Withstanding the heat | Manufacturing: Kathie Leonard, President and CEO, Auburn Manufacturing Inc.
Photo/David A. Rodgers
Kathie Leonard, president and CEO of Auburn Manufacturing Inc., says she's focused her company's growth on the development of niche products to meet market demand
Photo/David A. Rodgers
Kathie Leonard with one of her employees at the company's Mechanic Falls facility
When asked to talk about her 30-plus-year career, Kathie Leonard, president and CEO of Auburn Manufacturing Inc. in Mechanic Falls, takes a little time to reflect. “I’ve been doing this so long, it’s so organic to me, like ‘Time to make the doughnuts,’” she says, quoting the famous ‘80s Dunkin Donuts tagline.
But Leonard’s career, much like the history of her company, has been more than simply routine. She got her start in textile manufacturing at the age of 22 when she moved with her husband from Florida to Maine and took a job as an executive secretary at former fabric maker W.S. Libbey in Lewiston. It was the early 1970s, just as the industry’s mainstay for heat-resistant material — asbestos — was found to be carcinogenic. A technical writer by education, Leonard was charged with marketing the company’s new line of Nomex, a nylon-like material designed to replace asbestos.
Leonard realized the potential the market held for new heat-resistant fabrics, and in 1979, at the age of 27, she founded AMI along with a colleague, making fabrics for insulation, clothing and welding safety that could withstand extreme temperatures. The company made $50,000 in sales the first year, then $300,000 the next year. Ten years ago, Leonard, 57, bought out her partner, who was retiring, and she’s now sole owner of Auburn Manufacturing.
While AMI has, as Leonard says, “stuck to its roots” with heat-resistant materials, it has not remained stagnant. Leonard has focused her company’s growth on developing niche products within its specialty to meet market demand — like its newest venture, a pre-assembled valve insulation kit that’s easier to install than its predecessor, which required cutting and fitting separate components. AMI is marketing the energy-saving insulation to universities, hospitals and municipalities that can access federal stimulus money earmarked for energy-efficiency upgrades. It’s the first time the company has moved beyond its industrial customers. “It’s one of the most exciting innovations we’ve done,” she says. “We’ve taken what we’ve learned in the industrial sector, and taken what we know of manufacturing, and taken it to a new market that could transform our company.”
Leonard’s push to innovate has kept the company evolving in a traditional industry facing ongoing challenges, including the increasing shift of manufacturing overseas. The company still manufactures all of its products onsite, which Leonard says helps the company stay limber in a changing marketplace. “It’s very tempting to go offshore,” she says. “But I don’t think you can innovate if you don’t make things. You have to have the commitment to innovate, and we have done that.”
In some ways, manufacturing remains a traditional industry, where Leonard says “it’s easy to get attention being a woman” but hard to earn respect: “People ask me if it’s my dad’s company.” It took her 15 years to become fully comfortable with her leadership style, which she characterizes as “consensus building” and collaborative. “I thought there was something wrong with me, like I wasn’t a good leader, because I wasn’t top down,” she says. “I wasn’t a director. I didn’t like to tell everyone what to do all the time.”
To make a name for herself and her company, Leonard has joined professional organizations like the National Insulation Association, where she’s chaired committees. She has also chaired the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council. “That’s how I’ve gained creditability; I’ve done the heavy lifting,” she says.
Being an entrepreneur has given Leonard opportunities that she couldn’t have had any other way. “I’ve been a little spoiled because I haven’t had to fight the corporate ladder,” she says. “There was no glass ceiling because I created my own ceiling. I had a skylight.”
Mindy Favreau
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