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V O L . X X X I N O. X I M AY 1 9 , 2 0 2 5 6 B U S I N E S S M A I N E Business news from around the state Nominate a top-notch woman executive before July 7! Do you know a woman business owner, CEO, president or top executive with an established track record of success; a woman who has been a trailblazer and a mentor to others? S PONS OR ED BY FOLLOW U S @M AI NEBI Z #MBOWB25 GO TO W W W.MAINEBIZ .BIZ/OWB25 NOMINATE THEM BY JULY 7! A restorer of antique windows created a product that safely strips old lead paint B y T i n a F i s c h e r M arc Bagala's mantra for how he's grown his Westbrook-based Bagala Window Works is: "Necessity is the mother of invention." Bagala and his staff of 17 restore antique windows for museum houses, historic landmarks and private homes. The work originally required a lot of scraping and sanding, but when Bagala received a frightening diagnosis after a few years in the business — alarm- ingly high levels of lead in his blood from the old paint — he had to come up with a method that didn't put his health at risk. "I needed to think about another career path or figure out how to work in a lead-safe way," Bagala tells Mainebiz on a tour of his workshop, located in a quirky former church at 677 Main St. in Westbrook. He's not a trained engineer but says he learns fast. What he came up with, after a few years of trial and error, is a 6-foot by 6-foot steel box that uses steam to remove paint and asbestos-filled glazing compound, which he calls the Steam Stripper. Bagala's invention works inside of 30 minutes, softening multiple layers of paint in one cycle. Then with a simple putty knife, a window can be deglazed and stripped in one operation. Ensuring that the steam doesn't degrade the win- dows' integrity took some extra ingenuity, but Bagala enjoys a design challenge. In addition to using the steam boxes at his work- shop, Bagala sells them to other window restorers and he's sold many of them to the National Park Service, which uses the units to strip antique windows at his- toric buildings. When he first introduced the boxes in the mid-1990s, he sold more than 20 a year. "Since COVID days, sales are now at about three to six boxes a year," Bagala says. The price has also increased because the boxes are highly insulated stainless steel (inside and out) and metal commodities have soared. "In 1995, they were selling for under $6,000 per box. Presently, they cost $12,000 each," he says. The Steam Strippers are one of several products Bagala has innovated and spun off into a second business that he and his brother Carl Bagala run, Gorham-based Window Restoration Supply. In addi- tion to the steam boxes, they manufacture metal interlocking weatherstripping, which creates a tight seal between the window and "jamb" for increased energy efficiency. Bagala learned to create the weatherstripping with the help of a friend and, ever up for a challenge, he purchased machinery from a 120-year-old company which was liquidating, and started manufacturing the product. Bagala uses the weatherstripping in his renovations and sells it online to other restorers. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY SP ONSORED BY Charlie Sykes squares up a two-light bent sash before repairing it at Bagala Window Works in Westbrook.

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