Striking entrepreneurial balance

As the head of a high-end home construction company, Debora Gagner, principal of Shrewsbury-based Harrington Homes LLC, has met resistance from subcontractors unwilling to take direction from a woman. Judy Carmody, president and founder of Avatar Pharmaceutical Services, endured lower pay and being passed over for promotions in her career as a biotechnology scientist. Diane Yasgur and Lin Vickery stepped off the corporate ladder to spend more time with their families by creating a company of their own.

Avatar Pharmaceutical Services

A research scientist in the biopharmaceutical industry for nearly a decade, Judy Carmody didn’t need a microscope to spot an opportunity to start her owncontract research company, Avatar Pharmaceutical Services Inc., four years ago. She had been hearing for some time that small-to-medium-size companies researching large molecules to develop drugs and medical devices faced a dearth of quality research services to provide reliable analytical data for FDA trials.

Carmody had been working for major pharmaceutical companies and biotech since earning her PhD in analytical chemistry from Clark University in 1993. She had experience in innovative research technologies and analytical and validation groups. And, with two young sons at home, spending 40 percent of her time on the road as a researcher for Waters Corp. was wearing thin.

So Carmody and her husband took out a second mortgage on their Mendon home and she launched Avatar in incubation space at the MBI Innovation Center in Worcester in 2002. Specializing in nucleic acid and other large-molecule analyses, Avatar is tapping into what Carmody says is the next wave of therapeutics. It now has 20 to 35 clients largely in the biopharmaceutical realm.

In fact, Avatar is about to move its operations, including 14 employees, from 3,000 square feet at 25 Winthrop St. to 10,500 square feet in an industrial park at 257 Simarano Dr. in Marlboro. In the black since its first year, the company now generates $1 million to $1.5 million in annual revenue.

As company president and a hands-on data analyst, Carmody still puts in 70 to 80 hours a week at times. But now she can work when she wants to. The demands of starting a business are more pronounced for women, she says, because the work day doesn’t end when you get home. "You still have to cook dinner and find homework."

Carmody, age 40, has encountered her share of instances where being a woman in a male-dominated field has meant less pay and fewer promotions. "You never know if that’s because you’re a woman or because of your personality," she says. "People are intimidated by strong women."

Many women can’t put in as many hours at the office as their male counterparts, Carmody notes. But they often accomplish as much as a man does in fewer hours. She makes sure women at Avatar are paid fairly. "I think there are ways to be creative with it."

Kel & Partners

Kel Kelly founded Hopkinton-based marketing company Kel & Partners LLC three and a half years ago to get more control over her life and to spend more time with her four children. She had worked for nearly two decades as a top marketing executive in the corporate fast track, at one point commuting weekly from Hopkinton to New York City as a marketing executive for JetBlue Airways. She rode the crest of the dotcom craze in the 1980s. The single mother had relied on au pairs to help care for her children.

But, on her 40th birthday in January 2002, Kelly decided it was time for a change. She was tired of traveling around the country. Her oldest daughter was about to enter high school. She wanted to be able to be more available for her kids.

So Kelly left her corporate job as chief marketing officer at Salem, NH-based photonic technology company Lightship to start a marketing company of her own. She shaved her 45+-hour work week to 20, got more involved in her kids’ schools and played golf in her spare time in the first year of "decompression."

Three years later, Kel & Partners is growing rapidly, having doubled its revenues and employee ranks each year since start up. Next month, it will move its 14-member staff to a new headquarters in Westboro, tripling its current 1000-square-foot workspace. The firm, which offers marketing strategy, design and public relations services, stresses its ability to relate to the client’s side of marketing, what Kelly calls "client-side DNA."

With a "multi-million-dollar" revenue stream, Kel & Partners has turned a profit since the first year. Its clients include corporate elite across the country, including Reebok and exclusive ticket purveyor Razorgator.com.

While Kelly is back up to a 45+-hour schedule, it is on her own terms this time. She takes Wednesdays off to attend her daughter’s lacrosse games and is home when her kids get out of school.

Kelly doesn’t miss the corporate fast track. Her company, she says, provides her with the fulfilling ability to provide a flexible and creative setting for herself and her employees, mostly women, so they too can spend time with their families.

Harrington Homes

When Debora Gagner first became construction supervisor in her father’s Shrewsbury homebuilding company in 1991, some of the older subcontractors found it difficult to take orders from her. She had been building houses with the company for several years at that point, after deciding that she would rather swing a hammer than stay in her job as a human-resources secretary at a major computer company.

But disgruntled contractors didn’t shake Gagner’s confidence in doing a job about which she is passionate. And, at age 44, she has been running Harrington Homes with the help of her younger sister since 1998. The company is currently building Saxon Woods, an exclusive subdivision with some 300 homes. It builds one to three $1-million+ homes a year in the Shrewsbury development, using a regular lineup of subcontractors. Last year, despite a housing market slow down, the company had one of its best years yet, selling four homes.

Over the years, Gagner has learned the gamut of building skills and has been involved in building more than 30 homes. But it is the home design aspect that she really enjoys.

The 4,000+-square-foot colonials that her company builds feature brick fronts and a lot of hardwood. Gagner says she knows how to make homes appealing and keeps up with the latest design trends. Part of her success in that regard comes from being a woman, she says. "The detail is what sells to customers and women just have that finesse."

H.R. Global

Diane Yasgur describes the impetus behind her and partner Lin Vickery’s successful business, H.R. Global LLC, as "probably every mother’s story." Both women had been corporate human resource professionals for years before deciding that they needed to spend more time with their children. Both started one-woman HR consulting services part-time and were coping with the post-911 economic downturn in 2002 when Yasgur proposed they join forces.

After six months of planning, with the help of the Center for Women & Enterprise, they launched H.R. Global in January 2003, a virtual consulting company which they operate from their respective homes in Acton and Lunenburg. Serving start ups and smaller companies that lack their own HR staff, H.R. Global does everything from handling benefits packages to employee-relations issues. It helps companies create handbooks, train employees and meet changing compliance standards.

As partners, the two women complement each other’s skill sets. Vickery is strong in the operational side of HR, providing compliance audits and technical insights. Yasgur excels at employee issues and training and mediation.

For Yasgur, whose two boys are grown now with the youngest in high school and the oldest in college, consulting has brought the balance she needed to have time to watch her kids grow and evolve. "Just being there for that kiss on the cheek when they get home from school has meant a lot," she says.

She admits she couldn’t keep such a free-form schedule without relying on her husband’s income as well. But, she says, H.R.Global, profitable since the beginning and growing its revenues at 20 percent a year, affords her a good living.

Vickery, whose children are now ages eight and 11, says the consulting business is the best thing she’s ever done. "I’m not sure I’d fit in the corporate world. They say they value family but, when the rubber meets the road, they really want face time."

She works 30 to 35 hours a week and has achieved the balance she was missing working twice that many hours in the corporate setting. Vickery says she doesn’t regret "jumping off" the corporate train and has quite a few professional women – and some men – asking her how she did it.

Academic Financial Corp.

As marketing director of a fast-growing, nonprofit student loan company, Worcester-based Academic Financial Corp., Allison Hall does a lot of juggling in an extremely diverse job. She and her marketing staff of four work on dozens of projects at once, from launching advertising campaigns to producing custom brochures for clients to planning conferences.

For Hall, becoming the second in command at AFC’s West Boylston Street office is a step she was ready for when the fledgling company offered her the job two years ago. She had been working in sales for 16 years, most recently at Excel Advertising. The flexibility of sales work, she says, allowed her to spend time with her children, the youngest of which is now in high school. AFC, which was started by veteran banker Howard McGinn, now AFC president, had Excel design its logo and Hall made the step to her executive role after working on that project.

AFC has quickly emerged as one of the leading nonprofit student loan organizations in the country, according to Hall. In its first year, it did $72 million in student loans. In its second, that number more than doubled to $180 million. Hall says the company expects to double its low-interest loan total again in year three, and has projected to pass the $500 million mark at five years of operation.

About 90 percent of Hall’s clientele are financial aid offices at colleges and universities across the country, to which AFC offers a suite of products for students. As a nonprofit, the company can discount loans by up to 2 percent compared to other college funding sources "because we don’t have stockholders to answer to," Hall says. AFC also has two scholarships programs as part of its commitment to reinvest funds in student programs.

It’s an exciting time to be in the student loan industry, now at $40 billion and growing, Hall notes. More high school students than ever are going to college and costs are going up.

Hall, 42, says the financial aid industry is dominated by women. But, she says, it was her work with AFC as a sales person from the outset that led to her joining the company.

While it’s difficult to juggle a full-time job and family, Hall advises women in business to make sure they make time to network to stay plugged in to the business world.

Micky Baca can be reached at mbaca@wbjournal.com.

At a glance -

Avatar Pharmaceutical Services

Address: 25 Winthrop St., Worcester

Phone: 508-890-2384

Web Address: www.avatarps.com

Year Founded: 2002

Employees:14

Annual Revenue:

$1million to $1.5 million

Kel & Partners LLC

Address: 15 Main St., Hopkinton

Phone: 508-497-0022

Web Address: www.kelandpartners.com

Year Founded: 2003

Employees: 14

Annual Revenue: not disclosed

Harrington Homes LLC

Address:127 North St., Shrewsbury

Phone: 508-842-7277

Web Address: none

Year Founded: 1999

Employees: two full-time,

(15 subcontractors)

Annual Revenue: one to three homes at $1.1million+

H.R. Global

Address: 45 Agawam St., Acton

Phone: 978-263-1669

Web Address: www.hrglobal.net

Year Founded: 2003

Employee: two

Annual Revenue: not disclosed

Academic

Financial Corp.

Address:: One W. Boylston St., Worcester

Phone: 877-232-4322

Web Address:

www.academicfinancing.com

Year Founded: 2004

Employees: 18

Annual Loans Made: $180 million +