In the News
A Partnership in Punta Gorda
November 24, 2003
June Amara, Maria Budd Open Creative Window Treatments
The Sun Newspaper – November 24th, 2003
For a number of years, June Amara and Maria Budd worked in similar fields, but never together. Not long ago, they were introduced by a mutual friend and today they are partners in a new venture.
June and Maria have opened Creative Window Treatments LLC on the second floor of an office building at 212 W. Virginia Ave. in downtown Punta Gorda.
“We hit it off from the first day we met,” June said. “We had the same goals, the same values and the same work ethic. And we had always loved the charm of downtown Punta Gorda, the shops, the cobblestone streets, the whole atmosphere. So when an opportunity to occupy an office space in such a wonderful location became available, we jumped at it. In the past, the space was used for an office, never for retail purposes.”
Question: What is your background? What brought you to Charlotte County?
June: I graduated in 1979 with an associate’s degree form the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising in Manhattan, N.Y. Then I transferred to Marymount College where I earned a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising. I also studied abroad at the Polytechnic of the South Bank in England. In 1982, Lord and Taylor hired me as an assistant buyer for their Fifth Avenue store in New York City.
From there my career shifted from buying to selling and I was hired as the sales representative for a New Jersey based sweater manufacturer. After five years, the Phillips Van Heusen company hired me to run its Dallas, Texas office. I worked for Van Heusen for more than 10 years. Then I was contracted by Supreme International (the parent company of Perry Ellis International) and was hired as the national sales representative for the J.C. Penney account. In less then three years, I grew the business from $6 million to more than $22 million. In 1999, I was named Sales Person of the Year, Department Store Division, for Perry Ellis International.
My husband, Eddie, and I talked for years about giving up the high stress lifestyle for a simpler one. In 2000, we, and our then three year old daughter, Devyn, did just that. We sold our house in Plano, Texas, and moved to Punta GOrda where most of my family has lived for many years.
Even while managing a high powered career, I have always loved designing and sewing my own window treatments. So after settling in Florida, I opened a home-based business producing window treatments with the intention of one day opening a retail window treatment shop.
Maria: I am a native of the Dominican Republic and I am fluent in English as well as Spanish. As a teenager, I started a sewing career as a seamstress producing men’s suits and dress shirts. In 1978, I came to the United States and worked for the garment industry in Manhattan while attending business school. After graduating, I was hired by the Depository Trust Company on Wall Street as the legal assistant to the company secretary. I married Ray Budd and together we are raising four children.
While working for the DTC, I enrolled in community college. With work and school and raising four boys, I still found time to sew window treatments for friends, neighbors and family. As the window treatments requests grew, I decided to get back to doing what I loved to do – sew. After 15 years, I left the Depository Trust Company and opened a home based business producing various types of window treatments and accessories. The business grew so successfully that we decided to move to Florida where much of our family live. While working from my home in Port Charlotte, my business continued to grow and I realized I needed more space and some help. June and I were introduced by a mutual acquaintance and Creative Window Treatments was born.
June: We had to do a lot of work prior to moving in, in order to lighten and brighten up the space, but we are very happy with the outcome. From the day we moved in, we have felt this was the place to be. We started getting business form both the general public and decorators before we even had the shop window treatments done. People would notice our sign out front and stop in. We had so much business that we had to delay our official store opening six weeks until we had enough time to do some of our shop’s displays. Our official opening was October 27.
Question: What led you to start this business?
June: Maria and I started the business because we found a huge void in the window treatment market. Through conversations over the years with clients, friends and family, we found there was a strong desire and therefore a need in the market for custom made window treatments that did no eat up the client’s entire decorating budget.
Maria: We can offer this because we cut out the middleman. We design, sell and produce all fabric window treatments directly in our shop. We also don’t play any pricing games. Our products are priced fairly from the get-go. We have spent a lot of time analyzing and reanalyzing our costs in order to give our customers the best price possible. And just as important, we put a great deal of emphasis on quality.
Question: What things do you create?
June: We offer valances, cornices, draperies, bedspreads, tablecloths, pillows and many other accessories. We are authorized dealers of Hunter Douglas blinds, shutters and shades and we have very unusual and specialized fabric designs for arched windows that are priced for the average consumer.
Question: You obviously like what you are doing.
June: Maria and I enjoy coming to the shop every day because we love our jobs. We get to spend our days designing and creating beautiful window treatments. We get to work with gorgeous fabrics and wonderful people. We laugh and have fun because we truly love what we do and that makes all the difference.