All Pawtucket All The Time

 Pawtucket’s Ahlers Designs Inc.

January 13th, 2011 · No Comments

Gail Ahlers is a designing woman who hammered out a path of her own

By Denise Perreault
PBN Staff Writer

        Gail Ahlers has been on both sides of mentoring. “I believe people should help people,” the founder of Pawtucket’s Ahlers Designs Inc. said. “There is enough prosperity for us all.”

        She has shared the insight gained through 21 years of operating a successful design studio with others in the same business. In return, she has received invaluable advice from those who, she frankly acknowledges, know more about the business world than she does.

       “Running a business is different from being a designer,” said the 1985 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. “If Ahlers Designs is successful, it is due to the mentoring we’ve received … and given to others. For the first time, I am putting together an advisory board, because the more I know about business, the more I realize I’ve got a lot to learn.”

       Located at Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket, Ahlers Designs creates a wide array of gifts for men and women, designed and manufactured in Rhode Island, ranging from pill cases to desk sets, to key chains to checkbook covers, as well as jewelry boxes for the traveler. Each is adorned with a design Ahlers created in light metal and bold colors. In recent months, she has emphasized her line of corporate custom gifts.

      She has only four employees, but can fill orders in the hundreds or thousands, and about 100 stores nationwide carry her products, she said.

     A New York native who grew up in northern New Jersey, Ahlers came to Rhode Island because of RISD, where she transferred as a sophomore. She started making jewelry in high school, tried business college for a while, but “it wasn’t what I wanted to do,” she said. RISD was ideal.

     “Art school teaches you how to think,” she said. “Design is problem-solving, problem resolution in 3D.”

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, specializing in light metals, Ahlers went to work for local manufacturers to gain experience in metal work. She works in other materials, too, but “metal is my passion,” she said. She started her business with little formal business training and no formal financing. She received her first business loan, from Bank Rhode Island, just last year.