like the easiest thing you've ever done. It is impossible to do. You can go bowling and get a strike. We can go to a basketball court, you're going to get a basket. There's no universe where it's going to take you less than a year to do a kickflip if you practice a lot. The day I landed my first kickflip, I was 900 and something tries in, I was counting. And that was after months and months and months of practicing. So what a tremendous life lesson to be able to go out into the world with, right?

(22:11):

It's like, no, yeah, that felt impossible. I don't see it. The first time I ever saw a kickflip was in a library book and I thought it was fake. It was a photo sequence and I was just like, that's impossible. How could anyone do that? So I learned that. And then the other thing I learned, and this is a result of being a street skater, I'm not the guy on the vert ramps or on the mega ramp or whatever, moving to a pretty diverse place and being out in the streets and interacting with homeless people and gangster type people and business people and security guards and police and all walks of life and managing to get through that without getting beaten up or arrested or anything like that. It's taught me how to ... And my mother is the one who pointed this out to me.

(22:55):

She said, "You know how to talk to people. You can relate to anybody and you learn that skateboarding. I know that. " And I think that's true. So coming back to Maine, yeah, a lot of people have different experiences, but not wildly different. The human condition is not wildly different. And we're all products of our environment and I have to have grace. There's certain political feelings, the drama in the world right now. My wife is an immigrant, my sister's adopted, she's also an immigrant, my business partner at Sand Hill is an immigrant. I have many, many people in my life very close to me that immigrated here. My own grandparents aren't that far off. We're not that many generations here. We're not native. But if you don't have the experience of how people from diverse cultures enrich your life and make it better, I can understand how that could be scary for you.

(23:48):

Doesn't mean I maybe accept your response to it. I think it's important to just keep in the back of your mind that people are responsible for their actions, but maybe not always their opinions. I love Maine. Maine's full of wonderful people. And I think the rural communities are part of what gives us our grit and our character. And we're very lucky to be in such close proximity. I mean, the drive down here today is absolutely beautiful and 20 minutes from one of the best cities in the whole world. And I traveled a fair bit. I'm telling you, Portland's a world-class city.

(24:23):

And I think that travel, because I have traveled a fair amount through skateboarding. My dad always liked to travel. We're not just going to New York. We're going to New York and we're going to ride the subways in the 80s and 90s, and they're covered in graffiti and stuff. And we went to England as a kid and got right on a double decker bus with no idea where we were going. That's the kind of wanderlust that my family kind of bred into me. But you go someplace, you see something cool, then you're kind of bummed you don't have it at home. And so a lot of the things that I've been involved in are a result of the travel experiences that I have. I'd love to go to Miami. I go to Miami. I only eat tacos the whole time I'm there. I come home and I'm like, "What am I going to go to Taco Bell?" It'll do in a pinch, but we could do better.

(25:05):

So that's where a lot of that inspiration comes from. And then of course, I don't even know how to use the POS at my restaurants. I'm sure as heck not in the kitchen cooking. So I don't want to take any credit for the execution, but maybe planting the seed at the beginning.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (25:20):

My family obviously hasn't been here as long as people who were here originally, but a long, long time. And neither one of my parents traveled extensively except while my dad was in the Navy getting his sort of education paid for. And so we did travel a little bit. So both of my parents, both of their families, just lots of deep Maine connections. And so when I had an interest in traveling and going outside and then bringing my kids along with me, and now my kids are telling me of the fun places that they're going to, and I'm like, "This is pretty amazing." So if you can do exactly as you said, you can bring your experiences back, you can bring your passion for elsewhere back to your passion for here and you can also be aware that, I mean, if you don't travel, that's also okay.

Tobias Parkhurst (26:13):

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (26:14):

I mean, it's just a different way of approaching the world. I also know living in Southern Maine and having been raised mostly in Southern Maine, it is very different from other parts of Maine. There is an interesting cultural divide, I think, that we see sometimes. So that's why I think the Maranacook background for you as a school, I think that's just an interesting twist for me.

Tobias Parkhurst (26:38):

I was really lucky to wind up graduating from Maranacook. I had not necessarily positive experience. I went to school a little bit further north up until 10th grade, and I'm not sure I was on a good track, feeling a little more like an outsider, a little more alienated. And then going to Maranacook, they were very welcoming of me and what I was into. I mean, I had independent study gym. They had let me skateboard in the parking lot in gym class. I'm talking about 1995. That was not a normal thing to do at that time. So I think it's a reflection of the sort of throwback hippie community that created that school to begin with, and that's sticking around. Even my parents actually taught at Maranacook, but yeah, great school, wonderful experience, and I'm really happy that it sort of changed my perspective as a kid into skateboarding and anti-establishment and punk rock.

(27:45):

And I'd probably have an anarchy tattoo on my chest right now if I hadn't wound up in that school and kind of gone, "Oh, the establishment doesn't have to be all bad." The reason I went to college, I would not have gone to college otherwise. I was ready to pack my bags and drive to California the minute after graduation. And that was only because my mom was not going to let me drop out. I would have dropped out in 10th grade, no questions asked. So I feel very fortunate to, though it's a rural school, awful progressive and supportive of diverse kids, I don't know what's changed, but it's hard to replace DNA and I think that's the DNA of that school. I always have a positive view of that area and time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (28:28):

I've been doing this interviewing for 15 years now, and I've been doing this particular interviewing format for five years. And what I hear over and over and over again actually has to do with teachers. And these may not be teachers who have actually ever gone very far themselves. Maybe they got their education within the

(28:44):

State of Maine, but exactly what you've described that sort of ... Well, it's actually, it's both. It's sort of parents and what they made possible and what they were open to, but also teachers. And so I'm struck by your saying this about maybe you wouldn't have graduated at all except that you had a mom and you had teachers and they both contributed to you kind of at least staying enough of the mainstream course that then you could embrace this other aspect of self and then you came back.

Tobias Parkhurst (29:11):

Yeah. Interesting how that all works out, isn't it? It makes you maybe question a teacher, right? That's a job. It's also a role that you play in somebody's life, right? So you might not have that job, but it doesn't mean you're not playing that role, right? We're teachers to our kids and in some respects, our friend group, right? We influence the people around us. It's a good thing to be mindful of, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (29:36):

Yes. And of course, my mother being a longtime teacher, she's officially a longtime teacher, not just the role of teacher, but I also think there's something about the small business element of things where you do ... Our family has been involved in and still are involved in multiple small businesses. And in Maine, that's what mostly we have is small businesses. I mean, we have large industry But we have a lot of small businesses and you end up becoming responsible for the people that work in your company. So you make sure that they get health insurance, you make sure that you pay the payroll. And so when you contribute through Cushnoc or through the other companies, you're contributing to the livelihood of families. And that is a responsibility, but also a privilege.

Tobias Parkhurst (30:25):

Sure. And we're very aware of that. The guy running for governor called me the other day and said, "What's the biggest challenge that you're facing as a small business person?" And I'm thinking like, "Geez, I don't think like that in the context of what's hard." You just kind of put one foot in front of the other and look for good opportunities and things like that. Most of my business is the worst the economy has gotten, the better we've done. Just that mindset of not giving up and being ready to take advantage of a tough situation. I also think there's a little bit of a concept of if you don't admit the game is over, you're never going to lose. So just that idea that we're going to push through this, whatever it might be. But I said to the guy, I said, "Honestly, the hardest thing is wanting to take the best possible care of your people and being in an economy that that's not really possible." My grandfather raised six kids, worked at a mill, had a wife that stayed at home, paid for the two of his kids he had that wanted to go to college, to go to college, always bought new cars, did well, put a two car garage on the house.

(31:29):

What's the job you get in 2026 that lets your spouse stay home? You raise six kids and pay cash for two of them to go to college. It doesn't exist.

(31:39):

You just made a really cool app and sold it for a lot of money. Good luck getting there. This is a regular person that was able to do that. The economy based around large corporations and shareholders and unfair tax code is not putting us in a situation as business people that we can do the things for our employees that our grandparents, employers were able to do for them.That is a challenge. That's a hard place to be because I worked my butt off. I want some money too. You know what I mean? And so that's, I think, the challenge. And I think when you look at the unrest we have in this country, a lot of it, if your vote doesn't matter, what are your options?

(32:24):

Anger is the first thing. You want to make somebody really mad, ignore them. And I think a vast section of this country feels ignored. And I think that's a group of people. It's not just lower class people that live in really rural areas. I think it's increasingly young people. And to some extent, the average first time home buyer in this country right now is 40. Our parents bought their houses when they were in their 20s. That means if you're doing a good job, you're 20 years behind your folks. It's interesting. And as we have to work later in life, the nicer jobs, the executive positions, they open up a little bit later. You might have been president of the bank at 32 in the 60s. The old guy from the bank's going to hang on till 65, 70 something years old at this point. So you're going to be older when you get that job.

(33:24):

So there's a lot of challenges I think people are facing right now without simple solutions or certainly without solutions that small business people can handle on their own, can solve on their own. But you are correct. Small business remains the backbone of the economy, particularly in places like Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (33:43):

And I do want to tease out a little bit of what you just said in that is that I, especially in the COVID and post- COVID era, I do think that for whatever reason, the way that government came forward with the decisions that they did to protect the people, it actually, it might have done exactly that, but it also did not necessarily help small businesses all that much. And so, and those are also people. So when you talk about people who feel ignored, then there's the people ... And if these are the small business owners that actually straight out feel angry.

Tobias Parkhurst (34:22):

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (34:22):

Here I am trying to stay open during COVID, trying to do what I can to positively contribute to the economy and the government is outright working against me.

Tobias Parkhurst (34:32):

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (34:32):

And so that friction for me has been really interesting and painful to watch actually. How have you, if you agree, and i'm not making an assumption,

Tobias Parkhurst (34:41):

But- Well, it's very interesting. Small business, we care about our employees. Sounds great, but it's also true, right? So who's the first people to shut down during COVID? It wasn't Domino's. I'll tell you that. It wasn't Target. Those people, those businesses shut down when they had to, right? I can remember sitting down in a meeting before we were told to shut down and my partner's going, "We got to keep our people safe. We got to close." I fought against it. My cold, dead capitalist heart. I said, "You know what? We're going to do exactly what the CDC says. We're not going to do any more or any less because if the trigger for us closing this business down, is this thing existing? What if it becomes a thing that we live with? Does that mean we never get a trigger to open back up?" So our business, we did everything we could.

(35:31):

We're very, very lucky that beer and pizza is not a bad thing to have when people need something to do and need some comfort. So we only laid off people that wanted to be laid off. We kept working. We never closed, not for a day.

(35:49):

We closed to the public. I'll never forget as long as I live walking into my 120 seat restaurant and seeing two girls behind the bar with headsets on. We had to add a line, taking orders and our brewers and servers delivering pizzas and the whole ... We have a communal table that seats 30 people just staged with beer ready to be delivered. It wasn't fun, but those difficult times, they can really make you so much more resilient in good times. And I think we're in a situation now. COVID was terrible. We hated the whole thing. We made it through. And then we had a couple of years of recovery. Thank gosh, that's not happening anymore. And now we're starting to have fun again in business, right? But I think that not even just federally, but statewide, we had an administration that was not interested in talking, not interested in listening, decided what was the best for us.

(36:43):

In some cases, they were right. They certainly had the best intentions. In some cases, they were wrong. I was on the legislative committee of the Maine Brewers Guild at the time and we could not get a phone call. And I felt abandoned. We had a previous governor that I was maybe not a big fan of that was the reason we got open. And then to have a governor that I voted for, not even care if we maybe cared if we lived or died, but not as a business, right? That was difficult. And I think a lot of what we're seeing on the national stage right now is a result of people feeling like they were treated unfairly during COVID, that the restrictions were too harsh. And I'm not an overly political person. I consider myself an independent, so I'll trash talk the left and the right just as much.

(37:33):

Well, maybe not just as much. I think we're seeing a little bit of a backlash to maybe some overstepping, even with the best intentions. Politics is interesting in this country right now.

(37:47):

I think if you just took a random section of a hundred Americans and asked them what the other side thinks, right? I think you'd find a bunch of people on the left saying, "Well, the right thinks all babies should be given automatic weapons as soon as they're born." And the right would say, "I think everyone on the left thinks all babies should immediately be aborted as soon as they're born." And at the end of the day, I think if you take that same hundred people and you ask them what they think should happen, they would all agree that abortion and gun control both kind of suck. They're bummers, but also necessary on some level. And I think we have an algorithm controlled by bots from other countries that continuously divides us and convinces us that there's this other extreme. And I think that exists, right?

(38:36):

But we're going to have to at some point decide as Americans that we don't have to pick between two extremes. We have political parties that pander to a base, the 5% of extremes on either end. They get their news from Facebook, just like all the lunatics do, right? But it's the 90% of us that live in the middle that are reasonable, normal human beings that just want to go to work and take care of our kids. And if we're lucky, buy a camp or go on vacation sometime. And we don't really disagree that much. We have much more in common than I think we get credit for. The world stage right now is a really dirty game of team sports where my team has to cheat because your team cheats and your team always cheats because you're a bad team. So we have to be a bad team too, but it's only because of you.

(39:21):

It's your fault. You know what I mean? And until we can decide that the rules of the game include being a decent human being or not lying, until we can decide that our team also needs to follow the rules, we're going to continue this kind of spiral of division, I think. I say all this not having any idea who you vote for. You know what I mean? But I don't think it's terribly controversial. I think I'm right and I think most people would agree. It's hard to have grace for people. You see things on Facebook that just wind you up as they're designed to do. But I think if you really think about your daily life, you're not really coming across too many devils or demons despite what the world news and social media might lead you to believe are out there. How's that? We covered politics now, huh?

Dr. Lisa Belisle (40:09):

Yeah.

Tobias Parkhurst (40:09):

Beer, politics, skateboarding, what's left?

Dr. Lisa Belisle (40:11):

Yeah. What did we not talk about? Should we solve what world hunger right now? Well, I mean, you might be if people like bagels and coffee and lunch and- That's true. That's true. You're pretty close, right? Yeah. I'm really appreciating that you have this broad perspective and that you have interest in all these different areas. And

(40:33):

For me, it just comes back to a willingness to engage and have communication. And I mean, obviously you're here, we're having this conversation. Hopefully people will listen, be interested. It might spark something in their own mind. But what I hope that when people listen to or watch the conversations that I have, I hope what happens is they don't take my word for whatever it is or even the guest word for whatever it is we're talking about, but think about it, go talk to somebody else and just engage and have exactly the conversation that you're talking about. And because I don't think these things are decided ... It's not like the national election is the thing that decides sort of the cultural consciousness. I think it is small pockets of conversations and interactions that are happening. So I mean, it just takes a little time.

Tobias Parkhurst (41:17):

Well, yeah. And I also think you have to keep in mind that the average human experience is different. We have millions of years of evolution that have taught us to believe our eyes and we kind of can't. Between AI and Russian bot farms, they say something like 60% of the things you see on the internet aren't real and we're spending more time on the internet than ever before. So the fact that our collective consciousness is confused and angry and not really sure what's going on, there's a reason these kids are saying, "Go out and touch grass." They're talking to their parents who they see scrolling TikTok rather than engaging in parenting. You know what I mean? And my hope is that my kids' generation will do what most generations do, and that's reject their parents' activities and passions, and maybe take it back a notch in terms of their digital engagement.

(42:14):

I hope that that's what happens. The trends we're seeing very interesting, I'm in the alcohol business and we managed to grow last year, met with our distributor and I said, "Geez, I was disappointed with our growth last year. I thought we'd do better. I thought we made some smart moves." Oh no, you did great. A lot of people are in very, very bad shape and a lot of people are in bad shape even compared to last year when they were in bad shape. So there's a lot of breweries in Maine right now that are surviving on 50% of the sales they were two years ago, right? Well, overall, alcohol consumption is down. Any type of political unrest is bad for any industry that's dependent on discretionary income, right? Because you can always count on that 12 of high life or whatever, right? That's cheap and easy and you know what you're going to get.

(43:07):

So we've been lucky in that respect, but people are drinking less, they're starting to drink later in life.

(43:17):

People from our generation are going to say, "Well, what are they doing? Is it RTDs? Is it the ready to drink cocktails? Is it the legalization of marijuana? What is it? " We're taking for granted that people need an escape from reality, right? That's just a normal thing. "Hey, listen, I just went to work. I worked my butt off, digging ditches, painting lines on the road, whatever, seeing patients. I need a beer. I need to chill out. I need a little escape. "Well, we have a growing section of the population that's not really living in reality.

(43:51):

It's increasingly harder to move out of your parents' house, so you're hiding in your room, you're not out mowing your lawn, you're hiding in your room, you're maybe playing a video game where your avatar is the version of yourself you wish you were. So no reason to go to the gym or work out or eat healthy, right? Because you probably have an AI girlfriend, you know what I mean? People are dating later or not at all. We're going to be in trouble here if we can't change that. Working from home is great that my wife works from home. She loves it. I don't know if she'd keep her job if they made her go back into the office, right? But isolation is not a good thing. And I think we've got this middle generation right now, the 20s and 30s that are living in a very different world than the one that us latchkey kids grew up with.

(44:40):

And I'm hoping the next generation is going to see the errors of our generation and theirs and make it right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (44:48):

Well, I agree with that. And I also, I mean, I do want to call out. I grew up ... There was maybe one computer in the computer lab down the hall. We were outside until the streetlights came on.

Tobias Parkhurst (44:59):

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (45:00):

I mean, obviously things were a lot safer. We grew up in Maine, but I'm hoping that there ... It's not just people rejecting what they're seeing that is bad, but maybe we can pull through the thread that was good and the things that we were actually doing. I mean, there was a reason you were outside skateboarding and I had roller skates. I had my 80s roller skates. And so there's a reason why people did that back then. And I think that that remains a strong point that still exists, that we can return to the things that were good as well as rejecting things. And

Tobias Parkhurst (45:30):

Certainly a house with one screen competing against all the people in the house, family's bigger back then too. So you got one TV and five people that want to watch it. You're not going to get your way. You're going to find something else to do. There was a book, I think maybe 2000, 2001, Robert Putnam wrote called Bowling Alone. It's a textbook really and thick. So don't hold me to this paraphrasing of its concept, but the idea is basically about proliferation of the internet, deindustrialization, white flight, and that we're living in an ever

(46:02):

Increasingly isolated world. Now, I read that in 2001. I just got my first email address. I didn't have a cell phone. I was 21 years old. The example in the book was that bowling, they say that America's baseball and apple pie, it's not, it's bowling. Bowling is the most consistently participated in activity in American history. The difference is in the 1950s, my grandparents bowled in leagues. Now we bowl alone, right? And if you look at the world we live in, how many people supporting ICE on the internet have had their lives actually negatively impacted by an undocumented immigrant? Probably very few, right? But the wildest idea you can think of, you can find a whole group of people on the internet that agree with you, and then it becomes confirmation bias, right? If you could just invent something right now, I think Russia's building landing strips for gay Martians in the Midwest.

(47:10):

There's probably a Reddit subgroup for that. And so now, rather than getting in the bowling league and, "Oh wow, there's a black person. I think I hate black people. " "Hey, I met a black person. Turns out they're just like regular people or a gay person or whatever type of diversity. "You know what I mean? We're not having that as much so we can self-isolate more.

(47:35):

We can interact only with people that agree with us. It's a big thing, right? I just unfriend everybody on Facebook that supports this or that. That's not the social discourse we need. So it's going to be an interesting thing to see how we combat that. And I think I work with the Maine skateboard association and we do community building events. It seems like a fake way that we can raise money for skate parks by pretending we're doing some social service, but the reality is it kind of is a social service. If you can get kids from different communities to come together outside, do something physical and interact, maybe under the guise of the loose concept of competition, but let's be fair, it's mostly getting together and having a good time, we can start to kind of break those things down. I think brewery taprooms were a good example of that for a little while.

(48:31):

They've fallen out of favor a little bit as beer has become more easily accessible, but we need to look for those opportunities as community leaders or whatever to get people out there and get together with diverse groups of people. It's all we've got, really.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (48:48):

Well, Tobias, I hope that we can convince you to come down to the Portland Art Gallery to one of our openings and bring your community yourself as community and anybody else you'd like to.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:00):

Sure. I'd love to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:00):

Down to our community because I think what you have to say is really interesting. And having a long time been with the Portland Art Gallery community, I know that there's a lot of interesting and diverse voices there. And I think you would find a group that absolutely agrees with what you're talking about, that getting to know others and spending time with people, enjoying things like art, food.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:23):

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:24):

It's not that big.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:24):

Sounds like a good time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:26):

Absolutely. And in the meantime, I'll definitely make my way up to Cushnoc and go back to my Augusta area roots and spend some time and-

Tobias Parkhurst (49:35):

Come spend the day. Start with a bagel at Sandhill Bagel and have lunch at Cushnoc.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:39):

Sounds like a plan.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:40):

Maybe head to Waterville for dinner at the Cantina.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:42):

Okay. All right. A day of Augusta Waterville.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:46):

Yeah. Sounds great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:46):

Well, I appreciate your coming in and talking with me today. It's been a pleasure.

Tobias Parkhurst (49:50):

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (49:51):

I am Dr. Lisa Belisle. You've been listening to or watching Radio Maine and we like to celebrate creativity and the human spirit. So today we've been celebrating with Tobias Parkhurst. He is the Head of Business Development with Cushnoc Brewing Company. Also, many other interests that you've heard about. I encourage you to actually maybe go up, as we've said, spend a day Augusta Waterville area, explore all the things that Tobias' group has to offer, but also maybe when Tobias, when you come to our Portland Art Gallery opening, then we can co-mingle.

Tobias Parkhurst (50:24):

Sounds great.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (50:24):

Yeah.

Tobias Parkhurst (50:24):

I'll bring the beer.

Dr. Lisa Belisle (50:25):

Okay. That sounds good. I'll bring the art, but it's been a pleasure and I encourage people to keep building community because that's what we're all about. So thank you.

Tobias Parkhurst (50:33):

Thanks for having me.