Karen Tomaine
Published: March 11, 2010
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Great career advice: Stray from comfort zone
Karen Tomaine is chief executive officer of Taylor Consulting and Contracting LLC, a national energy-management firm based in Avoca, with a satellite office in Boston.
The company began as a home office in 2004 and now employs 27 full-time employees, as well as 10 agents in several states. Taylor is accredited as a woman-owned enterprise by the National Women’s Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC), and more than half of her employees are women.
Taylor is licensed as a broker and aggregator of electricity and natural gas in various states, but her main markets are in Pennsylvania and New England. Locally, Taylor runs a PPL buying pool, grouping businesses together to garner collective purchasing power. Taylor also operates a large buyers’ pool in Boston, through that city’s mayor’s office. The company also has a state-of-the-art software system for managing utilities called, “UtilityModule.”
“We have been fortunate to grow steadily in this troubling economic time. Our growth is attributable to the hard work of our staff, our advanced software systems, and our ability to save businesses money on their gas and electric costs,” said Tomaine.
After graduating from Dickinson Law School, she served as a law clerk and then became an assistant district attorney in Lackawanna and later in Luzerne County. Subsequently, she worked as a labor attorney at Tobyhanna Army Depot before deciding it was time for a change.
The people to whom she attributes her greatest support are her mother and husband, who helped with child-care responsibilities. From the business perspective, she thanks her friend, Maureen Mills, CEO of Craft Oil, for her advice and guidance on various issues.
Tomaine said that if she could change anything about her career, it would be to pursue more business classes rather than sticking with subjects that came to her more easily. She urges young women to expand their knowledge base outside their comfort zones.
Tomaine has two daughters, Lee Minora, a senior at Temple University, and Stephani Stiner, a fourth-grader at Marian Catholic. Her husband, Scott Stiner, is the company COO and their dog, Max is the office mascot.
