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December 9, 2024 5 We Watched in 2024

In first ‘whirlwind’ year as CEO, Lee faces challenges, including Boeing strike impact, and opportunities in ‘booming’ space industry

HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Marietta S. Lee is the CEO of Westbrook manufacturer The Lee Company.
By Harriet Jones
Marietta S. Lee 
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“It’s been a whirlwind of a year,” said Marietta S. Lee. “Despite everyone warning me, I was not adequately prepared for what a whirlwind it was going to be. But it was fun.”

During 2024, Lee completed her first year as CEO at her family’s business, the Lee Company, which was founded in 1948. She is the third generation to lead.

The manufacturer, which has facilities in Westbrook and Essex, makes miniature precision fluid control components for the automotive, aerospace and medical device industries.

Before she succeeded her uncle, William W. Lee, as CEO, Marietta Lee — who has worked at the company for some 20 years — had already stressed that she foresaw more continuity than change. And she says this year her family members embodied that continuity.

“My uncle is still employed by the company and works as the chairman of our board,” she said. “So, he does show up at a lot of meetings and company events, and so does my father even though he’s 80 years old. I think our customers appreciate it too.”

The year has not been without its challenges. The aerospace division has been impacted by the strike and quality-control problems at Boeing, one of Lee’s biggest customers. But the temporary issues don’t mean that the demand isn’t there, and Lee says the fundamentals in commercial aerospace are still good.

“The reality is that they have a huge backlog of airplanes that the world needs,” she said. “So, I think certainly within the next 12 to 24 months, we’re going to see a dramatic increase in the amount of planes being built.”

The delays in aerospace have been balanced out on that side of the business by a space industry that she describes as “booming.”

In fact, Lee sees space as a market that has “infinite growth.”

The Lee Co. traces its roots back to Space Race-era technology development, when it supplied parts that kept the oxygen supply of astronauts safe while they walked on the moon during missions between 1969 and 1972.

Today, Lee said, “There’s private space companies cropping up everywhere. There are companies out there that their job is to do space trash — pick up old satellites, pick up debris from space. That is an industry that no one could have ever predicted.”

To take advantage of those growing opportunities, in this past year the Lee Company has been doubling down on its product development efforts and also investing in new on-site testing facilities for its space components, which have to undergo both vibratory testing and cryogenic freezing to simulate space’s extreme conditions.

Formerly that work was sent to outside labs, but Lee says the delays they were experiencing became unacceptable.

“That market is moving so fast, we’ve got to be able to get our parts out the door faster,” she said.

The company has fully renovated a former research and development building, turning it into a full-blown innovation center. A second building renovation this year has expanded its available office space.

But Lee says her own office won’t be moving to the refurbished building.

“I like to have my office in one of our production facilities. I want to be close to the action,” she said.

Lee Company parts used in the space industry include pressure relief valves, which are engineered to withstand a variety of pressure ranges. It also makes check valves, which provide one-way gas or liquid flow, that are a critical component for propulsion systems.

Workforce development, shifting auto industry

The Lee Company isn’t the only sphere where Marietta Lee is stepping up. After serving as vice chair of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, this December she begins a tenure as chair of the organization.

“That is a cause that I’m very passionate about,” she says. In the upcoming legislative session she says that CBIA is likely to focus on fundamental issues in the state that affect workforce development, including the availability of housing and child care, as well as pushing back on initiatives that may increase costs for businesses in the state.

The Lee Company took its own workforce issues in hand within the last few years, adopting an in-house training program.

“It used to be because it was a very heavy manufacturing state that you could hire trained skilled machinists or toolmakers that had worked at another company,” she said. But that pool of employees has largely dried up as a wave of experienced workers has retired.

With the training program, the Lee Company can take someone with no manufacturing experience and teach them to work in assembly. And it goes further.

“If somebody in assembly showed promise, we could train them to become an inspector,” explained Lee. “If somebody showed a lot of mechanical aptitude, we can train them to become a machinist, and skilled machinists into toolmakers. So, we really took matters into our own hands and said, the pool of employees isn’t where we need it to be, but we can train people.”

While headcount has remained flat this year at around 1,100, the company is actively hiring to fill positions where employees are retiring.

As for future challenges, she’s keeping an eye on the automotive side of the business, where the rise of electric vehicles has shifted the market, changing the demand for the company’s hydraulic components.

“We’ve got to figure out where we fit in that market and develop new products,” she explained.

Those bigger questions of the company’s strategic vision are what occasionally keep her up at night, now that she’s settling into the CEO’s chair.

“It used to be I worried that I was getting everything done that I needed to get done. Now I’m worried that I’m steering the ship in the right direction,” she said.

“At the end of the day, making a big decision impacts a lot of lives.”

Marietta S. Lee

CEO

The Lee Company

Education: Bachelor’s degree in English, Georgetown University; law degree, Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law; master’s degree, engineering management, University of New Haven

Age: 55

 

 

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