Maryann Cataldo
Maryanne Cataldo (UMass '79) brings remarkable experience to her firm, Boston-based City Lights Electrical Company, Inc., founded in 1989. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a B.A. in Economics, summa cumme laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and then went on to receive an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Maryanne left her job as an economist in 1978 and became an electrician for a large Boston-area construction company. Here, she earned a master electrician license (one of the first women to do so in Massachusetts), working her way through the company as a project manager and estimator to experience the business side of the industry. When that company closed, Ms. Cataldo formed her own, City Lights Electrical, becoming one of the state's first woman-owned electrical construction companies, while attending Harvard Business School to earn an MBA. She currently serves on the board of Construction Industries of Massachusetts
City Lights is a high-growth, full-service electrical construction and maintenance firm specializing in commercial, industrial, and institutional projects. City Lights received a $100,000 SBA-backed line of credit in 1992 to help finance growth and has won government contracts with SBA assistance. “Our firm was just three years old when a SBA loan from Fleet Bank provided the company with the financial flexibility to grow and seize market opportunities that aligned with our operational competitive advantages,” Cataldo said.
“That same year, Boston’s Big Dig got started,” said Cataldo. “We were competing for sub-contracting opportunities against entrenched male-owned firms that went back generations. The SBA government contracting program acted as it should – an affirmative market program - giving us a foot in the door.” City Lights has gone on to complete more than 20 Big Dig jobs.
“In 2002 City Lights was awarded “baggage handling security upgrades project” at Logan Airport, the first in the nation. Cataldo says, “we pride ourselves on doing work faster and better and being called back. Proof of this level of service is that the $13 million baggage handling project was finished in just 122 days.”
Maryanne’s philosophy is to combine education with lengthy experience to forge a strong team. It is this team that has made City Lights the outstanding success it is today with more than 200 employees and revenues of $26 million in 2002 and projected revenues of $45 million in 2003.
Maryanne Cataldo is the Massachusetts 2003 Entrepreneurial Success Award winner. This award is reserved for companies that were considered small according to SBA size standards, received SBA assistance, and have since become large, successful firms. Growth in number of employees and revenues, innovation and community contributions led to this award