By Bonnie Adams, Managing Editor
Lester Hensley, CEO of Emseal Joint Systems, Ltd., and Debi Heims, president of H&S Environmental, Inc. Photo/Bonnie Adams
Framingham – Gov. Charles Baker joined 350 business leaders from across the state May 4 to celebrate the 2015 Massachusetts Small Business Awards. Eleven winners, including two from Westborough, were lauded during the ceremony held at the Sheraton Framingham.
Lester Hensley, CEO of Emseal Joint Systems, Ltd., accepted the award for 2015 New England and Massachusetts Small Business Exporter of the Year. (Bashar Moussallieh, the company’s international project manager, was named as a recipient of the award.)
Debi Heims, the president of H&S Environmental, Inc., was honored with the Massachusetts SBA Woman Owned Business of the Year Award.
Besides being 2015 SBA honorees, Hensley and Heims also share another connection. Both are graduates of Westborough High School, class of 1983. Hensley was class president and Heims was class secretary.
In his keynote speech, Baker noted that it was appropriate that SBA’s slogan was “Dream Big. Start Small.”
“Half of the employment [in Massachusetts] is small business,” he said. “And most growth in the state is due to small business.”
Baker noted that throughout his career, he had met with many people who had started with an idea and developed it into a successful business.
“When you spend enough time with people who ‘think big,’ you start to believe it,” he said.
Emseal manufactures innovative expansion joints and sealants to allow large buildings, such as stadiums, office buildings, hospitals, malls and airports to adjust to ecological shifts without being damaged, improve public safety conditions and enable local sustainability through energy conservation. In 2014, the company had 92 employees and sales of $25 million. Exports accounted for approximately 10-12 percent of its business in 2014 and has grown 25-30 percent over the past four years. The company is located at 25 Bridle Lane, Westborough. For more information, visit emseal.com.
H&S is an environmental consulting, remediation and construction company providing both public- and private-sector clients with a broad range of services. The company has executed many innovative techniques including the design and construction of low-impact development (LID) technologies and costing data for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Baltimore District; pilot studies for the treatment of explosive-contaminated soils for the USACE Omaha District; and innovative treatment technologies for the U.S. Navy. H&S is a woman-owned small business (WOSB) and a state-certified small disadvantaged business/woman business enterprise in multiple states. The company is located at 160 E. Main St., Suite 2F, Westborough. For more information, visit www.hsenv.com.
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