In celebration of Women’s History Month, on March 20th,  Amy Bassett, DD and Diane Sturgeon, DDD joined Betty Gensel of the Women’s Business Center at CEI to visit Cathy Roberts, owner of Pieceworks, Inc. in Montville, ME.  The company is a contract manufacturer offering customized solutions to streamline clients manufacturing and production needs in a cost effective manner.

Since its humble beginnings, Cathy’s company has moved into its own factory and now boasts a workforce of up to 10 staff who fulfill a critical role in the manufacturing process. Each new contract requires innovation and creativity, which energizes Cathy and her staff to meet challenges that stretch their problem solving skills and creative abilities.

However, with a depressed economy and a drop in larger manufacturing clients, Cathy felt the business needed new direction a few years ago, so she began meeting with Betty Gensel, Women’s Business Center business counselor. Cathy credits business counseling with helping her redefine the company’s market niche by targeting home-based and microbusinesses that are experiencing growth pains and may lack capacity for and expertise in larger scale production.

Thanks in part to business counseling, Cathy is now intentionally diversified and flexible to reflect the needs of new, growing, and internet companies for a shift in manufacturing, while she keeps up contracts with her initial customer base of larger manufacturing concerns.