[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 71 (Tuesday, May 22, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5435-S5436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AWARDS

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Susan 
Dollenmaier of Tunbridge who was chosen as the Vermont Small Business 
Person of the Year. She has shown extraordinary innovation and vision 
in building a successful business in Vermont.
  Ms. Dollenmaier is the president and co-founder of Anichini Inc., an 
importing and manufacturing company that designs, wholesales, and 
retails linens and textiles from Italy, India, the Far East, and 
Eastern Europe. Anichini also has a furniture division and a line of 
products for infants. A former social worker for the state of Vermont, 
Dollenmaier and her ex-business partner, Patrizia Anichini, launched 
the company about 20 years ago with only a $600 investment. This year, 
sales of Anichini's linens are expected to top $10 million. Besides its 
outlet store in West Lebanon, New Hampshire--a site she hopes to move 
to the Vermont side of the Connecticut River very soon--and a new one 
slated to open in Manchester, Vermont, Anichini operates retail stores 
in Beverly Hills and Dallas, along with a boutique in New York City. 
Susan makes sure that some of the cash flow from her wealthy and 
demanding clientele finances flex time, day care stipends, generous 
vacations and holidays, a profit-sharing plan and other benefits--as 
well as better-than-average wages--for her largely female work force of 
45 employees. We are very happy Susan chose to start and maintain her 
business in Vermont.
  I commend Susan and all of her employees for receipt of this 
prestigious award.
  I ask that a copy of an April 15, 2001, article in the Valley News 
outlining Ms. Dollenmaier's achievements be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                 SBA Honors Turnbridge's Anichini Inc.

                           (By Bob Piasecki)

       Turnbridge.--Most people drive right past the yellow 
     farmhouse off Route 110 that contains Anichini Inc.'s 
     offices, and that's just fine with Susan Dollenmaier.
       Dollenmaier, president and co-founder of Anichini, the 
     importer, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of linens and 
     textiles for the rich and famous, prefers to keep a low 
     profile.
       That explains why there isn't a sign outside Anichini's 
     headquarters or its warehouse farther down the road--and why 
     there never will be, as long as Dollenmaier is running the 
     company.
       ``I'm not into being a celebrity,'' says Dollenmaier, 
     dressed casually in black leggings and a gray cable-knit 
     sweater. ``I just want us to get recognition because of our 
     products.''
       That won't be possible for much longer because Dollenmaier 
     was just named Vermont's Small Businessperson of the Year by 
     the state's Small Business Administration.
       Some of Dollenmaier's employees went ahead and nominated 
     their boss for the prestigious award without telling her, and 
     she ended up winning.
       The selection put Dollenmaier in the running for being 
     named the national Small Business Person of the Year award, 
     which will be announced next month in Washington D.C.
       The SBA singled out Dollenmaier and Anichin for 
     ``seamlessly blending economic success with socially 
     conscious business practices.''
       Deborah Mathews, who has worked with Dollenmaier virtually 
     since the day Anichini was launched, said she was willing to 
     reduce her salary and make other painful cuts when times were 
     tough.
       ``Susan's focus on the needs of her staff and the community 
     in which she lives and works made her an ideal recipient for 
     this honor,'' added Matthews.
       ``Susan has a profound gift for recognizing hidden 
     potential, and she knows how to bring it out in the open,'' 
     said Kenneth Silvia, director of the SBA's office in Vermont. 
     ``It's manifest not only in her choice of Anichini's product 
     line, but in the people who work at the company--the majority 
     of whom are Vermonters.''
       A former social worker for the state of Vermont, 
     Dollenmaier and her ex-partner, Patrizia Anichini, launched 
     the company about 20 years ago with a paltry $600 investment. 
     This year, sales of Anichini's linens are expected to top $10 
     million.
       Besides it outlet store in the Powerhouse Mall in West 
     Lebanon, and a new one slated to open this summer in 
     Manchester, Vt, Anichini operates retail stores in Beverly 
     Hills and Dallas, along with a boutique in New York City. Its 
     regular clientele includes celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, 
     Sharon Stone and Tom Cruise.
       Not bad for the daughter of an electrical salesman who grew 
     up in Libertyville, Ill., a small agricultural town 45 miles 
     northwest of Chicago.
       Dollenmaier said she always had a thing for beautiful 
     textiles, but doesn't quite know where that fascination came 
     from. ``That's something to figure out with a therapist,'' 
     she jokes. But she suspects it probably has something to do 
     with her grandmother, a dressmaker who also made her own 
     quilts.
       She sewed her own clothes as a teenager, and began 
     collecting antique fabrics of all styles and types, never 
     thinking it was ever going to turn into a business.
       After graduating from Southern Illinois University, where 
     she earned a degree in design and studied under R. 
     Buckminster Fuller--the inventor of the geodesic dome--
     Dollenmaier bounced around for a while.
       Her life changed in the early 1970s, when she came to south 
     Royalton from Los Angeles to visit her sister, whose husband 
     was attending Vermont Law School at the time, and fell in 
     love with the area.
       ``It was spring. It was so green and there was so much 
     water,'' Dollenmaier recalled, sitting at an enormous 
     wooden table in Anichini's spacious conference room.
       ``It was so refreshing, I turned to my sister and said, 
     `this has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the 
     world,' and essentially I never left after that.''
       She got a job as a social worker for the state of Vermont, 
     and helped set up several programs including Meals on Wheels 
     in Tunbridge and many of the other towns along the First 
     Branch of the White River. At the same time, Dollenmaier 
     continued to go to tag sales, flea markets and estate sales, 
     collecting antique fabrics for her burgeoning collection. 
     After she sold part of her cache in New York City, 
     Dollenmaier decided it was time for a major life change.
       ``It finally dawned on me that I wanted more challenges, 
     and that I was headed toward running some government program 
     in Washington, D.C., if I continued to be a social worker,'' 
     she says.
       So she quit after seven years, and with her partner, rented 
     a loft in Manhattan on 20th Street. ``We lived there hand-to-
     mouth,'' she said buying, selling and swapping antique 
     linens.
       She remembers driving an old, unheated bread truck filled 
     with their wares back and forth from New York and Vermont, 
     where she also kept an apartment in Tunbridge. The duo got 
     their first big break when Barney's, the upscale New York 
     department

[[Page S5436]]

     store, agreed to sell some of their material in its home 
     furnishings store, which was just opening.
       During a trip to Venice with her husband, glassblower Robin 
     Mix, Dollenmaier got the idea of making and selling new, 
     heirloom quality textiles, which is essentially what Anichini 
     does today.
       ``In Italy I found women who were still making the same 
     kind of textiles I was buying and selling,'' she says. 
     ``That's really where the seed of the business was formed.''
       Soon after that, Anichini caught another break when one of 
     Italy's premier textile weavers took a chance on the 
     fledgling company and agreed to give it $50,000 worth of 
     materials on consignment.
       The business sold all $50,000, and was on its way. It 
     grossed $100,000 in its first year, and has continued to 
     expand and grow. Dollenmaier and Anichini eventually sold 
     their loft in New York, and used the proceeds to buy the 
     buildings the company still owns in Tunbridge.
       The partners went their separate ways a few years ago, when 
     Dollenmaier bought out Anichini's share in the business.
       Today, Anichini has a furniture division, a line of 
     products for infants and is widening its scope to include 
     fabrics and designs from India, the Far East, Eastern Europe 
     and other countries. It no longer bills itself as simply an 
     purveyor of Italian, Dollenmaier says.
       The company recently worked out an agreement with a weaver 
     in India who is trying to keep some of the country's old 
     techniques alive.
       Dollenmaier acknowledges that the 2,000 or so women who 
     make textiles for Anichini in India are, at least by Western 
     standards, poor. Asked how this squares with Anichini's Ben & 
     Jerry's-style commitment to social responsibility, 
     Dollenmaier says she has thought deeply about this question.
       ``I guess I'd say they've got to be working doing 
     something, and they are making a lot more money making stuff 
     for us as opposed to someone else.''
       One thing is certain, Anichini's 60 employees in the United 
     States are treated quite well. The company provides profit 
     sharing, which has averaged more than 10 percent of the 
     employee's salary over the past five years, 11 paid holidays, 
     five weeks vacation after five years of service, and paid 
     membership in gym.
       Dollenmaier hopes to eventually move Anichini's outlet 
     store in West Lebanon across the river to the Route 4 
     corridor in Vermont. Long-range, she also plans to 
     consolidate all of Anichini's operations in a new facility in 
     Tunbridge that will be even harder to find than its existing 
     buildings.
       Looking back on her life and how she has parlayed a hobby 
     and passion into a highly successful business, Dollenmaier 
     says: ``I'm really doing exactly what I want. I really have 
     very few regrets.''

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