Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | April 3, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 29 Giving manufacturers respect The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. W hen I was about 11 years old, I walked to a local business across the street from my home in Quinsigamond Village and straight into a preview of my future. Just inside the doors, I overheard the owner of that business, Marge, talk- ing about a business support group for the women in our neighborhood. I was so intrigued. Whatever your gender or back- ground, running a small business is hard work. It's hard in other ways, too: You have to make sacrifices and choices that people who don't run their own businesses won't have to make and can't understand, including your family and oldest friends. Long hours, strained relationships, missed occasions, and that's just the start. What they don't tell you when you start a business as a woman is your most vocal judges and oppo- nents will be women. The trick is to make friends with women starting and already running their own companies. You're going to need your crew to stay afloat. Trust me. In my 13th year being self employed, I'm lucky enough to look around me and be surrounded by a group of award- winning, lift-each-other-up lady bosses. These women are at the top of the game in their respected fields, running very successful businesses in various industries. We're the first ones to cheer each other on, to publicly support each other, and to collaborate. But one of the most dominant and troubling traits I notice in my fellow founders is we don't own our own accomplishments. Humility is a person- ality trait I highly admire, but when it comes to owning a business as a woman, it's clearly one of the things that's hurting us in our quest to even the playing field. Crompton Collective opened five years ago, quickly scaling to a substantial, award-winning shopping desti- nation. But I still catch myself saying, "We're so very lucky to be doing well." It's not luck that brings people through our doors every day, it's 22 years of veteran retail experience. It's because I bring business books to the beach when everyone else is reading the latest trashy best-seller. It's the human being I work hard to be, every single day, in business and in life, to earn the support system that stands by me and sends business my way. After all of that, I should have no trouble owning my success, right? Nope! Why doesn't pride and selling myself high come as easily for me and my peers as it does for the men who own businesses around us? In our businesses we walk a fine line between not being aggressive enough or being considered pushy, bitchy, brash, insert-Hillary-name- calling-here. I've been accused of those things. Why do cus- tomers ask me a question, only to turn to one of my male employees to validate the accuracy of my answer. Are we facing the same challenges those in Marge's group were facing 20 years ago? I'm sure we are, even though there were more than 9.4 million businesses owned by women across America as of 2015. We still, in 2017, need to band together as women and lift each other up. Amy Lynn Chase is the owner of Worcester retail boutique Crompton Collective. Female leaders need to stop sailing solo F or too long, our manufacturing commu- nity has suffered – like Rodney Dangerfield – from not enough respect. Sure, manufacturing jobs are down from many years ago as a percent of the local and national economy. Yet, while the negative story of the offshoring of jobs across the U.S. over the last couple decades has grabbed most of the head- lines, quietly, and with great skill and tenacity, our manufacturers have thrived. They've become lean- er, nimbler, more focused and hotbeds of innova- tion. No place is this trend more evident than in the manufacturing community of Central Massachusetts, where the growth in economic out- put since 2010 has outpaced the nation average – 20 percent growth in gross domestic product vs. 18 percent nationally. This WBJ edition represents our second annual Focus on Manufacturing, along with our Manufacturing Excellence Awards. The profiled companies represent some amazing stories of suc- cess: growth, investment and innovation are hap- pening all over the place – but few people in the community know it. Why are our manufacturing success stories so underappreciated? In large part, because the industry is not located on Main Street or in the mall; most are not big on social media; and they're not buying billboards or in most cases, making everyday products you recognize and use. While not all manufacturers are growing – many are, like Worcester medical device maker Cogmedix, where sales by were up by 60 percent in 2016. And that growth is creating expansions for many firms as well. F&M Tool and Plastics of Leominster, a plastic storage container maker is renovating a 227,000-square-foot manufacturing plant down the street from its headquarters, and Oyo Sportstoys of Marlborough invested $8 million in expanding its headquarters to increase capacity and employment. MTD Micro Molding of Charlton is planning an expansion; and the merger of West Brookfield's Quabaug Corp. with its new parent, Vibram USA, over a year ago has spurned new investment of its state-of-the-art facilities. These expansions are good for the company, the local construction industry, the towns who grow their tax base, and to the commu- nity with an increase in good-paying jobs. There is a reason area firms are expanding – and it's not because we're a low-cost production state. Our region's manufacturing firms are hotbeds of innovation, in many cases expanding well beyond their original product lines into new markets, and focusing on advanced, innovative solutions for spe- cialized industry niches. Worcester's Kinefac Corp has been able to drive its growth in the highly com- petitive machine manufacturing space by staying ahead of the innovation curve. Precision compo- nents manufacturer Lampin Corp. of Uxbridge, an employee-owned firm, has figured out new ways to partner with area schools and communities that has kept the pipeline of talented young workers flowing, and feeding the company's growth. Seaman Paper has not only distinguished itself with its creativity and innovation in decorative tissues but doubled down on its sustainable practices to become a model of efficiency and green practices. Every company's got a story, but we think the stories in this issue are particularly compelling, and represent a critical, if not always well publicised, sector of our regional economy. V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY AMY LYNN CHASE Special to the Worcester Business Journal Amy Lynn Chase W WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Comments of the issue "This is good news! I would hate to see this architecturally beautiful church destroyed in the name of 'progress.' Many, myself included, travel to Europe to tour historic churches. Worcester has several right here that can rival many of those. I applaud those who have worked hard to come up with a creative solution to save this gem." -Jeannie Hebert, March 28, on a buyer possibly saving former Notre Dame des Canadiens Church in Worcester from the wrecking ball Facebook feedback "Of course, it is known as the 'Stairmaster Campus.'" - Eric Culver, March 23, on the College of the Holy Cross being named the state's most beautiful campus WBJ Tweet of the week "@MassTreasury @WBJournal I hope this happens ASAP given we face another substance being normalized... marijuana! #goodpublicpolicy!" - Linell Grundman (@linellgrundman), March 22, on Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah Goldberg proposing changes to alcohol regulations W

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