An unpretentious, two-story, yellow-sided building tucked off Main Street in the South Kingstown village of Wakefield is home to a small staff with big connections. The firm works with some of the largest media companies in the world and handles public relations accounts for corporations across North America.
Welcome to Caster Communications: a public relations firm bent on making its presence – or at least that of its clients – felt nationally.
That company and its owner, Kimberly Lancaster Hageman, specialize in representing green consumer-electronics companies. For Lancaster Hageman, marketing products that contribute to a greener world is as much about a paycheck as a personal desire.
“I have this vision of being able to make a difference and really change the world – or maybe Rhode Island,” Lancaster Hageman said.
Rhode Island is where it all began. A journalism student at the University of Rhode Island, Hageman saw herself one day as a big-shot reporter at The Washington Post or New York Times. But she felt the journalism program wasn’t for her and switched to communication studies. She landed a few internships with public relations firms and everything clicked.
“I saw all the pieces coming together,” she said. “I saw another way I could work with the media, influence the media if you will.”
She worked for a number of firms in Rhode Island before ending up at a small family-owned firm just outside of Boston. Lancaster Hageman said she brought in some major clients for the relatively small firm and started carving out a niche in the consumer-electronics market. But the owners declined to make her a partner and she felt constrained.
“I simply decided it was time for me to do something new and I took a leap of faith,” she said.
In 1998, at just 27, Lancaster Hageman convinced her parents to loan her $20,000, tapped credit cards and opened a small office in Abbott Park Place in Providence. Some of her clients followed her to the new business and she paid back her parents and the credit card companies after just six months.
After Johnson & Wales University purchased Abbott Park Place, Lancaster Hageman moved her firm to an office on Eddy Street that provided views of the office for then-Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. But she was never happy with the office and started looking elsewhere.
But the quirky building, which had once been a bookstore, provided an apartment on the second floor and extra office space in the basement. Lancaster Hageman put down an offer 15 minutes into the tour. They moved in two months later.
In 2008, Lancaster Hageman said the company hit its stride. That year marked the second year Microsoft retained the firm to market its Windows Media Center operating system as a platform for home-entertainment systems. Microsoft added to its stable of clients such as Canadian speaker-manufacturer Paradigm and Royal Philips Electronics. Revenue in 2008 grew 40 percent over the year prior and the company was riding high, Lancaster Hageman said. The company started turning down work and only accepting clients on referral.
Then, like other public relations firms, the poor economy caught up with Caster. Lancaster Hageman said she saw revenue in 2009 fall about 18 percent compared to the year prior. Marketing budgets were slashed and Microsoft decided to consolidate its public relations campaigns into one company and did not renew Caster’s contract.
A rough year, but one Lancaster Hageman weathered without layoffs or cutbacks. And she is proud to note that besides the mortgage for the office, the company remains debt free. Protecting the bottom line has not been easy, nor always fun, she said. And explaining to people where Wakefield is always is a challenge and sometimes a hurdle to winning a contract. But Lancaster Hageman said she can’t envision doing anything else.
“I love [the company]. It’s mine,” she said. “I started it on my own. I feel like it’s a child I’ve given birth to and raised.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
Caster Communications
OWNER: Kimberly Lancaster Hageman
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Public relations firm
LOCATION: 155 Main St., South Kingstown
EMPLOYEES: 6
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1998
ANNUAL SALES: $1 million
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
