From seamstress to multimillionaire

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post

In 1981, Bea Maurer, Girl Scout troop leader and mother of two, took a job sewing tents for $3.10 an hour. Two years later, she bought the five-person company and grew it into a specialized government contractor. Earlier this month, she sold the firm for $80 million.

Bea Maurer says providing quality products and service was the key to making her company grow. Shown here in a 1998 photo at the Bea Maurer Inc. plant in Virginia, she sold the company earlier this month for $80 million. Women in business, she says, should be able accomplish as much as men. Tracy A. Woodward • Washington Post

"I was really just basically a sky's-the-limit kind of person," Maurer said. "But I don't think I would have dreamed it, wouldn't imagine it."

The company in Fairfield, Va., which makes collapsible shelters for the military, was acquired recently by Hunter Defense Technologies Inc., a firm in Solon, Ohio, that sells heating systems to the Defense Department. Executives say the combined company will generate more than $100 million in revenue this year.

Pricey acquisitions of small defense contractors is a trend that some industry officials say will not end soon. In recent weeks, Northrop Grumman Corp. said it would acquire Integic Corp. of Chantilly, Va., and Lockheed Martin Corp. announced plans to buy Sytex Group Inc. of Doylestown, Pa.

Sewing was a hobby for Maurer, the wife of a U.S. customs official who spent much of her life working as a full-time mother. There were cheerleading uniforms to make and Girl Scout tents to patch. When the school needed duffel bags, Maurer's children volunteered her.

At age 41, as her children were preparing to go to college, Maurer took a job as one of six seamstresses sewing tents for the outdoor equipment retailer Appalachian Outfitters. The job did not pay much, but it was fun and the circle of women became comrades.

Two years later, Maurer brokered a deal to acquire the small company, officially a subsidiary of Appalachian Outfitters, and moved it into the basement of her home.

"With just about everything I ever decided to do, my husband said, 'You can't do that.' And I would say, 'I wish you hadn't said that, because now I have to do it,' " she said.

Once she made the move, her husband fully supported it, she said.

Bea Maurer Inc. started making duffel bags and backpacks and soon added protective covers for cameras and other audio-visual equipment. The firm sold 20,000 computer cases to the Internal Revenue Service and thousands to the Census Bureau. The company dabbled with other government contracts — making bar-code-reader cases for the U.S. Postal Service and heavy-duty curtains for Air Force hangars.

In 1996, Bea Maurer Inc. struck a deal to license the patents of Ted Zeigler, an inventor in Springfield, Va., for portable shelters for the military.

Sales began slowly, but now Bea Maurer Inc.'s shelters are used by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Mobile military offices and hospitals are often housed under Bea Maurer tents.

"What's phenomenal ... is they still have a small-company attitude, even though they deliver a product that has been operationally tested — there are a lot of units in Iraq and Afghanistan that use (Bea Maurer) products," said Col. Andrew Dwyer, program manager of the Deployable Joint Command and Control, which uses the shelters as part of quickly deployed operations centers.

Speed and size are keys to the products' success, Maurer said. A structure that becomes 18 feet wide and 25 feet long can fit into a 5-foot-long box that weighs less than 500 pounds. And the shelter can be erected in less than 10 minutes, she added. The tents are outfitted with electrical wiring and are made with special material that cannot be seen at night, in case the unit is working in dangerous territory.

Today, the 120-person firm is profitable, Maurer said, though she declined to detail revenue or earnings. Qualifying as a woman-owned business was a slight advantage, she said, because large government contractors sought subcontractors run by women and minorities.

"It opened an opportunity, but it doesn't really mean anything unless your product and quality and customer service is awesome," she said.

Maurer started working with Hunter Defense Technologies, which is a portfolio company of New York-based private equity firm Behrman Capital, in 2002 as a reseller of its heating products.

"They have the right technology at the right place at the right time," said Vince A. Nardy, Hunter's chief executive. "We feel strongly, both parties, that ... as a combined entity we're worth more, we have more to offer."

No layoffs are expected as a result of the acquisition. Bea Maurer will operate as a stand-alone subsidiary called Base-X, the name of its signature product line, and the firm's executives will remain. The combined company plans to focus on selling to the homeland security market.

"I still believe motherhood and parenthood is job No. 1, but I don't think there's any reason we can't do anything in business that men do," Maurer said.