Alum’s Weatherhead MBA proves helpful in business and government
Joan Lamson is mayor of Pine Knoll Shores, N.C.
November 15, 2004 | For more information: Jeff Bendix (216)-368-6070
 It’s been 15 years since Joan Lamson earned her MBA degree from the Weatherhead School of Management, but still hardly a day goes by when she doesn’t apply knowledge she gained at the school.
Lamson currently serves as mayor of Pine Knoll Shores, a town of 1,600 near the southern tip of North Carolina’s outer banks. In that capacity she has to motivate city employees, build teams to accomplish specific tasks and settle disputes among town residents. “It’s a lot like owning a business, and it takes all the skills I learned in organizational development classes,” she says.
Lamson knows whereof she speaks when it comes to business. In the early 1980s she and a partner founded and managed Castite Systems, a casting impregnation company with 25 employees and $1 million in annual sales. (Impregnation is a process for sealing porosity in metal castings to assure that they are pressure-right.) A few years later the partner departed, leaving Joan as the majority owner and president.
It was then, in the late 1980s, that she decided to get her MBA through Weatherhead’s executive MBA program. “When you’re trying to build a reputation credentials are an important part of the process,” she explains. She was accepted despite the lack of an undergraduate degree, thanks to very high GMAT scores and having previously earned a certificate of management in Weatherhead’s Women in Management program.
Although it was not easy running a company during the day and attending MBA classes at night, Lamson says there were benefits to the situation. “I could apply the things I was learning directly to my company. It was like having my own private case study,” she recalls. “It really improved the business dramatically.”
The areas where she received the most help were in marketing, accounting and human resources. As to the latter, she says, “At that time we were hiring unskilled people right off the street so it was very important to have strong HR policies in place.” Faculty she remembers with particular fondness are Mohan Reddy in marketing, Paul Gerhart in industrial relations (now part of marketing and policy studies), and David Cooperrider in organizational behavior.
A native of Denver, Lamson moved to Huntsville Alabama in the early 1960s with her aerospace engineer husband who was working on NASA’s Saturn space project. When the couple divorced, Lamson found work at a local division of Parker Hannifin Corp., first as a switchboard operator, then in inside sales. The company merged the division with another and moved it to Cleveland in 1967. After the move she asked to join Parker’s outside sales force. She was refused, because she was told “women don’t do that kind of thing,” and because she lacked a college degree.
Shortly afterwards Lamson left Parker to join a competitor company, Wyle Fluid Power. A few years later the company closed, which led Lamson to positions—some in outside sales—with a succession of industrial companies. It was during this time that she enrolled in Weatherhead’s Women in Management program. She also opened a quilt shop in Cleveland Heights, which she ran for five years as a sidelight to her other jobs. In 1980 she remarried and left the job she held at the time with Dresser Industries, which was requiring full-time travel. She joined a small metal finishing company, but left after a year. “It was a family-owned business and I was not part of the family,” she explains.
The next turn in Lamson’s career was to start Castite, using a new impregnation technology her previous employer had rejected. There were times, she says, where it was difficult being a woman in a heavy industrial field that is overwhelmingly male. “It was tough at times selling to some of the guys. Some of the purchasing managers could be difficult to deal with. But our product had a lot of credibility, and we gained some national attention which helped open doors. Eventually, you always get your reputation because of what you do, not who you are,” she says.
In 1993 Lamson’s husband retired and began building the couple a home in Pine Knoll Shores. A year later Lamson joined him, hiring a manager to oversee day-to-day operations at Castite. She sold the business in 1999, but was hardly ready to retire. She joined the local Chamber of Commerce and soon found herself on its board of directors. She established a local chapter of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to provide counseling to small business owners, and began a weekly small business roundtable.
Last year she made her first foray into politics. “There were some issues in our town. The previous administration seemed to have a bit of a heavy hand in the way they dealt with people and issues. Eighteen of our EMT personnel resigned on the same day, leaving us with little EMT coverage. After that a group of citizens got up a petition to elect mayors directly rather than have the mayor appointed from among town commissioners,” she explains. Lamson decided to run and won by a margin of 574-154, becoming the first elected mayor in Pine Knoll Shores’s history.
“I really love the work,” she says. “There are a lot of similarities to running a business, like putting teams together to tackle problems. I like going to the meetings and being able to set the agenda. I’m enjoying learning how government works and figuring out the politics of the town.”
In her spare time Lamson likes traveling and engaging in community service. “I’ve been involved with a lot of community organizations since coming to North Carolina. It makes for a satisfying life. I don’t quite know what the future holds, but community services seems like a good fit for me.”
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