Former CFAC owner donates to college

Recent news that the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. smelter plant has a shot at lining up a power contract with the Bonneville Power Administration coincided with this summer's news about one of the company's former owners.

The family of the former co-owner recently donated $4 million to Flathead Valley Community College. Jerome Broussard's gift will be used to build a $5 million Nursing and Health Education Center as a tribute to his late wife, Rebecca Broussard. The Broussard family, including his daughters Sarah and Rebecca, have challenged the community to join the FVCC Foundation in raising the additional $1 million in construction costs for the center.

This is not the family's first donation to the college. In 2003 and again in 2007, the family donated $500,000 toward a scholarship fund that now totals about $1.2 million and has provided money to 229 students.

Jerome Broussard's wife earned a nursing degree at the University of Evansville, in Indiana, in the late 1970s and worked as a nurse in Kentucky and Jamaica. After moving to the Flathead Valley, she became involved in the sport of equestrian eventing. Their daughter Sarah at one time was ranked the No. 3 Young Rider in the U.S. for the sport.

In 2001, the Broussards established a non-profit corporation that purchased 600 acres north of Kalispell and established a 150-acre equestrian facility called Rebecca Farm. The site has hosted United States Equestrian Association Gold Cup Series, World Cup and Olympic-qualifying events.

Aluminum career

The Broussards have lived on Whitefish Lake and on St. George Island, in Florida. They came to the Flathead after Jerome Broussard learned in 1985 that Brack Duker, a former Arco executive, was looking for a partner in owning and operating the aluminum smelter just north of Columbia Falls.

Born in St. Martinville, La., Jerome Broussard graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1963. Two years later, he took a job as an engineer-supervisor at the Anaconda Aluminum Co.'s Columbia Falls smelter. He took a leave of absence in 1969 to get an MBA from Tulane University and then took the job of managing AAC's new smelter in Henderson, Ky.

Three years after Arco acquired AAC in 1977, Broussard was promoted to director of operations at Arco's corporate offices. In 1982, he took the job of managing the Alpart alumina refinery in Jamaica, a joint venture between Arco, Kaiser and Reynolds. Three years later, Arco sold its interest in Alpart and Broussard left the company.

It was 1985, and Arco had been disposing of its Anaconda properties in Montana, including enormous mining and smelter operations in Butte, Great Falls and Anaconda. The Columbia Falls aluminum plant appeared to be next when Duker arranged to buy the plant for one dollar and keep it running under a new business plan called "tolling."

Broussard became CFAC's general manager in September 1985. Two years later, he acquired a 45 percent stake in Duker's Montana Aluminum Investors Corporation, which was later converted into CFAC.

With aluminum selling at a rock-bottom 41 cents per pound, Duker and Broussard needed to find ways to make CFAC profitable. By "tolling," they could sell finished metal on the open market. But they also needed to reduce costs, so they convinced workers to take a 15 percent pay cut in exchange for a 50-50 share in the profits.

Making a profit

The plan seemed to work. The Columbia Falls smelter had lost $100 million in 1984. With manpower reduced from 1,000 to 650 and more favorable energy costs, the company was in the black by 1986 despite even lower metal prices.

That's when metal prices began to climb and the secret profit-sharing agreement really became important. According to federal court documents, CFAC paid out $84 million in profit-sharing to its workers. Unfortunately, Duker and Broussard kept $231 million for themselves.

According to U.S. District Court Judge Jack Shanstrom, from 1986 through 1995, Broussard earned $24 million in salary, $73 million in dividends and $41 million in S-Corporation tax payments for a total of $138 million.

Broussard stepped down as president of CFAC in 1992 after several lawsuits were filed against the company over the profit-sharing agreement, but he and Duker fought the charges. In a March 1992 letter to union president Larry Craft, Broussard said "profit-sharing distributions were to be made at the sole discretion of the board of directors of CFAC."

As the profit-sharing story unfolded, workers found themselves asking the Flathead County sheriff to seize CFAC's assets to prevent it from being sold to Danielson Holding Co. for $120 million and tracking CFAC profits diverted to a shell company called Eural.

In September 1995, as the union prepared to vote on a contract that would take away their profit-sharing, 18 guards in combat boots and berets showed up at the Columbia Falls plant. The guards worked for a Virginia company that had provided security to A.T. Massey Co. during a 15-month dispute with coal miners marred by violence.

Duker and Broussard offered the CFAC workers $12 million to settle. The offer jumped to $50 million when attorneys discovered the owners' offshore bank accounts on the Isle of Mann and Gibraltar. Then, five days before Christmas 1997, the workers were offered $97 million.

Within a year, Duker and Broussard sold CFAC to Glencore International, a Swiss-based commodities trader with aluminum assets around the world. The amount of money Duker and Broussard made from the sale is not publicly known.