Burt's Bees namesake says he was forced out

Burt's Bees co-founder, Burt Shavitz, says he was forced out of the company, but has no regrets. The reclusive beekeeper ended up with 37 acres in Maine and an undisclosed sum of money.

|
Robert F. Bukaty/AP
Burt Shavitz poses on his property in Parkman, Maine, May 23. Mr. Shavitz, the Burt behind Burt's Bees, still lives in rural Maine after leaving the company that was later sold for millions by his former business partner, Roxanne Quimby. He said he has no regrets, and that he doesn't need much.

Conventional wisdom suggests the Burt behind Burt's Bees left the company after he became disillusioned with the corporate world and wanted to return to his solitary life in the rural northeastern state of Maine.

The reality, Burt Shavitz says, is that he was forced out by co-founder Roxanne Quimby after he had an affair with an employee.

So the man on the Burt's Bees logo that promises "Earth-friendly natural personal care products" ended up with 37 acres in Maine, and an undisclosed sum of money.

And he's not complaining.

"In the long run, I got the land, and land is everything. Land is positively everything. And money is nothing really worth squabbling about. This is what puts people six feet under. You know, I don't need it," he told a filmmaker on property where the company was launched in the 1980s.

The reclusive beekeeper whose simple life became complicated by his status as a corporate icon is now the subject of a documentary, "Burt's Buzz," which opens Friday in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Phoenix and Cleveland.

Interviewed by The Associated Press on his land in Maine, Shavitz declined to discuss his relationship with Quimby.

"What I have in this situation is no regret," he said, sitting in a rocking chair. "The bottom line is she's got her world and I've got mine, and we let it go at that."

Shavitz, 79, grew up around New York, served in the Army in Germany and shot photos for Time-Life before leaving New York for the backwoods of Maine.

He was a hippie making a living by selling honey when his life was altered by a chance encounter with a hitchhiking Quimby. She was a single mother and a back-to-the-lander who impressed Shavitz with her ingenuity and self-sufficiency.

She began making products from his beeswax, and they became partners. An image of Burt's face — and his untamed beard — was featured on labels.

The partnership ended on a sour note after the business moved in 1994 to North Carolina, where it continued to expand before Shavitz was given the boot. These days, he makes occasional promotional appearances on the company's behalf.

In the documentary, Shavitz sounds both bitter and ambivalent.

"Roxanne Quimby wanted money and power, and I was just a pillar on the way to that success," he said.

Quimby, who made more than $300 million when she sold the company, disagrees with any suggestion that Shavitz was treated improperly.

"Everyone associated with the company was treated fairly, and in some cases very generously, upon the sale of the company and my departure as CEO. And that, of course, includes Burt," she said in an email to the AP.

Shavitz lives in a cluttered house that has no hot water; he used to live in a converted turkey coop on the same property. He still likes to watch nature pass by.

All manner of critters traipse across the land: deer, moose, pine martens, even a pack of cacophonous coyotes. On a recent day, six baby foxes played in the field.

"Golly dang!" he exclaimed, his blue eyes gazing.

His humble life is a long way from the one where he stays in four-star hotels during promotional trips. The movie juxtaposes his ideal day, one in which he's left alone, against a trip to Taiwan, where he was greeted like a rock star by fans wearing faux beards and bee costumes.

Director Jody Shapiro said his documentary presents contrasts: a man who wants a simple life but also likes to travel and experience new things; a vegetarian who likes to shoot guns; a man who's content to sell honey but also helped launch a big business.

He described Shavitz as "an authentic character" but still isn't sure what makes him tick.

"After hanging out with him for a year, I stopped searching," he said. "Is he more complicated, or am I trying to make him more complicated?"

Shavitz doesn't plan to change a thing. He has his three golden retrievers. And he has his land.

"I had no desire to be an upward-mobile-rising yuppie with a trophy wife, a trophy house, a trophy car. I wasn't looking for any of those things. I already had what I wanted," he said in the documentary. "No one has ever accused me of being ambitious," he joked.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Burt's Bees namesake says he was forced out
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0604/Burt-s-Bees-namesake-says-he-was-forced-out
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe