WOODBURY -- It’s a craft that focuses on perfection. Every piece of pewter is molded and shaped into a handcrafted gift. Just like a piece of clay transformed on a potter’s wheel, the employees at Woodbury Pewter spin down the pewter into something unique.
“Our products are all 100 percent handmade and every piece and part is made on premises,” said Brooks Titcomb, President of Woodbury Pewter.
Titcomb has been with the company for 46 years. It was his father and great-aunt who started the company back in 1952. His dad didn’t want to be an electrical engineer anymore, so he took tools he found and started making pewter pieces.
Six decades later, the company is still putting out hundreds of items a day.
“The vast majority of what we make here get shipped within the United States. We do work for trophy companies, gift stores, we do work for schools, we do work for non-profits. The megaphone which you saw being made today, which go out to hundreds of hundreds of firemen for retirement presents. They’re used in movies like Backdraft as props because basically we’re the only people making anything of the sort,” said Titcomb.
It’s a team effort at Woodbury Pewter and some of the employees there have been working side by side for decades. In fact, six of the employees have been working there for a combined total of 275 years.
“We all come together as a team, no matter what. If a job needs to be done, everybody pitches in,” said Heather Pendergast, who has been with the company for 32 years. “It’s family-owned. We take pride in our job.”
“I’m always thrilled to come walking by and see small children watching through the windows, nosed pressed up against the glass, watching a piece of bare metal turn into a baby cup, maybe like they were given as a small child and they remember it,” said Titcomb.
They have a sense of pride in being a Connecticut company and contributing to the state’s economy.
“It’s a cycle. People are earning money, companies are earning money, they’re paying employees. The employees are paying taxes. They’re paying for programs and needs of the public, so it’s a cycle. And by keeping it here in Connecticut, it’s keeping Connecticut strong,” said Titcomb.