Maria Bolstad Barrett - President & CEO, The Training Associates
Balancing work and personal lives is challenging for most, but it can be particularly tricky when you're running a family business, according to Maria Bolstad Barrett, president and CEO of The Training Associates in Westborough.
But working alongside her father, Victor Melfa, since the early 1990s to make The Training Associates a leading provider of IT and professional skills training services has also been “extremely rewarding,” Bolstad Barrett said.
“I think it's worked because we both agree … on the important principles in running a business,” Bolstad Barrett said.
The dynamics changed in January when Bolstad Barrett assumed the role of CEO. While Melfa will remain with the company as board chairman, he's scaling back his involvement in daily operations as his daughter steps in. Bolstad Barrett, who became president of the company in 2007, said she's excited to take on some of the long-range planning formerly handled by her father.
“I am very excited for this challenge. Even though the company is 21 years old, I feel like we have limitless potential for growth,” Bolstad Barrett said.
The demand for training, and the scope of services The Training Associates provides, has varied considerably over the last two decades. Melfa was a serial entrepreneur with a degree in physics from Columbia University, Bolstad Barrett explained. Before founding The Training Associates in 1994, he owned a computer distribution company called Vitronix Corp., which he founded with his son, Victor Melfa, Jr. Because clients needed training on the software and computers they sold, he decided to add training to the company's scope of services.
That side of the business took off, and eventually, Bolstad Barrett joined the company after earning a marketing degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
“At that point, I was thinking that it would probably just be a temporary stay,” Bolstad Barrett said.
But she found she truly enjoyed the work. It was rewarding, Bolstad Barrett said, because the company was helping people improve their skills in order to get jobs. Eventually, Vitronix was sold and Bolstad Barrett's father asked her to launch a company with him that focused entirely on training services.
Now with more than 25,000 contract trainers in the U.S. and in and 60 other countries, Bolstad Barrett said the sky is the limit for the thriving company. New telepresence platforms may allow The Training Associates to teach online through video conferencing. There's also an increased need for training on social media apps and other web-based apps, she said.
Meanwhile, Bolstad Barrett said she'll continue to foster a workplace environment that makes the company's 75 Westborough employees happy to be at work. Flexible scheduling for working parents is something Bolstad Barrett, a Shrewsbury resident and mother of two, embraces. She said a little humor on the job goes a long way, too.
“We spend a lot of time playing jokes and spend a good part of the day laughing,” Bolstad Barrett said.
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10 to Watch 2015 - Maria Bolstad Barrett, The Training Associates
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Wow, 75 employees in 2015 to 16 now. What a dip.
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