A Fenway Favorite, Built In Berlin
Fans of the Boston Red Sox who watched the team on its way to another storied run to the World Series title, likely were unaware that one of Fenway Park’s most famous icons was actually made in a tiny factory in Berlin.
Less famous than the Green Monster, but just as imposing viewed from inside the stadium, is the large John Hancock sign sitting above centerfield, which was built by Lorence Signworks.
“It took up the entire floor,” said Michelle Lorence, who owns the business with her husband, Paul.
One need not look as far as Fenway to spot the signs made by Lorence, which employs four people in its 2,400-square-foot shop. The sign adorning the side of the AT&T building in downtown Hartford, for instance, was built at Lorence. So was the signage for just about every Wachovia Bank from Maine to Virginia.
You’d probably never know it, though. Lorence builds most of its signs on contract for other companies, which design and install them.
Still, Paul Lorence said, the demand for the signs put out by his mini-factory is steadily growing and the couple hopes to relocate the business soon.
They’d be hard pressed to find a new location whose tenants so interestingly combine the art of manufacturing with a clientele of sports enthusiasts.
A Need For Speed
Consider the Lorences’ neighbor, Raceworks, which manufactures something rarely thought of as “manufactured:” race cars. Specifically, the small company builds Nascar-approved Whelen Modified race cars, which are raced all over the country.
It’s an industry that the owners know well. Co-founders of the 17-year-old company, Ed Flemke and Reggie Ruggierio, are active race car drivers. Ruggierio, Nascar-afficionados might note, is actually the “second-winningest driver” of all time in that particular class of modified racing.
That type of experience helps recruit customers.
“Things can get kind of crazy for us in the summer because we both race every weekend,” he said.
In addition to race cars, the two also modify antique cars and motorcycles.
“We can pretty make most anything with metal,” Flemke said.
It’s not the only small company with an unusual manufacturing business. The last other tenant at 55 Willowbrook builds a type of thing animal lovers loathe to call manufacturing.
Wild Arts Taxidermy Studio is a two-person operation that manufactures the urethane frames which trophy animals are mounted on.
The company works for both museums and private collectors, owner David Berger said.
If you have ever been to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, or the UConn Nature Center in Storrs, you’ve seen Wild Arts’ handiwork.
“We mount all kind of things,” Berger said. The largest? A rhinoceros — larger than a VW Bug — to be displayed at the Action Wildlife museum in Goshen.
Kenneth J. St. Onge is a contibuting writer for the Hartford Business Journal.
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