Gene Geiger, MAS+, chairman of Lewiston, Maine-based Geiger (PPAI 105182, D12), was finishing up dinner at DaVinci’s – a local Italian restaurant – last Wednesday around 7 pm when his friend tapped him on the shoulder to strike up a conversation.

Within a few minutes, the room buzzed about an active shooter in the area.

A 40-year-old firearms instructor and member of the U.S. Army Reserves had opened fire at Just-In-Time Recreation and at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, which is less than half a mile away from Geiger’s home and company headquarters.

Around 7:30 pm, three police officers wearing combat vests and carrying large guns ordered patrons and staff – about 40 people total – to move to a back room and to stay away from the windows. Geiger and everybody else were glued to their phones for an hour or so until the restaurant owner marched everyone to the basement.


Seeking information from CNN and Portland, Maine’s NBC affiliate on his iPad, Geiger and his fellow bunker mates wondered how long they should stay there. Once news spread about an abandoned car found one town over in Lisbon, Geiger says that staff returned upstairs to clean, and patrons drifted off. 

At 10:20 pm, Geiger finally left. He usually drives past Schemengees on the way home, but had to detour around a mile section of a street that had been blocked off. As soon as he walked into his house, he locked the door behind him.

‘One Degree Of Separation’

As the manhunt carried over into Friday evening, residents in Lewiston, Lisbon and Bowdoin were instructed to shelter in place. As a result, Geiger’s headquarters were closed on Thursday and Friday.

  • At 7:45pm on October 27, the gunman was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot near the Androscoggin River, about 8 miles from Schemengees, according to police.

“Shock, confusion, disbelief, anger, grief, fatigue, relief, resolve. Name the emotion, we’re feeling it,” Geiger said in his Sunday afternoon newsletter to industry friends, adding that no Geiger employees were among the victims.

“In a town like this (and likely yours), if you didn’t know them, you know someone who knew them. When I went out last Friday evening after the shelter in place order ended, I sat next to a fellow I know who knew four. My friend Jake told me last night he knew the bowling alley manager who died there. And I have a close friend whose work colleague knew the gunman – and is now totally distraught. No doubt every local Geiger person has similar connections – one degree of separation.”

  • On October 25, just hours before the mass shooting, Geiger – the No. 7 distributor in the 2023 PPAI 100 and one of Lewiston’s largest employers – hosted a blood drive, in which the American Red Cross collected 27 pints, including some of the industry veteran’s.

“They were ordinary people out to enjoy their family and friends,” Geiger said. “You know people like them. Indeed, each person who passed had a family and friends, who were also seriously wounded by the gunman.”

Picking Up The Pieces

“This horrible and needless event has cast a sad shadow over the entire area,” says Rebecca Loiselle, sales manager at Lewiston-based distributor DVE Manufacturing (PPAI 288666, D1). “I can’t wrap my brain around how the victims’ families pick up the pieces and go forward with their lives. Our collective hearts go out to them and their loved ones.”

Along with grocery stores, gas stations and schools stretching from Cape Elizabeth to Thomaston, Maine, DVE was closed last Thursday and Friday. On the first day of the “shelter in place” order, Loiselle drove for 40 miles and saw only a dozen other cars on the road.

“I kept telling people that called me how I was fine, but I would often find myself looking out my office window and not really be sure how to express the emotion,” she says. “Not scared. Not angry. Perhaps bewildered that this could happen in Maine. We had all felt so insulated from the hate that perpetuate mass shootings.”

  • Considered the safest state in the U.S. based on the low violent crime rate, Maine had only 29 killings in 2022, The Associated Press reported.

Loiselle says that DVE is donating to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a nonprofit dedicated to mental health resources. “This is a wakeup call to Maine and the nation that we need to take a serious look at mental health in this country,” she says, “and hopefully, pass some legislation on a national level that will help – not hide – mental health issues that people have. All the signs were available in this instance.”