PBN 2023 Business Women Awards
ACHIEVEMENT HONOREE: Kristen Gossler | American Trophy and Supply Inc. president
FOR SOME, THE PATH that life takes can emerge early on. For Kristen Gossler, it began unfolding when she was so small she could barely see above the top of the living room table as her parents, Virginia and Ralph, built a successful business.
“It was so fun. I did piecework for them as they crafted plaques and awards. Mark Twain had an adage in ‘Tom Sawyer’ about turning something that’s a chore into a privilege. I really believed it when my parents told me that,” Gossler said. “I felt like I was contributing.”
Founded in 1952, the Gosslers’ business, American Trophy and Supply Inc., produced and sold hundreds of mementos and plaques over the next two decades. But Kristen Gossler didn’t immediately go into the family business.
She studied philosophy at Connecticut College but also took a couple of art courses. It didn’t take long for her to recognize how much she loved it. “I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, this is what I want to do,’ ” she said.
Gossler transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a fine arts degree in painting. She found that she had absorbed her father’s dual vision of art and business.
Gossler and her husband, Peter Cameron, bought American Trophy from her parents in 1990. Today, the East Providence-based business has expanded far beyond its original trusty line of plaques and awards to include multiplatform brand marketing. The customer roster numbers roughly 500 to 750 repeat clients and some 1,000 one-timers.
Like many small businesses, the company scrambled at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago. Gossler compares that time to sticking fingers in the dam to stop it from collapsing. Suddenly, they had to overhaul their planning. “Long range” no longer meant looking ahead a year or more. Now it was a matter of one month or six months.
The company provided shirts for nurses on the front lines, signage to help people navigate through COVID-19 vaccine shots, and she launched a portal, PPE-NewEngland.com, to give a focus to personal protection equipment on one site.
Gossler points out that the works American Trophy creates are more than just the standard keepsake with an engraved brass plate. The award must stand for an idea and an accomplishment of someone, she says.
“Whether you’re making a hundred tennis trophies, or the one that’s going to Serena Williams, it represents why someone gets up every day,” Gossler said. “This is a serious business. It means we’ve seen that you’ve done this accomplishment.”
