Albany Women Launch Contract Molding Company

Originally Published MDDI December 2002

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Two new players have arrived on the injection molding scene. They share the distinction of having started what might be the only women-run molding company in the country. Lynn E. Momrow and Joanne H. Moon are managing partners for Extreme Molding LLC (Watervliet, NY). The new company will manufacture injection molded products for use in biotechnological and other applications.

The injection molding industry, like manufacturing in general, is dominated by men. In a recent Albany Times-Union story, Momrow is quoted as saying that Toshiba Machine Co. (Elk Grove Village, IL) had "never shipped an injection molding machine to a woman" before shipping one to her earlier this year. Indeed, the Center for Women's Business Research reports that of all the manufacturing companies in the country, less than one-fifth of them (18.8%) are owned by women.

Moon believes that there is "still a view that women are better suited in corporate environments in more administrative roles, such as human resources, marketing, and sales," and that women are "not actively recruited and promoted into technical roles."

Momrow and Moon's combined experience includes time spent at such major firms as General Electric Co. and C.R. Bard Inc. They also teach a class together at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Moon happily reports that they have several female students interested in manufacturing. "When we talk to them," Moon says, "we say, 'Don't lose the spark. Don't give up.'"

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