Photo | Courtesy of KATHIE MAHONEY
Kathie Mahoney, the former center director for MassMEP and the director at its Rhode Island counterpart
Updated: October 12, 2020
manufacturing excellence awards
Manufacturing Awards: Kathie Mahoney, an advocate for manufacturing
By Grant Welker
For the past 21 years, Kathie Mahoney has been a fixture in the Central Massachusetts manufacturing community.
The Sterling native has worked for the industry advocacy nonprofit Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership for the past two decades, helping companies around the state improve their operations through workplace efficiencies, training their staffs and attracting new workers. She got into the industry by happenstance, answering a job ad in a newspaper, but has developed a fondness for learning about how companies have been able to improve their business through MassMEP's help.
“Manufacturing is such an exciting and changing industry, which attracts people that are passionate about doing something to change the world we live in and make it better,” Mahoney said.
Mahoney had served as the center director for MassMEP in Auburn for the past two years, but the region has now lost her to Rhode Island, where she will serve in the same role for the Polaris MEP.
“It’s a very technical career,” said Mahoney. “More so than 20 years ago.”
At MassMEP, which is the statewide office for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, it’s been her duty to help provide services and programs and to develop initiatives based on manufacturing trends.
During the coronavirus pandemic, she took on another role: helping manufacturers determine whether they could feasibly pivot their work to make personal protective equipment, hand sanitizer or other goods that could help fight the spread of the virus.
“There isn’t another entity across the country that can provide those kinds of resources,” Mahoney said of MassMEP.
Because MassMEP’s mission is to help out small and midsized manufacturers, it has given a leg up to smaller firms that otherwise may struggle to stay competitive and up-to-date. The industry employs roughly half as many people statewide today as it did 30 years ago.
MassMEP aims to make the most out of those workers and a general shift to higher-technology work.
When she started, Mahoney said MassMEP worked primarily in process improvement, focusing on the very basics of manufacturing work and making it more efficient. Today, it’s more about training a younger workforce. One program works with middle school students to manufacture their own products, and another allows high school students to graduate with a certificate demonstrating a skill set in the industry.
“I love being out and seeing things our clients made or had a part in the finished product. Pointing out, ‘They are one of our clients,’” Mahoney said.
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