The North Andover Merchants Association has named their Merchant of the Year, and it's Dawn Pease of Dawn's Sign Tech.
"It was such a shock to me," Pease said. "I'm really super, super flattered. It's a huge honor."
Pease opened Dawn's Sign Tech on Flagship Drive two years ago after working for a sign retail business in Danvers.
"I used to work in the same industry in Danvers, and we were very unhappy," she said. "And it's hard to be unhappy in this business."
So she asked her teammates at that business if they'd like to work for her. They said yes, and she quit her job.
"Thirty days later, I called them and they came," Pease said. "We already had an excellent team, we just relocated it."
Dawn's Sign Tech specializes in commercial sign design and manufacturing. Their work includes those nice burgundy signs around town as well as at school fields and the Division of Public Works building.
Dawn's Sign Tech operates in a 3,000-square-foot facility with two large format printers going non-stop. But for Pease, it's become more about customer satisfaction than quantity.
"We're starting to excel at the service end of it," Pease said. "Most sign shops are run by artists, and artists can be temperamental. The difference is I hire the artists."
Dawn's Sign Tech will be honored at NAMA's Knight of Honor/Rising Star Gala on April 5.
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