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Kathie Leonard, president and CEO of Auburn Manufacturing, stands in front of a broad loom recently. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal
MECHANIC FALLS â Fresh out of college and new to Maine in the early 1970s, a young Kathie Leonard was embarking on a career she had little chance of succeeding in, if you believed the odds. She was a young woman working in a male-dominated mill in Lewiston where, among other things, they made an industrial fabric to replace asbestos.
At about the same time, Katharine Graham became the first female chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company, after taking the reins as the publisher of the Washington Post newspaper.
They were significant milestones at a time when women owned about 400,000 businesses, or 4.6% of all businesses in the country, according to the federal Small Business Administration. As archaic as it sounds, women in this country who wanted to take out a business loan had to have a male relative co-sign for the loan until 1988. Today, the SBA says there are over 13 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., or roughly 42% of total businesses, generating nearly $2 trillion in revenue.
âI was in on the ground floor of marketing an industrial fabric that was designed to replace asbestos. And you donât have any idea how many applications there are where asbestos was used,â Leonard said.
Not just in automotive brakes and in ceiling tiles and flooring tiles, but as mechanical insulation on ships and as insulation wrapped around pipes throughout the petroleum industry â anywhere there was high heat, Leonard explained.
âI fell in love with it, it was just so much fun!â said she. Over the next three years, Leonard honed her marketing skills through her writing and what she calls her ability to explain things concisely. She said she took calls from engineers and answered their technical questions, even dabbling in trade shows, where she was the only woman behind a booth.
After three years, Leonard said she was ready to take the next step and make more money. She and a male partner founded Auburn Manufacturing and never looked back. âBasically, it was about having a better career. I wanted to grow, and at that time there werenât a lot of ladders for women. So when you start your own business, you create your own ladder. And thatâs what I did.â
The short-term goals were simple, said Leonard: pay the rent and buy clothes for her child â to have a family and not have to worry so much about her next paycheck. That was important to her, because sheâd grown up without a lot as a kid and said she just didnât want to do that the rest of her life. At 27 years old, Leonard said she didnât have any long-term goals. âI just didnât have any idea that it would last this long.â
OVERCOMING HURDLES IN A MALE-DOMINATED INDUSTRY
The president and CEO said she struggled in the early days to be respected as a business professional in the manufacturing arena. âEverybody who came to our business thought I was the secretary,â she said. âThey would come in and theyâd think that someone else â a male â was the boss and that I was . . .â
She shrugs it off now as just a sign of the times, but admits it was disconcerting. âI had a partner who was very good about saying âOh, you want to talk to her.â And Iâve been lucky like that. A lot of guys do that and itâs very much appreciated.â
Leonard said she lacked confidence and was anxious in the early years as well.
âWhen I talk to other women they want to hear that story â âhow did you do that?â and âhow did it feel?â â because thatâs real,â she said.
Most of Leonardâs experience was on-the-job training. She did not get a masterâs degree in industrial technology or engineering. âI went through a thing where I thought I shouldnât be in this job,â she said. âIâm just a regular gal.â
It took her many years to gain confidence. Leonard said she did it through perseverance, going back to school and studying economics, human resources and accounting, all the skills they had to use to run the business. She calls herself a âcookbook learnerâ because she likes the directions â show her how to do something and sheâs good.
âI also just kept forcing myself to do things,â Leonard explained. âThe first time I got asked to speak in public I was scared to death. And I took a Dale Carnegie course and learned how to do that and just forced myself to do it, and I got through it. Itâs been 43 years and itâs been tough, but Iâm comfortable in my own skin now, but it took quite a while.â
WOMEN IN BUSINESS TODAY
Women have made significant progress in the business world in the past 50 years in this country, but plenty of issues remain at the forefront, among them being the gender pay gap and the percentage of women in top leadership positions.
As an indicator of how women have progressed in Maine, Maineâs Womenâs Business List is a public directory of women-owned businesses across the state with some 200 businesses on the list. The Maine Womenâs Network said it represents and supports hundreds of women in business in the state. The University of Maine business school has a Women in Business organization, while Coastal Enterprises Inc., or CEI, has a Womenâs Business Center focused on women who want to start a business or grow their business in Maine.
Leonard agrees things are a lot easier for women today than they were when she first started out in business. âI think the younger women have made it easier for us, for everybody,â she said. âMy age group led the way, but it was a rocky road. These gals coming up are just comfortable in their own skin all the time and I marvel at them, and it makes us all feel more comfortable. Now thereâs more women in every group.â
Yet women are still in the minority in the manufacturing field here. Leonard said thatâs why she believes exposure to STEM-based education â an acronym that stands for science, technology, engineering and math â is especially important for girls earlier in life.
According to the U.S. Commerce Department, women make up less than one-third of the 15.8 million people employed in manufacturing industries, and 1 in 4 manufacturing leaders are women. Census data show that workers in manufacturing make more income than the average worker. And while women in manufacturing make more than the median for women, they still make only 72% of the median male salary in the industry. With manufacturing becoming increasingly high-tech, some feel manufacturers risk overlooking highly skilled workers by not recruiting women.
Auburn Manufacturing actively recruits women, Leonard said. âWe have quite a few women in production, even in weaving, where that didnât used to be a womanâs job. But with the equipment that we have that helps move things around â you donât have to be able to lift heavy things, and theyâre very good at it.â
Reflecting on her 43 years at the helm of her company, Leonard said sheâs amazed and absolutely proud of the company theyâve built and the employees â many of whom have been with her their entire careers â who have made it all happen.
âIâve grown into it and Iâve done my homework all these years and I think now Iâm good at it and Iâm proud of that,â she said. âIâm so proud to have 50 people working here,â she emphasized. âItâs hard work but they donât mind that if you have all the other things. We have benefits, we have a place in Rangeley where the employees can go and take their families. You know it does have a bit of the life balance to it. Weâre not that strict but weâre all about getting the product out the door.â
As to the progress women have made in business since the 1970s?
âI think you just keep on keepinâ on,â Leonard said. âTo go from 4% to 43% thatâs a big change. So, youâre almost half, do we have to be more than half?â
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